havau22.com #1 Who is the God of Heaven?
Two hundred and forty years ago, a remarkable book appeared in the book stores in England. Heaven and its wonders and Hell from things heard and seen, by Emanuel Swedenborg, London, 1758. It was published anonymously, in Latin, the international language of the day. No one knew who the author was or even his nationality (Swedish). This book has remained in continuous print ever since. It has been translated into many different languages, and is the best known of Swedenborg’s works. This is a series of reflections on some of the key concepts in this amazing book.
Swedenborg traveled extensively during his life, visiting Norway, Russia, Denmark, England, Holland, Germany, France, Italy, and many other countries. He took many different trips, sometimes staying away from home for years. He knew how important it was to understand the kind of government he would have to deal with in these different countries.
Thirteen years before publishing this book, he began to have spiritual experiences which enabled him to go from a consciousness of this natural world, to that of the spiritual world. This is why the title includes the words: “from things heard and seen.” He visited heaven and was very interested to know about the government there. One of the first things to strike him was that wherever he went in heaven, only one God was acknowledged and worshiped, and that God was the Lord. This fits in with the words at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus says: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” (Matthew 28:18) The first chapter of Heaven and Hell announces that the God of heaven is the Lord.
“The first essential is to know who the God of heaven is, since everything else depends upon that. Throughout the whole of heaven no other than the Lord is acknowledged as the God of heaven.” Heaven and Hell #2
Swedenborg knew that there is really only one God, though that God might be known by many different names. When He said that Jesus, or “The Lord” is that God, he was saying that when Jesus rose in glory He became “one with the Father.” He was the manifestation in human form of that Great Spirit, Allah, the Almighty, worshiped in all religions.
The government of heaven is the government of love. It is also infinitely wise and has a human face. Jesus said that we need to “abide in Him and He in us.” (John 15), the way branches are connected to the vine. He even said that He went to prepare a place in heaven for us (John 14:1) “that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:3) Many people think of heaven in terms of being “with Jesus” for that reason. Swedenborg confirms that the Lord Jesus Christ is the God of heaven.
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#2 - What makes heaven?
“The angels taken collectively are called heaven because they constitute heaven. But yet it is the divine proceeding from the Lord which inflows with the angels and is received by them. This is what makes heaven in general and in particular.” Heaven and Hell #7
A woman was talking about her favorite school, said: “Of course, it’s not the buildings, or the organizational structure that makes the school - it’s the people.” Her friend asked: “What is it about the people that you like so much?”
She replied, “It’s their dedication to their work and to their students. It’s their spirit of compassion and integrity. This is a fine group of people - that’s what the school is to me.”
This is true of all human organizations. What we like about them, or dislike, is the people, and their attitudes. If we were to visit a society of angels we would be deeply impressed by the people - the angels. We might even say - “Now I know why heaven is such a delightful place. You angels are wonderful. I love your spirit of kindness, your intelligence, your devotion. I love everything about you.”
The angels might respond: “Don’t give us the credit. What you are noticing is the Lord’s spirit that works in us and through us. The divine life fills our hearts with love, and so we are compassionate and kind. The divine light fills our minds and so we have intelligence and wisdom. The divine energy moves us to act, and so we are useful. Without these divine qualities flowing into us, we would be nothing. We merely receive those qualities. What makes heaven is not something special about us, but the Lord’s own life flowing into us.”
A beautiful painting consists of dabs of paint on a surface. These dabs become a work of art when organized by the artist. It is the vision, emotions and thoughts of the artist that make the painting. The dabs of paint merely constitute it. Love is a spiritual bonding. It is a connecting force. Love is the essential life of every person, as it is also the essence of God. When the divine love fills the heart of an angel, the angel is said to be “in heaven” because heaven is in the angel.
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#3 - The levels of heaven
It is fascinating to watch look-alike competitions. A parade of people appear on the stage, and judges are there to see which one looks most like some famous person. As I watch them, it strikes me how little they look like each other, and how none of them really looks like the famous person. One of the most fascinating things about life is the endless variety of faces in this world. Considering the fact that the human face consists of very few basic elements - eyes, nose, mouth, chin, etc., you might think that we would all look pretty much the same. But we are all totally different, and there never will be two faces that are completely identical, even with so-called “identical twins.” And that is just comparing one external aspect of a person - what his or her face looks like! Looking more deeply, the minds of people are even more strikingly different.
There is only one life in the universe, and that Life is infinite. Each human being receives that one life in a special way.
In general we can say that some people are more into their feelings, while others are more into their thoughts. Some people are deep thinkers. Others are much more interested in action.
It is no wonder that heaven, consisting as it does of angels, each of whom receives life in a unique way, is varied. There are levels of heaven, because some of the angels receive the life of God more deeply than others.
In general, there are angels who are very much in touch with the love of God, and open their hearts fully to that love. Other angels are more concerned about their love for other people. Still others are most interested in living a good moral and practical life. These are the three main levels of heaven.
The highest is called “Celestial” (or “Heavenly”) and consists of angels whose main love is love to the Lord.
The second is called “Spiritual” and the angels there are primarily in the love of other people.
The third and lowest, is called “Natural” and the angels on that level live a good moral life.
Angels on the different heavens are invisible to each other. When you look at the various human groupings in a typical large city, you find the same thing. There are people whose lives revolve around sports. Others are into business and high finance. Still others are doing jobs of very little interest to them, and they divert themselves by watching endless hours of television. Then there are those who know every local band and music group, and love to spend their time going to listen to them. there are bird-watchers, artists, stamp collectors, people who go to garage sales, gamblers, and so on and on. It would be practically impossible to list all of the groups and subgroups in a large city. And most of us are aware only of the people in a few of these groups. The others are virtually invisible to us. And yet, somehow, they all make one city, just as all of the various levels and societies of heaven make one. God is the unifying element in all these various groups and levels of life. Out of this enormous variety, and these many levels, God creates one single entity - the realm of God.
“There are infinite varieties in heaven, and no one society nor even any one angel is exactly like any other.” Heaven and Hell #20
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#4 - The communities of heaven
Two people were talking about the frustration of having family and friends so widely separated in this world.
“I hate having our family so scattered. The older ones have moved south, the young ones are in the growing cities, the grandparents still live in the old country. I wish we could all be together.”
“Well, at least when we die and go to heaven we will all be together” one said.
“No we won’t. We might be even farther apart there than we are here!”
In this world, time and space determine whether people are together or not. They have to be in the same place at the same time. But after death “time is no more” and neither is space. Rather, time and space are spiritual qualities. This means that in heaven people are together if they are spiritually similar. If the things they are interested in are vastly different they will not be in the same part of heaven.
Heaven does not consist of one vast, endless expanse. The angels live in communities, much as we do on earth, some large, some small. The difference is that angelic communities consists of people who are spiritually close to each other - not those who are physically close. Furthermore, because they are similar in their thoughts and feelings, they even look like each other. This was the condition in this world in ancient times when people rarely moved out of their village or town. Our modern cities are described as “melting pots” though that description is not very accurate. Even in the vast metropolitan areas there are cluster communities, united by various factors such as ethnic origin, social class, occupation, wealth and so on.
Swedenborg reveals that when a person enters their heavenly community for the first time, they feel totally at home, and when they meet people, it is as if they have always known and loved them.
Wouldn’t it be heaven to live in a community in which you knew everyone, and everyone knew you? Wouldn’t it be relaxing to feel that you share similar interests with those around you?
Does this mean that heavenly communities are uniform? Not at all. Within each community there is still plenty of room for variety, enough variety, in fact, for each community to be like a miniature of the whole of heaven.
The Lord’s life flows into every community of heaven, and is received differently by each one. Since there is only one life flowing in, these many different heavenly towns, villages and cities, are unified into a perfect harmony, like one great organic whole. The unifying factor in all of this is the fact that each angel is a heaven in miniature. In that sense you could say that heaven is not outside of the angels but within them, as Jesus said - “the kingdom of God is within you.”
“It can in no way be said that heaven is outside anyone. It is within them. For it is according to the heaven that is within, that every angel receives the heaven that is outside. . . . Unless heaven is within anyone, nothing of the heaven that is outside flows in and is received.” Heaven and Hell #54.
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#5 - The human form of heaven
What do angels look like?
Just like people on earth only more beautiful.
The reason our bodies are like they are is so that we can function in the world. Why would angels need eyes? They don’t live in the light of the natural sun.
True - and this is why they don’t have physical, or material eyes. They have spiritual eyes.
What are spiritual eyes?
That is the part of the mind that “sees” or understands. Every part of the body has some counterpart in the mind. That is why people speak of having a “backbone” when they mean having courage, not being able to “digest” an idea, “smelling” a rat, and so on. The body is an image of the mind. The many organs of the body are like the many faculties of the mind. Indeed, there is no part of the human body that does not have some corresponding part in the spirit. This is why angels look like people. The difference is that angels are seen, not in the light of the world, but in the light of heaven, and not with the eyes of the body, but with the eyes of the spirit.
In a fascinating way, every community of heaven is also in a similar form. There are many functions in any human community. We even talk about the nerves and arteries of a city. We talk about its heart. The human body has an infrastructure (its bones and sinews) much the way a city has.
Small towns and villages have relatively simple systems - one school, a couple of supermarkets, maybe a bank, post-office, and so on. As a town grows, so does the complexity and perfection of its systems grow. Large cities can have a tremendous choice of shops, schools, entertainment centers, legal systems, clubs and activities.
The communities, or societies of heaven are similar. And since the different functions of the society, like parts of the body, can best be performed when there are plenty of angels, so angels love nothing more than having angel guests come to them.
Although it is difficult to imagine the scale involved, the whole of heaven is like a single human organism, with each community of heaven making its own unique contribution. The angels even know what part of this grand, organic whole they serve. Some are in the province of the eye, some in the province of the lips, and so on.
This whole incredibly complex organism is like a single person - the individual on the greatest possible scale. The angels form the body of that person, and the Lord is the soul.
“The whole of heaven resembles a single person”
Heaven and Hell #59
“The more there are in one community of heaven, all acting as one, the more perfect is its human form, for variety arranged in a heavenly form is what makes perfection. . . Besides every community of heaven increases numerically from day to day and as it increases it becomes more perfect. In this way not only does the community become more perfect, but also heaven in general because it is made up of communities. Since heaven gains in perfection by numerical increase, it is evident how mistaken those are who believe that heaven may be closed by becoming full. The opposite is true. It is never closed but is perfected by greater and greater fullness. This is why the angels want nothing more than to have new angel guests come to them.” Heaven and Hell #71
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#7 Correspondences in Nature
When people look at beautiful and remarkable things in nature they have a sense that they are seeing something beyond the physical plane. It is as if the whole of nature is like a theater in which heaven is presented to us in the forms and processes of nature.
The first Psalm compares a goodly person to a “Tree planted by the rivers of water” (Psalm 1:3).
The river is the river of life, consisting not of water, but of the truth that flows out from God.
The leaves of the tree are the aspects of a person’s faith. The fruit consists in the good and kind things done by the person as an expression of faith, Jesus confirmed this idea when He said that a “tree is known by its fruits.” The structure and life of a tree corresponds to the spiritual life of a person. This is an example of a process is nature that presents a picture of a development of the mind and spirit.
There are many other examples, some of them so common that people take them for granted, like the transformation from a caterpillar to a butterfly as presenting a picture of two phases of human life, the natural and the spiritual. In the natural phase the caterpillar crawls along the earth, eating leaves. This provides a picture of a person who is very earthbound in thoughts and feelings, and feeds on information and knowledge. The butterfly lives in a different element, the air or the sky (the ancients called the sky “heaven”), and they feed off of nectar. It is only in this second phase of the life cycle that they mate, a wonderful picture of the fact that our spiritual progression leads us from an interest in facts, to an interest in the sweetness of the understanding. In this higher state there is a marriage between our beliefs and our feelings, and that marriage produces many new developments in our spirituality.
The relationship between something in nature and its counterpart in heaven is called “correspondences,” because the two correspond to each other. These correspondences are found in every aspect of nature, and are also throughout the Bible. Whenever we read about water we can know that it conveys a message about the corresponding spiritual quality.
Many animals are mentioned in the Bible, and they are also an important part of human life. Our fascination with animals is partly because animals represent something spiritual for us. This helps
to explain how attached people become to their pets. They see in them an expression of unconditional love and devotion. Different animals correspond to different characteristics, and so we speak of being “sly as a fox,” “stubborn as a mule,” “wise as an owl,” and so on and on. Imagine looking at any mineral, plant, animal fish o bird and thinking that its form provides us a picture of something of heaven!
“Not one thing of beauty and delight ever exists in the sky above or on earth beneath that is not in some respect representative of the Lord’s kingdom.” Arcana Caelestia # 1807:2
“When people are in the knowledge of correspondences, they are able, in regard to the thoughts of their mind, to be together with the angels.” Heaven and Hell # 114
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#8 The Spiritual Sun and its Heat
As we hike through the desert we come across all kinds of vegetation-the giant saguaro, the tiny pincushion cacti, the flame tipped ocotillo, prickly pear, and, at this time of the year, a host of beautiful dessert flowers. The California poppies wait until the sun is full in the sky before opening, as if in worship. It seems that all plants are conscious of the sun. On those rare overcast days, you can always know which way is South by the great barrel cactus leaning in the direction of the sun.
Of course all plants depend on the heat and light of the sun for their survival, and so do all living things. When Swedenborg was given the privilege of visiting the spiritual world even while living on earth, he noticed that there is heat and light in heaven, as there is a source of that heat and light-not some atomic furnace 93 million miles away, but a golden disc in the sky, looking like our sun but of a totally different essence.
We know that heat is related to love, as when we talk of a heartwarming experience, or being all fired up. We also talk about light and darkness when referring to the mind-as when we say” I was in the dark about that, or I thought about it for a long time and then a light went on in my head. In
heaven, the angels feel the warmth of the spiritual sun, and they see by its light. And what is that sun? It is the Lord! The New Testament describes a time when a few of the disciples saw the Lord transfigured. His face shone like the sun, and His garments were white as light. (Matthew 17)
Just as our physical life depends on the energy that comes from the sun, so too our spiritual life depends on the sun, but it is the sun of heaven, ir the Lord.
“When the Lord appears in heaven, which often happens, He does not appear encompassed with a Sun but in angelic form, yet distinguished from angels by the divine shining from His face... or in the midst of angels as a flame-like brightness.” Heaven and Hell # 121
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Two people were talking about the fact that they were both getting older, and that eventually they would be leaving this world for the next.
“I am a very imperfect person. You have to be so good to get into heaven. I do not expect to be some high and wonderful angel. All I want is to scrape into the outer gates.”
“I don’t understand. It is not difficult to get into heaven. And why would you want to just scrape in? Why not go all the way to the highest level?”
“I feel so unworthy and flawed. I am afraid I won’t get into heaven at all.”
“Look, we are all imperfect. That isn’t the point. The point is, do you love goodness? Do you want to do the right thing? That is all it takes to get into heaven. Just try to live a good life.”
“I do, I do, but I keep backsliding, and making mistakes.”
“So long as you regret your mistakes you are fine. The problem is with people who prefer to make mistakes, who really want to be evil. If you want to get into heaven, all you have to do is do the best you can - believe in God and try to do what is right.”
“I thought that people had to suffer and deprive themselves if they wanted to get to heaven. Some people reject worldly pleasures and eat the most basic foods. They even inflict pain on themselves to make themselves worthy of heaven.”
“I can just see an angel looking down on them and saying - What on earth are those people on earth doing? Preparing for heaven? How do they think they can prepare for heaven by being miserable? Heaven is a place of great joy. You don’t have to do great things to get into heaven. Just live in the world, but keep an eye on heaven and try to bring God and spirituality into the things you do. This is not difficult and does not require people to deprive themselves.” (See Heaven and Hell #528-535)
Two hundred and forty years ago, a remarkable book appeared in the book stores in England. Heaven and its wonders and Hell from things heard and seen, by Emanuel Swedenborg, London, 1758. It was published anonymously, in Latin, the international language of the day. No one knew who the author was or even his nationality (Swedish). This book has remained in continuous print ever since. It has been translated into many different languages, and is the best known of Swedenborg’s works. This is a series of reflections on some of the key concepts in this amazing book.
Swedenborg traveled extensively during his life, visiting Norway, Russia, Denmark, England, Holland, Germany, France, Italy, and many other countries. He took many different trips, sometimes staying away from home for years. He knew how important it was to understand the kind of government he would have to deal with in these different countries.
Thirteen years before publishing this book, he began to have spiritual experiences which enabled him to go from a consciousness of this natural world, to that of the spiritual world. This is why the title includes the words: “from things heard and seen.” He visited heaven and was very interested to know about the government there. One of the first things to strike him was that wherever he went in heaven, only one God was acknowledged and worshiped, and that God was the Lord. This fits in with the words at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus says: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” (Matthew 28:18) The first chapter of Heaven and Hell announces that the God of heaven is the Lord.
“The first essential is to know who the God of heaven is, since everything else depends upon that. Throughout the whole of heaven no other than the Lord is acknowledged as the God of heaven.” Heaven and Hell #2
Swedenborg knew that there is really only one God, though that God might be known by many different names. When He said that Jesus, or “The Lord” is that God, he was saying that when Jesus rose in glory He became “one with the Father.” He was the manifestation in human form of that Great Spirit, Allah, the Almighty, worshiped in all religions.
The government of heaven is the government of love. It is also infinitely wise and has a human face. Jesus said that we need to “abide in Him and He in us.” (John 15), the way branches are connected to the vine. He even said that He went to prepare a place in heaven for us (John 14:1) “that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:3) Many people think of heaven in terms of being “with Jesus” for that reason. Swedenborg confirms that the Lord Jesus Christ is the God of heaven.
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#2 - What makes heaven?
“The angels taken collectively are called heaven because they constitute heaven. But yet it is the divine proceeding from the Lord which inflows with the angels and is received by them. This is what makes heaven in general and in particular.” Heaven and Hell #7
A woman was talking about her favorite school, said: “Of course, it’s not the buildings, or the organizational structure that makes the school - it’s the people.” Her friend asked: “What is it about the people that you like so much?”
She replied, “It’s their dedication to their work and to their students. It’s their spirit of compassion and integrity. This is a fine group of people - that’s what the school is to me.”
This is true of all human organizations. What we like about them, or dislike, is the people, and their attitudes. If we were to visit a society of angels we would be deeply impressed by the people - the angels. We might even say - “Now I know why heaven is such a delightful place. You angels are wonderful. I love your spirit of kindness, your intelligence, your devotion. I love everything about you.”
The angels might respond: “Don’t give us the credit. What you are noticing is the Lord’s spirit that works in us and through us. The divine life fills our hearts with love, and so we are compassionate and kind. The divine light fills our minds and so we have intelligence and wisdom. The divine energy moves us to act, and so we are useful. Without these divine qualities flowing into us, we would be nothing. We merely receive those qualities. What makes heaven is not something special about us, but the Lord’s own life flowing into us.”
A beautiful painting consists of dabs of paint on a surface. These dabs become a work of art when organized by the artist. It is the vision, emotions and thoughts of the artist that make the painting. The dabs of paint merely constitute it. Love is a spiritual bonding. It is a connecting force. Love is the essential life of every person, as it is also the essence of God. When the divine love fills the heart of an angel, the angel is said to be “in heaven” because heaven is in the angel.
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#3 - The levels of heaven
It is fascinating to watch look-alike competitions. A parade of people appear on the stage, and judges are there to see which one looks most like some famous person. As I watch them, it strikes me how little they look like each other, and how none of them really looks like the famous person. One of the most fascinating things about life is the endless variety of faces in this world. Considering the fact that the human face consists of very few basic elements - eyes, nose, mouth, chin, etc., you might think that we would all look pretty much the same. But we are all totally different, and there never will be two faces that are completely identical, even with so-called “identical twins.” And that is just comparing one external aspect of a person - what his or her face looks like! Looking more deeply, the minds of people are even more strikingly different.
There is only one life in the universe, and that Life is infinite. Each human being receives that one life in a special way.
In general we can say that some people are more into their feelings, while others are more into their thoughts. Some people are deep thinkers. Others are much more interested in action.
It is no wonder that heaven, consisting as it does of angels, each of whom receives life in a unique way, is varied. There are levels of heaven, because some of the angels receive the life of God more deeply than others.
In general, there are angels who are very much in touch with the love of God, and open their hearts fully to that love. Other angels are more concerned about their love for other people. Still others are most interested in living a good moral and practical life. These are the three main levels of heaven.
The highest is called “Celestial” (or “Heavenly”) and consists of angels whose main love is love to the Lord.
The second is called “Spiritual” and the angels there are primarily in the love of other people.
The third and lowest, is called “Natural” and the angels on that level live a good moral life.
Angels on the different heavens are invisible to each other. When you look at the various human groupings in a typical large city, you find the same thing. There are people whose lives revolve around sports. Others are into business and high finance. Still others are doing jobs of very little interest to them, and they divert themselves by watching endless hours of television. Then there are those who know every local band and music group, and love to spend their time going to listen to them. there are bird-watchers, artists, stamp collectors, people who go to garage sales, gamblers, and so on and on. It would be practically impossible to list all of the groups and subgroups in a large city. And most of us are aware only of the people in a few of these groups. The others are virtually invisible to us. And yet, somehow, they all make one city, just as all of the various levels and societies of heaven make one. God is the unifying element in all these various groups and levels of life. Out of this enormous variety, and these many levels, God creates one single entity - the realm of God.
“There are infinite varieties in heaven, and no one society nor even any one angel is exactly like any other.” Heaven and Hell #20
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#4 - The communities of heaven
Two people were talking about the frustration of having family and friends so widely separated in this world.
“I hate having our family so scattered. The older ones have moved south, the young ones are in the growing cities, the grandparents still live in the old country. I wish we could all be together.”
“Well, at least when we die and go to heaven we will all be together” one said.
“No we won’t. We might be even farther apart there than we are here!”
In this world, time and space determine whether people are together or not. They have to be in the same place at the same time. But after death “time is no more” and neither is space. Rather, time and space are spiritual qualities. This means that in heaven people are together if they are spiritually similar. If the things they are interested in are vastly different they will not be in the same part of heaven.
Heaven does not consist of one vast, endless expanse. The angels live in communities, much as we do on earth, some large, some small. The difference is that angelic communities consists of people who are spiritually close to each other - not those who are physically close. Furthermore, because they are similar in their thoughts and feelings, they even look like each other. This was the condition in this world in ancient times when people rarely moved out of their village or town. Our modern cities are described as “melting pots” though that description is not very accurate. Even in the vast metropolitan areas there are cluster communities, united by various factors such as ethnic origin, social class, occupation, wealth and so on.
Swedenborg reveals that when a person enters their heavenly community for the first time, they feel totally at home, and when they meet people, it is as if they have always known and loved them.
Wouldn’t it be heaven to live in a community in which you knew everyone, and everyone knew you? Wouldn’t it be relaxing to feel that you share similar interests with those around you?
Does this mean that heavenly communities are uniform? Not at all. Within each community there is still plenty of room for variety, enough variety, in fact, for each community to be like a miniature of the whole of heaven.
The Lord’s life flows into every community of heaven, and is received differently by each one. Since there is only one life flowing in, these many different heavenly towns, villages and cities, are unified into a perfect harmony, like one great organic whole. The unifying factor in all of this is the fact that each angel is a heaven in miniature. In that sense you could say that heaven is not outside of the angels but within them, as Jesus said - “the kingdom of God is within you.”
“It can in no way be said that heaven is outside anyone. It is within them. For it is according to the heaven that is within, that every angel receives the heaven that is outside. . . . Unless heaven is within anyone, nothing of the heaven that is outside flows in and is received.” Heaven and Hell #54.
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#5 - The human form of heaven
What do angels look like?
Just like people on earth only more beautiful.
The reason our bodies are like they are is so that we can function in the world. Why would angels need eyes? They don’t live in the light of the natural sun.
True - and this is why they don’t have physical, or material eyes. They have spiritual eyes.
What are spiritual eyes?
That is the part of the mind that “sees” or understands. Every part of the body has some counterpart in the mind. That is why people speak of having a “backbone” when they mean having courage, not being able to “digest” an idea, “smelling” a rat, and so on. The body is an image of the mind. The many organs of the body are like the many faculties of the mind. Indeed, there is no part of the human body that does not have some corresponding part in the spirit. This is why angels look like people. The difference is that angels are seen, not in the light of the world, but in the light of heaven, and not with the eyes of the body, but with the eyes of the spirit.
In a fascinating way, every community of heaven is also in a similar form. There are many functions in any human community. We even talk about the nerves and arteries of a city. We talk about its heart. The human body has an infrastructure (its bones and sinews) much the way a city has.
Small towns and villages have relatively simple systems - one school, a couple of supermarkets, maybe a bank, post-office, and so on. As a town grows, so does the complexity and perfection of its systems grow. Large cities can have a tremendous choice of shops, schools, entertainment centers, legal systems, clubs and activities.
The communities, or societies of heaven are similar. And since the different functions of the society, like parts of the body, can best be performed when there are plenty of angels, so angels love nothing more than having angel guests come to them.
Although it is difficult to imagine the scale involved, the whole of heaven is like a single human organism, with each community of heaven making its own unique contribution. The angels even know what part of this grand, organic whole they serve. Some are in the province of the eye, some in the province of the lips, and so on.
This whole incredibly complex organism is like a single person - the individual on the greatest possible scale. The angels form the body of that person, and the Lord is the soul.
“The whole of heaven resembles a single person”
Heaven and Hell #59
“The more there are in one community of heaven, all acting as one, the more perfect is its human form, for variety arranged in a heavenly form is what makes perfection. . . Besides every community of heaven increases numerically from day to day and as it increases it becomes more perfect. In this way not only does the community become more perfect, but also heaven in general because it is made up of communities. Since heaven gains in perfection by numerical increase, it is evident how mistaken those are who believe that heaven may be closed by becoming full. The opposite is true. It is never closed but is perfected by greater and greater fullness. This is why the angels want nothing more than to have new angel guests come to them.” Heaven and Hell #71
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#7 Correspondences in Nature
When people look at beautiful and remarkable things in nature they have a sense that they are seeing something beyond the physical plane. It is as if the whole of nature is like a theater in which heaven is presented to us in the forms and processes of nature.
The first Psalm compares a goodly person to a “Tree planted by the rivers of water” (Psalm 1:3).
The river is the river of life, consisting not of water, but of the truth that flows out from God.
The leaves of the tree are the aspects of a person’s faith. The fruit consists in the good and kind things done by the person as an expression of faith, Jesus confirmed this idea when He said that a “tree is known by its fruits.” The structure and life of a tree corresponds to the spiritual life of a person. This is an example of a process is nature that presents a picture of a development of the mind and spirit.
There are many other examples, some of them so common that people take them for granted, like the transformation from a caterpillar to a butterfly as presenting a picture of two phases of human life, the natural and the spiritual. In the natural phase the caterpillar crawls along the earth, eating leaves. This provides a picture of a person who is very earthbound in thoughts and feelings, and feeds on information and knowledge. The butterfly lives in a different element, the air or the sky (the ancients called the sky “heaven”), and they feed off of nectar. It is only in this second phase of the life cycle that they mate, a wonderful picture of the fact that our spiritual progression leads us from an interest in facts, to an interest in the sweetness of the understanding. In this higher state there is a marriage between our beliefs and our feelings, and that marriage produces many new developments in our spirituality.
The relationship between something in nature and its counterpart in heaven is called “correspondences,” because the two correspond to each other. These correspondences are found in every aspect of nature, and are also throughout the Bible. Whenever we read about water we can know that it conveys a message about the corresponding spiritual quality.
Many animals are mentioned in the Bible, and they are also an important part of human life. Our fascination with animals is partly because animals represent something spiritual for us. This helps
to explain how attached people become to their pets. They see in them an expression of unconditional love and devotion. Different animals correspond to different characteristics, and so we speak of being “sly as a fox,” “stubborn as a mule,” “wise as an owl,” and so on and on. Imagine looking at any mineral, plant, animal fish o bird and thinking that its form provides us a picture of something of heaven!
“Not one thing of beauty and delight ever exists in the sky above or on earth beneath that is not in some respect representative of the Lord’s kingdom.” Arcana Caelestia # 1807:2
“When people are in the knowledge of correspondences, they are able, in regard to the thoughts of their mind, to be together with the angels.” Heaven and Hell # 114
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#8 The Spiritual Sun and its Heat
As we hike through the desert we come across all kinds of vegetation-the giant saguaro, the tiny pincushion cacti, the flame tipped ocotillo, prickly pear, and, at this time of the year, a host of beautiful dessert flowers. The California poppies wait until the sun is full in the sky before opening, as if in worship. It seems that all plants are conscious of the sun. On those rare overcast days, you can always know which way is South by the great barrel cactus leaning in the direction of the sun.
Of course all plants depend on the heat and light of the sun for their survival, and so do all living things. When Swedenborg was given the privilege of visiting the spiritual world even while living on earth, he noticed that there is heat and light in heaven, as there is a source of that heat and light-not some atomic furnace 93 million miles away, but a golden disc in the sky, looking like our sun but of a totally different essence.
We know that heat is related to love, as when we talk of a heartwarming experience, or being all fired up. We also talk about light and darkness when referring to the mind-as when we say” I was in the dark about that, or I thought about it for a long time and then a light went on in my head. In
heaven, the angels feel the warmth of the spiritual sun, and they see by its light. And what is that sun? It is the Lord! The New Testament describes a time when a few of the disciples saw the Lord transfigured. His face shone like the sun, and His garments were white as light. (Matthew 17)
Just as our physical life depends on the energy that comes from the sun, so too our spiritual life depends on the sun, but it is the sun of heaven, ir the Lord.
“When the Lord appears in heaven, which often happens, He does not appear encompassed with a Sun but in angelic form, yet distinguished from angels by the divine shining from His face... or in the midst of angels as a flame-like brightness.” Heaven and Hell # 121
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#9 Directions in heaven A man was talking to his son, The mood was tense. The father was convinced that his boy was going in a bad direction. “Son,” he said, “you need to do a one eighty,” The son knew exactly what he meant. A full circle is 360 degrees, so a 180 is half a circle. In effect he knew he was being told that he had to turn his life around.
This is a little lesson in spiritual geography. Just as the surface of the earth is divided into various regions and zones, so there are various areas of spiritual life, some of them beautiful, and others extremely dangerous. Spiritual growth involves going through different landscapes of this spiritual world. Children start out in a kind of paradise - “East in Eden.” As they grow up they lose something of that innocence and begin exploring worlds opened up to them through education and experience. This is like a journey to the South.
When people have a spiritual awakening in their adult years they might find themselves far from the kind of spiritual place they want to be in, and so they begin to try to orient themselves. This spiritual journey often requires a new direction. They want to know where to look for the source of their growth. They journey back to the East.
When we talk of “orienting ourselves” we are using the word for the East (the Orient). As far as the angels are concerned, the Lord is in the East, like the rising sun, and so, whate4ver direction they turn, the angels are always facing East. This is another way of saying that whatever they are doing, they are always looking to the Lord.
It is useful to stop and ask ourselves how we feel about where we are spiritually. What is our spiritual geography like? Where should we turn if we want to find a better spiritual place?
“In heaven the East is what determines all the quarters. The East is where the Lord is seen as a Sun because all origin of life is from Him as a Sun. Moreover to the extent that angels receive heat and light or love and intelligence from Him, the Lord is said to arise upon them. For the same reason, in the Word the Lord is said to be the East.” Heaven and Hell #141
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#10 Time and Space in Heaven
Wouldn’t it be nice if we did not have to live with the limitations of space and time! Sometimes it seems as if these are two big enemies. How often do we hear people say: “There are not enough hours in the day,” “I just haven’t got time,” and even, “I have to much time, it’s driving me crazy.” And then there are all the complaints about space - “My children live too far away,” “I’m not able to be with you physically, but I am certainly there in spirit.”
What would life be like without these limitations? The answer is simple. It would be heaven! When people pass from this world to the next, they leave behind all concerns about these external things. There are no clocks or calendars in heaven. This does not mean that eternal life is always the same. It is constantly changing. It has a flow and a direction to it, the way time does in this world, but it is not measure. The angels simply go through the various phases of their life corresponding to our morning afternoon and evening, without having to be told by the clock what to do and when. Imagine what your life would be like if you just finished whatever you were doing and then went on to do the next thing, not because THE CLOCK told you to, but because you were ready. This is what heaven is like. Many people enjoy retirement because it has a similar quality. It is interesting how our vacation time and our time off, begin to imitate the time of heaven, which is just a natural flow from one state of mind to another, and one activity to another
And what about space? Here we find even greater rewards. On earth we can be physically separated from those we care about, but after death we are always with the people we love. Just as they are near to us in heart, so we seem them as being near to us in fact. If we think of someone, they are instantly present. Modern technology helps us to come a little closer to this. We can call or e-mail someone, and get a reply in a matter of seconds. We can fly around the world in a few days.
As we grow spiritually, we learn how to honor the fact that our spirit, even as we live in this world, operates beyond the time-space framework. And it is interesting to note that many human inventions are designed to make the world more like the spiritual world by overcoming, at least to some extent, the limitations of space and time.
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#11 How things appear in heaven
Heaven is a state of mind, but it looks like a place. There are trees, flowers, fields, streams, mountains, sky, sun, moon and stars. There are homes, and the homes have walls with furniture and works of art. In short, the spiritual world looks a lot like the natural world. And so what is the difference between the two?
The main difference is that the things seen in heaven are the result of the inner states of the Angels. Their homes are a reflection of their loves and thoughts. The scenery around them expresses the quality of their inner world.
We do not often experience this perfect harmony with our environment in the natural world. There are times when our spirits are bright, and the weather is dull and dreary. At other times the weather is cheerful, but we are not. Beautiful things can happen in very ordinary surroundings in this world, and ugliness can exist inside a person whose external possessions are beautiful. This lack of harmony can give this planet an unreal feeling at times. That could not happen in heaven, where the things around the angels correspond perfectly with the thoughts and feelings within them.
The faces of angels are a perfect expression of their inner selves. The decorations in their homes all tell a story about the quality of their wisdom and love. All of this makes the spiritual world feel more real to the angels than our natural world feels to us.
Of course we can strive to make our external world correspond to the world inside of us. We can work to make our life on earth approximate the life of heaven. We begin by striving for unselfish love of others, inner harmony and peace. And then we do what we can to express those spiritual qualities in the world around us.
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#12 The Form of heaven
The human brain has been described as the most highly organized substance in the universe. It contains more cells than there are people in the world, each of them linked in such a way as to enable them to communicate with each other. Through the brain stem, these cells are connected to all parts of the body. The heart also connects with different parts of the body through its network of blood vessels. This marvelous order enables the body with all of its different parts and organs, to function as a single unit.
It is similar with heaven. The angels are interconnected. This enables an angel to make a contribution to the welfare of the whole of heaven, and to benefit from the gifts of all the other angels. In a remarkable way, each angel is like a focal point for all of the love and inspiration of all other angels. Heaven is certainly marvelously constructed.
We have our own systems in this world, and they become more complex with every passing year. I can remember visiting a telephone exchange office about fifty years ago, and being told that every phone in the country could have a direct connection to any other phone in the country through switchboards. The system did not work overseas except through a clumsy and far from perfect radio system. Now the telephone system is not only more complex, but we have the whole Internet system enabling a person with a home computer and a telephone connection to send messages over the world wide web.
These technological systems enable us to keep in touch with people in this world. On an emotional and spiritual level, our minds and hearts are part of the heavenly communication system made possible by the marvelous form of heaven. We can be in touch with the whole range of heaven because of the spiritual connections we have with that higher plane of existence. And without these connections, we simply could not function. (See Heaven and Hell #200-212)
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#13 Worship in heaven
For people who know the Lord and adore Him in their hearts, every day is a day of worship. They lift up their minds in prayer as they greet each new day. Before they go to sleep, they close the day with a prayer. When facing difficulties they turn to God. When joyful about good news, they are grateful. They see all of the different aspects of the day as part of their life of worship. They accept their responsibilities as an expression of devotion to God and to others. In their caring for other people, they show how much they care about God. All of the elements of worship are in their day to day interactions with other people - joy, gratitude, humility, a willingness to learn and a desire to serve.
When worship is a part of daily life, coming together with others in a formal worship service, has special meaning and depth. It feels like a privilege, and not at all like an obligation, and is more like recreation than work. This is why there is worship in heaven. In a sense, every day in heaven is a day of worship, because worship is the whole of the life of angels. Having an attitude of reverence to every aspect of life, their spirts soar when they hear the message: “Today is the Sabbath.” They love to continue to learn from the depths of the Word, and they enjoy doing so with their deeply loved friends.
What a difference it makes to our earthly life when we experience this ongoing worship during the week, and how wonderful it is to have a worship service to begin a new week. Thank You Lord. (See Heaven and Hell #221-227)
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#14 The Power of the Angels
Occasionally I hear people expressing concern about the state of the world, and the negative forces that seem, at times, to be overwhelming. Fortunately, evil does not really have any power. The only power in the universe is the power of God, which is also the power of good.
The Hebrew word for God is a !- (El), a word which also means strong, mighty, a mighty one, power. Since angels are messengers of God, they also have power. The power of God through angels affects every moment of our life, and is an important factor in our spiritual protection.
Jesus talks about the “power of darkness” (Luke 22:53) but this power is very limited. In a sense you could say that darkness has no power at all. If you have a box with a partition in the middle, one side of the partition being full of light and the other side full of darkness, what happens when the partition is removed? The light simply fills both sections. The darkness has no power to extinguish the light. Why then should the Bible talk about “the power of darkness?” Isn’t it because people are deceived into ascribing power to the darkness, a power that does not really exist? For example, lies only have power when people believe them to be true! The power is in the light of truth. That is why it says in John, the “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” (John 1:5)
This is speaking of the power of light, or the power of truth. What about the power of love? In a sense you could say that it is the only power in the universe. The angels have this power in great abundance for the simple reason that they are happy to acknowledge the Lord God as the real source of the love that fills their hearts.
All of the various machines and appliances in our life run because of an influx of power. When that power is cut off, as in a power failure, the machines are useless. On a spiritual level if the power of love were ever removed from our lives, we would become as limp as rags. We can be grateful for the way in which this spiritual power constantly renews itself. Like energy, which cannot be destroyed but only changes its form, the power of love is a constant that in various ways supports our being and our life. (See Heaven and Hell #228-233)
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#15 Angelic Communication
As I write this I am preparing for a trip to Sweden. I am studying a few Swedish phrases to add to the enjoyment of my trip. It is not my intention to learn to speak it well. I have tried that with French and Dutch, and never got to the point where I was fluent. It is extremely difficult to learn another language. It is relatively easy to pick up a few words and phrases, and I am sure that it will add a richness to the experience of traveling in Sweden.
How sad it is that we are so divided on this natural plane by so many different languages. This is one of the problems that is solved by death. After we die we lose nothing that belongs to us as human beings, but we do lose our earthly languages. They are of no use to us in the spiritual world where there is a different language - one that is learned spontaneously and without effort, one that is universal. It is the language of thought. In a sense you could say that we already know this language. All we have to do is think, and our minds are speaking this language.
Of course language requires feelings as well. Swedenborg found that the angelic language is a perfect expression of both the feelings and the thoughts of the speakers. It involves facial expressions, inflections, tones as well as words. It is full of wisdom since it comes from their deepest thoughts, and it is full of love because it always comes from the heart.
There are stories in the Bible of angels speaking to people on earth. There is never a need for an interpreter, since the angel communicates by ideas which are translated in the mind of the listeners into their own language. It sounds to the human as if the angel is speaking Hebrew, or Swedish, or whatever their own language might be. It would be more accurate to say that the angels are sharing ideas which come into the listeners’ awareness in the human languages that they know. (See Heaven and Hell #234-257)
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#16 Angelic writing
Anyone who has attempted to write a book knows that it requires a special kind of effort to put things in writing, quite different from the process of speaking. By putting something in writing, the author provides a gift for the world. In some cases the books continue to enrich people’s lives over hundreds and even thousands of years. For many people books are among life’s greatest treasurers.
I was visiting a friend recently and I couldn’t help noticing the great quantity of books in his home. There were bookcases everywhere, crammed with books on a wide variety of subjects, like languages ancient and modern, history, and science. There were dictionaries, encyclopedias, and all kinds of reference works. I could have spent weeks just browsing through those fascinating tomes.
Since when we die we take with us everything that is special to us, it follows that our love of reading will still be with us in the next life. Do the angels have bookcases? Are their homes full of reading matter? It would certainly seem so.
There are stories in the Word where a person on earth sees into heaven. The prophet Ezekiel had a vision of heaven, and in that vision he saw an angel with the scroll of a book, written on both sides. (Ezekiel 2:9,10) Ezekiel was commanded to eat the book. He found that it was sweet in his mouth. The same thing happened to John on the Isle of Patmos. He writes about taking a book from an angel, eating it, and finding it sweet in his mouth but bitter in his stomach. (Revelation 10:9,10)
The main reason for writing in heaven, is so that the Word of God can exist there - the Bible. When angels read the Bible do they see the same stories that we see when we read it? Yes, but from a totally different point of view, not as earthly stories, but as expressions of the infinite love and wisdom of God. (See Heaven and Hell #258-264)
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#17 Angelic wisdom
One of the great tasks in life is to seek for wisdom. The process begins early in life, and continues forever!
I can remember being in situations where older and wiser people than myself were having a discussion. They were tossing ideas back and forth like bean bags. I was impressed by these people. In addition, I seemed to myself to become wiser just by being in the discussion. It was as if their brilliance illuminated me and made me a little smarter than I was.
Wisdom is spiritual light. When we think of the light of heaven shining so much brighter than light in this world, we can get some idea of the wisdom of the angels. They live in a light that is to some extent inaccessible to us on earth.
There are five main ingredients.
1. Because of their integrity, the higher levels of their minds are open and transparent. The angels do not put any effort into trying to deceive, or trying to impress one another.
2. They have so much light because of the warmth of their love. Just as in this world, heat brings light, so in heaven the love of the angels makes them wise.
3. They are without ego. They love truth because it is true, and not for any credit to themselves or personal gain.
4. They openly and gladly share their wisdom with others. This means that when an angel joins a group of other angels, he or she immediately shares the ideas and perceptions of all the others. In this case the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Through this sharing, each angel becomes wiser.
5. They long for truth the way a starving person hungers for food. Because of this hunger they continue growing in wisdom forever.
There is a wonderful scene in the movie, Star Wars where Luke first meets Yoda. He was looking for a powerful and wise being, and thought, at first, that Yoda was just a child. He found that Yoda was incredibly ancient, wise and strong. There is a similar encounter in the movie, E.T. where an alien being seems to be very young and ineffective but proves to be very different. Both speak a profound truth about the angels of heaven, namely, that they are completely innocent and exceptionally wise.
With little children, innocence comes from the fact that they know very little and have so little power. This makes them dependent on their parents. As they grow, they be come more independent and less innocent.
Jesus said that we have to have the innocence of little children to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 10:14,15). As people age, they sem to return to this quality of childhood, but with the added element of wisdom.
So what is the innocence of heaven like? The angels do not have an exaggerated idea of their own importance, but attribute what is good to the Lord. They know how dangerous it is to be led by self-will and prefer to be led by God. They love goodness and delight in the truth. They are content with their lot, and are not the least bit worried about the future. They do not act deceitfully with others, or try to use cunning to get their own way. When they hear something true they immediately apply it to their lives. They know that their knowledge, vast as it is compared to our own, is nothing. The little that they know is like a drop of water compared to the whole ocean.
This innocence is the essence of the goodness of heaven. It is also the heart of the marriage relationship, which is why partners who deeply love each other are playful, almost like little children.
Innocence is a willingness to be led by the Lord. To become innocent is to become like an angel. To be innocent is to be in heaven. (See Heaven and Hell #276-283)
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#19 Peace in Heaven
I was once visiting an older woman, living alone in the remote mountains of Wales. She had something about her that was truly amazing - a kind of contentment. This did not seem to come from her circumstances. She had her share of challenges. It was more something that came from deep inside. This inner quality brought a glow to everything in her life. I had a strong feeling that she had found the secret of happiness. She was at peace.
Innocence and peace are the deepest aspects of heaven. Innocence is the source of all the goodness of heaven and peace is the source of joy.
People who return from a near death experience sometimes describe having had a most peaceful and delightful time, so much so that they were extremely reluctant to return to their usual state in this world. Some manage to hold on to that inner peace when they do return and it changes the whole quality of their life.
Some look for peace in external ways - as if it could come from the absence of strive, or from overcoming problems. But peace is the love of God touching us on the deepest level of our being, which means that peace essentially is a divine quality. The Creator of the universe is at peace, and those who connect with the Creator through love, experience that peace. Although I cannot judge, it seems that that was what I sensed with the woman in Wales.
So long as we live on this natural plane, it is inevitable that we are tossed about in various ways, and we long for peace. The nearest we might get is contentment in God. To work toward achieving greater peace, we can work on our connection with the Prince of Peace. When we feel the joy of God in our hearts, we are experiencing something of that peace of heaven, peace that passes all understanding, peace that is the ultimate goal of all human striving. (See Heaven and Hell #284-290)
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#20 The Connection between Heaven and Earth
A person was hiking alone in the mountains, and stopped to rest. For a moment she felt quite alone, and began thinking how small she was in a remote area of this tiny planet, and its medium sized sun, average galaxy, all in an unimaginably large universe. But the feeling soon passed as she stopped to think of her connections with that other world - the more real world of the spirit. She knew that God was directly present with her as her very life. She also knew that the angels of God were always present - not seen, but sensed in a feeling of peace and contentment.
Then she began to have doubts and fears. Her mind was chilled by anxieties that robbed her of her peace. At first she was alarmed by this. It seemed to wipe away all of the good feelings of the previous state. But then she remembered that we also have devils with us. We do not see them, but we can tell that they are present by the anxiety we feel, and the dark and negative thinking they bring. Remembering this was very helpful. She found that she could tell those evil spirits to get behind her, as she raised her mind to heavenly thoughts and feelings.
After some time of vacillation between the positive and the negative, she remembered another important principle. The Lord and heaven, communicate with us through the Word. So she took out her Bible, and began to read: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.” (Psalm 46:1,2) This reading brought an immediate change of mood. She felt connected to heaven again.
Yes, we live in a physical world, and we are connected with the spiritual one. There are angels present with us at all times, and the Lord, God, never leaves us. We can strengthen that connection by reading the Word, whose stories seem to be concerned about events in the world, but whose deeper meanings connect with heaven itself. (See Heaven and Hell #291-310)
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#21 Heaven and Hell are from the Human race
What are angels, and where do they come from? For years there has been a belief that, before God created the world, He created angels, and that human beings are a totally separate race. In contrast to that, we often hear people talk about a loved one in terms that suggest that having died, the loved-one is now an angel.
So who are angels? Swedenborg’s long experiences of the spiritual realm taught him a very simple principle. All angels began life as people on this or some other planet. Angels are not a separate creation of God, but people just like the ones we know on earth. Popular shows like “Touched by an Angel,” support this idea. The angels in the show look so much like ordinary people that through most of each episode they are thought to be humans. And so the general impression, that good people become angels after death, proves to be the truth! The point is that each one of us is intended to become an angel after we die.
Many people believe this instinctively. Many also have a strong sense that people they know in this world have angelic qualities - “you are such an angel.” Once again, the general impression proves to be the truth. This is the training ground for us to begin to learn what angelic life is like. There are two main qualifications: a love of God, and a love of other people. When we act lovingly, and speak wisely, we are all angels, messengers of God. (See Heaven and Hell #311-317)
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#22 The Gentiles
There are many words used by Christians to describe non-Christians. Most of them have come to have a strongly negative connotation. Looking up the root meanings in “the Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language” we find some of the reasons for this negativity.
ALIEN - Someone “other than” us.
BARBARIAN - A “stammerer,” someone whose language sounds to us like babble.
FOREIGN - “Out of doors,” someone not within our little world
GENTILE - “Belonging to the same Clan or Tribe.” Related to the word “Genteel!”
HEATHEN - “Wild.”
INFIDEL - A person “without faith.”
PAGAN - A “villager or person who lives in the country,” (people who are the slowest to accept new ideas.)
PRIMITIVE - The “first people, the earliest ones.”
SAVAGE - “Belonging to the forest.”
STRANGE - “Someone on the outside” (compare the word: extraneous from which our word stranger comes.)
I guess we are all a little wary of “strangers” but in the Christian world this fear has turned into the doctrine that only Christians can be saved. Many of us have had the experience of meeting someone from a totally different culture and religious background only to find them in some ways more spiritual than the Christians we have known!
Isn’t it strange that not only do many Christians deny the possibility of heaven to pagans, but they even deny it to other branches of Christianity and, more sadly, even to members of their own faith community, as in the old adage: “No one is really Christian but me and thee . . . and sometimes I wonder about thee!”
The reality is that the mercy of the Lord is far greater than our own, that in His sight everyone on the planet has been born for heaven, and that even though there are many false concepts in the seemingly endless forms that religion takes, to get into heaven you need only two:
1. A belief in God - or at least a belief in something higher than yourself, and . . .
2. A desire to live a good life according to what you believe.
Any deficit in knowledge can easily be made up for in the other life.
(See Heaven and Hell #318-328)
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#23 Little Children in Heaven
One of the saddest of all human experiences is the death of little children. We cannot believe that a merciful God would let one of these little ones perish. If we could see the other side of their transition we would not be so horrified. We would notice angels tenderly watching over them, angel mothers welcoming them. We would see their bright, innocent eyes full of wonder as they explore their new world. We would enjoy watching them learning in a spontaneous and imaginative way all of the things they need to know. We would see them dancing through the meadows, with garlands of flowers and beauty all around. We would see their new families as they are adopted into angelic foster homes, with perfect care to their every need.
It would be exciting to watch them learn to walk, speak and read without effort. It would be thrilling to see the eagerness with which they drink in the teachings of the Word. We would enjoy being with them as they are taught by pageants and plays, each one designed to communicate some important truth and some deep feeling.
We would watch them grow “physically” as they grew in wisdom and love, their growing bodies perfectly reflecting their spiritual growth. We would eventually see them attain young womanhood and young manhood, the age that they would stay at forever.
We might even see them, pairing off, finding themselves led by the Lord to a perfect married partner, with whom they would then live to eternity.
Would we see the tantrums and selfishness that children on earth experience? Yes - at least to some extent, and this because it is important for them to know the difference between their hereditary instincts and their spiritual life.
And what of non-Christian children? Would they be there? Yes indeed. A merciful God would not exclude a child from heaven simply because the parents were not Christians. God does not require the external ceremony of baptism as a gateway to heaven, but the spiritual process which it represents. In short, if we saw these children, we might still feel sad at our own loss, but would rejoice at their gain. (See Heaven and Hell #329-345)
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#24 The Wise and the Simple
In this world of IQ testing, SAT scores and numerous other measurements of intelligence most of us can’t help feeling rather dull. I have been in situations where the conversation was so far above my head that I was struggling for air. Not normally shy, I found that I did not dare to open my mouth for fear of sounding stupid.
Reading about the wisdom of angels, the question naturally arises, is that situation likely to happen in heaven? Angels are so much wiser than we are.
And then I remember times when I have been talking with a farmer, leaning over the back fence, feeling totally comfortable, not feeling stupid at all, and at the same time having a wonderful sense that I was in the presence of real wisdom. I have had the same experience talking with a grandmother whose education did not reach past High School, but whose words were very profound.
What is it that produces wisdom? It is certainly not intelligence. There are very intelligent people who are not wise at all. It is not from education. There are many highly educated people who lack common sense. Wisdom comes from a love of truth, not for glory, but just because it is true. There are people who have this delight in truth that makes them seekers. They are not content with sham, and are deeply affected and delighted with truth when they find it.
They are not interested in accumulating knowledge. What they learn they translate directly into their lives. They do not understand what it is to learn just for the sake of learning. To them truth is a support for love and living a good life. This is what the wisdom of angels is like.
We can increase our capacity for wisdom by getting in touch with our own love of truth, and by looking especially for those ideas that will make us better citizens of this world and the next. This is how we can approach the wisdom of the angels.
“The human mind is like soil. Its quality is according to the way it is cultivated.” Heaven and Hell #356
(See Heaven and Hell #346-356)
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#25 The Rich and the Poor in Heaven
Is having material wealth good or bad for our spiritual state? Jesus said: “It is hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19:23) Some Christians have deliberately made themselves poor because of this saying. But most of us live with the idea that material wealth is a good thing (why else would there be such a fervor over Lotteries?). The fact is that Jesus was talking about being poor “in spirit” (Matthew 5:3). He was talking about humility.
Are worldly riches curses or blessings? There is a very simple answer. If your eternal lot is heaven, then whatever wealth or poverty you had in this world must have been all right.
“Heaven is for all who live a life of faith and love, whether rich or poor. . . . The rich enter heaven just as easily as the poor. People are not shut out of heaven on account of their wealth, nor received into heaven on account of their poverty.” (Heaven and Hell #357)
We have been born into this world, and need to come to terms with it. It is perfectly all right to seek to be financially successful, provided it is not achieved by fraud or deceit. We are allowed to enjoy the good things of life provided we do not make them more important than spiritual things.
As far as our own spiritual life is concerned, so long as we watch out for greed and materialism, it is good for us to be successful. And as far as our judgments of others are concerned, we need to be careful not to make judgments about people’s spiritual state on the basis of how much money they have, whether it is great or small. Money itself is totally neutral. By our handling of money we can make it good or evil.
Our spiritual state is more important than our bank account and the degree of usefulness to others is more important than our salary. It is a matter of keeping things in balance. (See Heaven and Hell #357-365)
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#26 Marriages in Heaven
I love helping couples prepare for their wedding. For many of them it is the most significant event of their entire life. We talk about various aspects of marriage, especially the fact that it is a partnership of people who are equal and different.
Naturally we think of love as being the most important ingredient, but I like to point out that love is not a feeling. It lies deeper than our feelings and gives rise to them. Love is a kind of inner consent that says “YES” to this other person, and says “YES” to working with that person to create a lifelong bond of friendship, cooperation, respect and love. Love is a commitment, and a decision.
Many couples agree that falling in love was a spiritual event for them. And many of them select passages for their wedding service that talk about the eternity of marriage. This is of special interest considering that many of them belong to churches that do not believe in the eternity of marriage. It seems that love creates its own perception and its own wisdom. The feeling of love is “this is forever.”
There is a song from “West Side Story” that some couples choose to have sung at their wedding. It is called “One hand, one heart” and includes the refrain: “Only death will part us now.” Just as I am beginning to feel uncomfortable about this refrain it shifts, and on the last verse says: “Even death won’t part us now.”
There is marriage after death. It is between one man and one woman - possibly people who had been married to each other on earth, but only if they truly loved each other on a spiritual level. The force that binds them together is the force of the divine love that joins them into a oneness that is full of tenderness and delight.
I do believe that people who marry for love, marry in the hope that their love will last, not just for a few years on earth, but forever.
(See Heaven and Hell #366-386)
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#27 The jobs of the Angels
Which would you rather have, eternal idleness, or ongoing useful activity? Swedenborg found that the joy of heaven is the satisfaction that comes from doing something useful for yourself or for others. He noted that just as every organ and cell in the body has to make a contribution to the welfare of the whole system, so every angel, and every community of angels is involved in usefulness,. Indeed, this usefulness is the real source of heavenly joy and happiness! The angels have jobs, and they love their work.
But what do they do? We know that there are guardian angels. There are angels who are with people as they die, and other angels that help them as they wake up in the spiritual world. Some angels have the work of welcoming people who died in their infancy and raising them in heaven. Others are sent to protect people on earth from harm.
But the majority of the jobs of the angels would be a total mystery to us. They have a thousand times as many occupations available to them as we do on earth, and most of them are beyond our present understanding. To get some idea of this, imagine visiting a hunter-gatherer community. The community is self-contained, and the needs of everyone are provided for, but the jobs are very limited. Some are employed in making tools, others in finding game, some in preparing food, building shelter, possibly making utensils, clothing and fabrics, and so on. It would not take you long to list all of the jobs open in such a community. You would also find that each individual might have several different things to do to help the group survive. Could you explain to them the various jobs in our modern cities? How many of them do you understand yourself?
Project your imagination into the future of life on this planet. If you could be transported to the year 3000 A.D., and look at the jobs people would be doing more than a thousand years from now, how many of their jobs could you understand?
One more leap of imagination takes you to the spiritual world, to heaven and the uses of the angels. They are far more numerous than jobs on earth, far more satisfying (because each person does what he or she loves to do), and far more valuable. The kingdom of heaven is a kingdom of useful activities, and it is through these activities that the angels find their deepest satisfactions.
(See Heaven and Hell #387-394)
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#28 Angelic Happiness
A person was searching for the truth. On hearing that there was a wise Guru sitting on a mountain, he made the arduous journey up the mountain so that he could put a burning question: “What is the purpose of life?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, the Guru said: “To be happy.”
The man looked very puzzled and a little disappointed at the answer. “Does this mean that I can do whatever I like?”
The Guru replied, “The purpose of life is to have the deepest satisfaction and the greatest happiness. You probably have no idea how to be really happy. Try to find happiness. If you need to learn more, you can always come back and ask again.”
The man descended the mountain feeling relieved. He thought that his own happiness was the most important thing in the world. He got a job, but only went to work when it made him feel good. He got into a relationship, but thought only about his own happiness, taking no interest in the happiness of the other person. After years of self-indulgence and deep disappointment, he decided that he needed to talk to the Guru again. So he made the journey back up the mountain.
“What is the purpose of life?” he asked again, as if he had never asked the question before.
“To be happy” said the Guru. “I told you that years ago.”
“But it doesn’t work. I tried it. I lost my job and my friends and didn’t have that much fun.”
“I told you that you did not know how to be happy. How do you feel about your life so far?”
“It has been miserable.”
“Do you feel that misery is the purpose of life?”
“No, something is wrong.”
“Then you need to learn how to be happy. I will give you a few clues. You will never be truly happy if you live only for yourself, or simply indulge your cravings. To be happy you have to find out some way of giving happiness to others, and being in meaningful and loving relationships with others. When you learn that you will know what heaven is, because you will know what heavenly joy is. Whether you say heaven or heavenly joy it amounts to the same thing. What would heaven be like if it were not joyful?”
“Why does it have to be so complicated?’
“It is not really complicated at all, but for some reason, many people have great difficulty finding real happiness. Please do not settle for some passing pleasure. Eternal happiness is so much better than that.”
The man went down the mountain, continued his life in search of true happiness and eventually died. In heaven he happened to meet the Guru.
“Well,” said the Guru, “what do you think now?”
“I have never known such bliss. This happiness far surpasses any idea of joy I had before, and all the struggles to achieve it were completely worthwhile. This really is the purpose of life!”
(See Heaven and Hell #395-414)
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#29 The immensity of heaven.
A parent was having one of those deep conversations with a ten year old child.
“I want to die,” says the child.
“Why, are you feeling depressed?”
“No, I’m feeling great, but I think I’d better die before it is too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“You might think this is stupid, but I want to die before heaven gets filled up.”
“That would be sad, but what makes you think heaven is getting filled up?”
“We learned in school that the world population is growing, and even now millions of people die every year. They talk about the world getting overpopulated, well, what about heaven?”
“The fear about overpopulation is because the earth has limited resources. People don’t take up much room in this world. In fact you could put the whole population of the world in the Tucson valley. Now since angels don’t need physical food and don’t use up natural resources, there isn’t the same problem. Besides, angels don’t take up any room at all, they are spiritual, not physical. They don’t take up space. The Lord’s heart is large enough to love everyone, from all places in the universe, over all time, so heaven will never be full. So please don’t be in a hurry to get to heaven. There is no rush. And there is plenty for you to do in this world before you go on to the next one. You are so precious in this world, that you should stay here as long as you can, leaving it to the Lord to decide when to call you to heaven. ” (See Heaven and Hell #415-420)
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#30 Between Heaven and Hell
Uncle Fred died. The family was gathered for the resurrection service, and people were saying how wonderful it was that Uncle Fred was now an angel in heaven. Some people looked a little bit askance. They knew too much about Uncle Fred to think that all he had to do was to die and go to heaven. It is not that he was such a bad man either. Like most of us he was a mixture - a little of this, and a little of that. You couldn’t really call him an angel, and you wouldn’t think of calling him a devil. He was “between heaven and hell.”
Swedenborg discovered that very few people are totally ready for heaven or hell when they die. They have work to do. It is reassuring to think that Uncle Fred will have time to continue his spiritual journey after death, and that we will all have time to go through whatever process we need to experience in order to have an undivided mind.
In many ways our life in this world is “between heaven and hell.” We have our good moments. We know the joy of really caring for other people, and have had times of genuine peace. We have also known the frustration of dealing with our own cravings, our weaknesses and our selfishness. We have already begun the process of sorting out our spiritual values, and finding our direction. The more work we do on this as we live our life on earth, the more ready we will be for the heaven the Lord has provided for us after death. (See Heaven and Hell #421-431)
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#31 Every person is a Spirit
Two people were taking a stroll through a beautiful city park. They were very intent on their conversation. They walked alongside the lake, under the great trees, over the bridges, by the fields, talking as they went. After a couple of hours one of them noticed that the sun was setting. They stopped, looked at each other, and wondered where they were. They had no idea how far they had walked or how long. It was as if their bodies had been moving through physical space and time while their minds and hearts were on their own journey, so interesting that it blocked out an awareness of the other.
This is a reminder that we are spiritual beings. We have a physical life, and to some extent we live in a world of space and time, but the real world we inhabit consists of feelings and thoughts. Our mind (or spirit) even has its own sense of time, which explains why we can feel that an hour passes as quickly as a minute, and minutes can drag on like hours.
Our internal world is really a spiritual world. It is not material. It has no weight, and no time-space dimension. As someone said, we are not physical beings with a spiritual life, we are spiritual beings with a physical life. This is good news because it means that our real life, the life that we truly call our own, does not depend on time and space, and so can survive death!
Those two people walking in the park were communicating on a spiritual level, and their bodies were like machines going through their normal activities. If through some tragic accident they were to be killed simultaneously, they would probably continue walking and talking, scarcely aware that anything had happened!
We are on this earthly plane just for a time, to learn lessons that will stay with us forever. (See Heaven and Hell #432-444)
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#32 What it is like to die
A woman was talking about her own death. “I’m not afraid of being dead. I know that we must all die, and I know that God has a place for me in heaven.”
“Well what are you afraid of?” came the response.
“I’m afraid of the process of dying. I see these people who lose their memory, can’t walk anymore, have great pain, - the process seems to be horrible. That is what I am afraid of.”
About twenty years later the woman died. She was almost 90 years old, and still living alone without assistance. Her mind was alert, and she had no significant pain. She stood up to go and take a nap, an aneurism burst, and within minutes she was gone. What was it like for her to die? It seemed as if it was a pleasant process!
Many people who have near death experiences report going through a time of great peace and inner calm, even those whose bodies have been writhing in agony. The love and beauty that surround them in this near death experience are so great that they hesitate to return to this world. Evidently dying is very enjoyable.
Swedenborg was permitted to go through the process as if he was dying, so that he could describe it in some detail. He found that the connection between body and spirit was related to the motions of the heart and lungs, and that when those motions ceased, the spirit was gently withdrawn from the body, and seemed to be lifted up. He noticed that there were celestial angels present with him, sitting silently, and holding his mind in thoughts of eternal life. At this time he was soothed by a most beautiful fragrance. After a while these celestial angels withdrew, and spiritual angels were present, eventually giving him the use of sight by rolling something like a veil from his eyes. At first the light was a dim blue color. When the light increased to the point where he could see again, he noticed these angels, and they told him that he was a spirit - a person living in the spiritual world.
In his case, of course, he had not actually died, but went through the process so that he could tell us about it. What he reported fits well into the near death experience reported by so many. The main point is that the transition between the two world is very pleasant, a very sweet journey to continuing life. (See Heaven and Hell #445-452)
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#33 After death we are in a perfect human form.
When we look at another human being, do we just see a physical object? Are we not seeing an expression of feelings and thoughts, purpose and meaning? Are we not seeing something spiritual?
Looking into a person’s eyes is like looking into their soul. The eyes communicate so many things that are well beyond the merely physical level. We see feelings, determination and intelligence and these are all spiritual qualities. The whole face is an index of the mind, each part communicating something about the person. The physical senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell all have a spiritual counterpart.
So many parts of the human body have become symbols for parts of the spirit - and so we have expressions like: a warm heart, being clear sighted, being deaf to what others say, not having much backbone, not being able to stomach something, being thick skinned, being able to stand on our own two feet, and so on.
Swedenborg found that when people die they cast off the physical body, but then appear in a body in the spiritual world! This body looks physical, but it is spiritual and obeys spiritual laws. The body we seem to have in dreams is something like this. But the spiritual body we have after death is much more real than anything we experience in dreams. Its reality comes from the fact that it expresses who we really are. We need not worry that after death we will be like wisps of smoke - insubstantial beings. We will have a body that feels to us just as solid and real as our physical body does on earth. Unlike the physical body, it grows stronger, more vibrant and younger over time, and it never dies. (See Heaven and Hell #453-460)
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#34 The memory after death
A woman was telling her friend about her life, and the friend, deeply moved by the story, said: “You ought to write a book.”
In a way she was writing a book - it is called the Book of Life, and it is inscribed on the pages of our memory. We all have such a book. And it is written in indelible ink! There are times, of course, when we would like to erase a page or two, but, in computer terms, this is a read-only file. If we could change our memory, we would be in danger of losing the good memories along with the bad. But what are the bad memories? Often they involve events that have been some of our greatest teachers. I have heard people describe horrendous chapters in their book of life, and then say, “and I wouldn’t change it.” Why not? Because it was part of their story, and contributed to their life in a significant way.
As we age, our memory can become less reliable. This might indicate that after death we would have no memory at all, but the fact is that although we lose our material possessions when we die, and though we lose our physical bodies, we do not lose our memories.
Does this mean that we will forever know our telephone number, social security number, address and a thousand details that have no use after death? The external facts are filed away and forgotten. The quality of our life as built up through our earthly experiences is another level of memory, and this remains. Will we be haunted by some memories we would rather forget? No, because in heaven we will live in the present, not in the past or the future. Any time it is of value to have some fact of our life brought back, these memories can be accessed. They are like items in a scrapbook, carefully filed away, and rarely looked at.
All of this is according to the principle that nothing of importance is ever wasted, especially that unique story which is called our book of life. (See Heaven and Hell #461-469)
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#35 Who are we after death?
A person was talking to her friend: “I know that I am going to die one day. I feel healthy now, but I know that our life in this world is limited. I wonder what I will be like after death.”
“That’s easy” answered the friend. “You will be the same person that you are now! When you die you won’t change very much.”
“How can you say that? Maybe I’ll be completely different.”
“Some things may change, but your dominant interests and loves will not change. If they did, you wouldn’t be you any more. You would be someone else. What makes you unique are the things you care about, especially that main love in your heart. That is what makes you to be the person you are, and that does not change after death.”
“Do you mean that I am stuck with my faults and imperfections?”
“No, it simply means that the strongest love in your heart is what you really are. After you put off the earthly body and its imperfections, you can also put off anything that does not fit with who you really are.”
“So who will I be after I die?”
“You will be yourself, only more so.”
“So what kind of life is waiting for me after I die?”
“The life that is waiting for you is your life - the life you are leading here and the life you want to continue to live once you get there.” (See Heaven and Hell #470-484)
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#36 Our environment after death
We can’t help wondering what heaven looks like. The amazing thing is that people in a sense create their own environment in heaven. What they see around them reflects what is going on inside them. This is somewhat true in the natural world. Obviously we don’t create mountains just by thinking about them, or sunny weather, but we do create sunny moods in our heart. Remember the cartoon where a particularly gloomy person walks around with a cloud over his head. Rain is pouring down directly on him and on no one else. There are people who create that kind of atmosphere for themselves.
Swedenborg gives some particular instances. He says that in heaven people who have had a deep love of divine truth live on mountains with their homes sparkling with precious stones. Those who love to keep on learning and developing their minds have homes surrounded by the most beautiful gardens whose plants are constantly changing. People who attribute everything to God have homes with lots of crystal and diamonds.
This is why attitudes are so important. Positive attitudes create a positive environment. Negative attitudes create negative surroundings. This world is the place where we learn how to make our heaven beautiful. How do we do this? We do it by cultivating a love of God, love of other people, honesty, kindness and respect for truth. When we work on developing these positive traits we create a beautiful world inside our own mind and begin work on creating a lovely and delightful environment for ourselves after death. (See Heaven and Hell #485-490)
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#37 Our Facades
People were preparing to go to a class reunion. Some were very concerned about what they would look like and wondered what the other people would think of them after all those years. They thought a lot about what clothes to wear for each function and rehearsed the things they planned to say. They were fearful of the comparisons they expected as to who looked better, who had the best jobs, what people thought of their weight and even the car they were driving. Of course, they were very interested to see what other people would be wearing and what kind of car they could afford.
Others were preparing for the same class reunion. They had not thought of their high school for years. They were very much wrapped up in life as it is in the present. They had been doing spiritual work, trying to rise above critical thoughts, making an effort to live in the present, looking beyond appearances with other people to think of the deeper aspects of their life. They did their packing at the last minute, simply putting in their favorite clothes, hardly even thinking about whether other people would approve or not. They thought that there was no point in trying to impress their classmates. Their purpose in going to the reunion was to be with friends, share something of the reality of their life and learn something of the reality of the lives of others.
When people die and go to the spiritual world there is also a kind of reunion. Shortly after death people find themselves in a world much like the world they left behind. They dress in a similar way, put on similar fronts and still attach importance to external things. This is helpful, enabling them to make contact with others who may have died years before. Usually husband and wife meet, even though one may have died decades before the other. Being in this external state they can recognize each other and make some kind of contact. Eventually they want to go a little deeper. That happens when they put off the facades, and speak what is really on their minds and in their hearts. Then couples can see if they are meant for each other or not. Other relationships also change as true feelings are brought out.
Like class reunions these meetings in the spiritual world have to begin on a fairly external level. Later they can move closer to their true life. Our facades are a temporary way of dealing with others. When the facades are put off life continues on a deeper level. (See Heaven and Hell #491-498)
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#38 Our deeper selves
Class reunions can be artificial and frustrating. They can also be very real and fascinating. It all depends on how much the people are willing to be transparent with each other. If a reunion lasts long enough, some people get tired of the games, throw off the masks and take the risk of saying just what they mean and doing just what they want to do. If more and more people were to do this, it could lead to some interesting changes. They might find that people they had thought of in high school as nerds were some of the people they were most drawn to now and those who were popular felt like strangers to them.
We know how tiring it can be to live behind masks and how scary it is to be open and honest. But in the long run, the masks create tremendous distance and loneliness. People who take the risk of being honest can find true bonds of understanding and love.
The same is true after death. People cannot wear masks forever. It is a wise aspect of providence that when we die we not only put off our material possessions and our earthly bodies, we also put off many of the pretenses of life and become more openly the person we are inside.
To some people this shift to openness is very refreshing. It comes as a great relief to finally be yourself. To others it might be terrifying. But it must happen to all, because in the life after death we can no longer fake it. Life is real and our true nature will come to light. As Jesus said: “There is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known.” (Matthew 10:26, compare Luke 8:17, Mark 4:22)
We can begin the process of becoming more truly ourselves even here on earth. It will make our life more real to others and to ourselves and will bring us closer to the qualities of heaven. (See Heaven and Hell #499-511)
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This is a little lesson in spiritual geography. Just as the surface of the earth is divided into various regions and zones, so there are various areas of spiritual life, some of them beautiful, and others extremely dangerous. Spiritual growth involves going through different landscapes of this spiritual world. Children start out in a kind of paradise - “East in Eden.” As they grow up they lose something of that innocence and begin exploring worlds opened up to them through education and experience. This is like a journey to the South.
When people have a spiritual awakening in their adult years they might find themselves far from the kind of spiritual place they want to be in, and so they begin to try to orient themselves. This spiritual journey often requires a new direction. They want to know where to look for the source of their growth. They journey back to the East.
When we talk of “orienting ourselves” we are using the word for the East (the Orient). As far as the angels are concerned, the Lord is in the East, like the rising sun, and so, whate4ver direction they turn, the angels are always facing East. This is another way of saying that whatever they are doing, they are always looking to the Lord.
It is useful to stop and ask ourselves how we feel about where we are spiritually. What is our spiritual geography like? Where should we turn if we want to find a better spiritual place?
“In heaven the East is what determines all the quarters. The East is where the Lord is seen as a Sun because all origin of life is from Him as a Sun. Moreover to the extent that angels receive heat and light or love and intelligence from Him, the Lord is said to arise upon them. For the same reason, in the Word the Lord is said to be the East.” Heaven and Hell #141
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#10 Time and Space in Heaven
Wouldn’t it be nice if we did not have to live with the limitations of space and time! Sometimes it seems as if these are two big enemies. How often do we hear people say: “There are not enough hours in the day,” “I just haven’t got time,” and even, “I have to much time, it’s driving me crazy.” And then there are all the complaints about space - “My children live too far away,” “I’m not able to be with you physically, but I am certainly there in spirit.”
What would life be like without these limitations? The answer is simple. It would be heaven! When people pass from this world to the next, they leave behind all concerns about these external things. There are no clocks or calendars in heaven. This does not mean that eternal life is always the same. It is constantly changing. It has a flow and a direction to it, the way time does in this world, but it is not measure. The angels simply go through the various phases of their life corresponding to our morning afternoon and evening, without having to be told by the clock what to do and when. Imagine what your life would be like if you just finished whatever you were doing and then went on to do the next thing, not because THE CLOCK told you to, but because you were ready. This is what heaven is like. Many people enjoy retirement because it has a similar quality. It is interesting how our vacation time and our time off, begin to imitate the time of heaven, which is just a natural flow from one state of mind to another, and one activity to another
And what about space? Here we find even greater rewards. On earth we can be physically separated from those we care about, but after death we are always with the people we love. Just as they are near to us in heart, so we seem them as being near to us in fact. If we think of someone, they are instantly present. Modern technology helps us to come a little closer to this. We can call or e-mail someone, and get a reply in a matter of seconds. We can fly around the world in a few days.
As we grow spiritually, we learn how to honor the fact that our spirit, even as we live in this world, operates beyond the time-space framework. And it is interesting to note that many human inventions are designed to make the world more like the spiritual world by overcoming, at least to some extent, the limitations of space and time.
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#11 How things appear in heaven
Heaven is a state of mind, but it looks like a place. There are trees, flowers, fields, streams, mountains, sky, sun, moon and stars. There are homes, and the homes have walls with furniture and works of art. In short, the spiritual world looks a lot like the natural world. And so what is the difference between the two?
The main difference is that the things seen in heaven are the result of the inner states of the Angels. Their homes are a reflection of their loves and thoughts. The scenery around them expresses the quality of their inner world.
We do not often experience this perfect harmony with our environment in the natural world. There are times when our spirits are bright, and the weather is dull and dreary. At other times the weather is cheerful, but we are not. Beautiful things can happen in very ordinary surroundings in this world, and ugliness can exist inside a person whose external possessions are beautiful. This lack of harmony can give this planet an unreal feeling at times. That could not happen in heaven, where the things around the angels correspond perfectly with the thoughts and feelings within them.
The faces of angels are a perfect expression of their inner selves. The decorations in their homes all tell a story about the quality of their wisdom and love. All of this makes the spiritual world feel more real to the angels than our natural world feels to us.
Of course we can strive to make our external world correspond to the world inside of us. We can work to make our life on earth approximate the life of heaven. We begin by striving for unselfish love of others, inner harmony and peace. And then we do what we can to express those spiritual qualities in the world around us.
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#12 The Form of heaven
The human brain has been described as the most highly organized substance in the universe. It contains more cells than there are people in the world, each of them linked in such a way as to enable them to communicate with each other. Through the brain stem, these cells are connected to all parts of the body. The heart also connects with different parts of the body through its network of blood vessels. This marvelous order enables the body with all of its different parts and organs, to function as a single unit.
It is similar with heaven. The angels are interconnected. This enables an angel to make a contribution to the welfare of the whole of heaven, and to benefit from the gifts of all the other angels. In a remarkable way, each angel is like a focal point for all of the love and inspiration of all other angels. Heaven is certainly marvelously constructed.
We have our own systems in this world, and they become more complex with every passing year. I can remember visiting a telephone exchange office about fifty years ago, and being told that every phone in the country could have a direct connection to any other phone in the country through switchboards. The system did not work overseas except through a clumsy and far from perfect radio system. Now the telephone system is not only more complex, but we have the whole Internet system enabling a person with a home computer and a telephone connection to send messages over the world wide web.
These technological systems enable us to keep in touch with people in this world. On an emotional and spiritual level, our minds and hearts are part of the heavenly communication system made possible by the marvelous form of heaven. We can be in touch with the whole range of heaven because of the spiritual connections we have with that higher plane of existence. And without these connections, we simply could not function. (See Heaven and Hell #200-212)
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#13 Worship in heaven
For people who know the Lord and adore Him in their hearts, every day is a day of worship. They lift up their minds in prayer as they greet each new day. Before they go to sleep, they close the day with a prayer. When facing difficulties they turn to God. When joyful about good news, they are grateful. They see all of the different aspects of the day as part of their life of worship. They accept their responsibilities as an expression of devotion to God and to others. In their caring for other people, they show how much they care about God. All of the elements of worship are in their day to day interactions with other people - joy, gratitude, humility, a willingness to learn and a desire to serve.
When worship is a part of daily life, coming together with others in a formal worship service, has special meaning and depth. It feels like a privilege, and not at all like an obligation, and is more like recreation than work. This is why there is worship in heaven. In a sense, every day in heaven is a day of worship, because worship is the whole of the life of angels. Having an attitude of reverence to every aspect of life, their spirts soar when they hear the message: “Today is the Sabbath.” They love to continue to learn from the depths of the Word, and they enjoy doing so with their deeply loved friends.
What a difference it makes to our earthly life when we experience this ongoing worship during the week, and how wonderful it is to have a worship service to begin a new week. Thank You Lord. (See Heaven and Hell #221-227)
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#14 The Power of the Angels
Occasionally I hear people expressing concern about the state of the world, and the negative forces that seem, at times, to be overwhelming. Fortunately, evil does not really have any power. The only power in the universe is the power of God, which is also the power of good.
The Hebrew word for God is a !- (El), a word which also means strong, mighty, a mighty one, power. Since angels are messengers of God, they also have power. The power of God through angels affects every moment of our life, and is an important factor in our spiritual protection.
Jesus talks about the “power of darkness” (Luke 22:53) but this power is very limited. In a sense you could say that darkness has no power at all. If you have a box with a partition in the middle, one side of the partition being full of light and the other side full of darkness, what happens when the partition is removed? The light simply fills both sections. The darkness has no power to extinguish the light. Why then should the Bible talk about “the power of darkness?” Isn’t it because people are deceived into ascribing power to the darkness, a power that does not really exist? For example, lies only have power when people believe them to be true! The power is in the light of truth. That is why it says in John, the “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” (John 1:5)
This is speaking of the power of light, or the power of truth. What about the power of love? In a sense you could say that it is the only power in the universe. The angels have this power in great abundance for the simple reason that they are happy to acknowledge the Lord God as the real source of the love that fills their hearts.
All of the various machines and appliances in our life run because of an influx of power. When that power is cut off, as in a power failure, the machines are useless. On a spiritual level if the power of love were ever removed from our lives, we would become as limp as rags. We can be grateful for the way in which this spiritual power constantly renews itself. Like energy, which cannot be destroyed but only changes its form, the power of love is a constant that in various ways supports our being and our life. (See Heaven and Hell #228-233)
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#15 Angelic Communication
As I write this I am preparing for a trip to Sweden. I am studying a few Swedish phrases to add to the enjoyment of my trip. It is not my intention to learn to speak it well. I have tried that with French and Dutch, and never got to the point where I was fluent. It is extremely difficult to learn another language. It is relatively easy to pick up a few words and phrases, and I am sure that it will add a richness to the experience of traveling in Sweden.
How sad it is that we are so divided on this natural plane by so many different languages. This is one of the problems that is solved by death. After we die we lose nothing that belongs to us as human beings, but we do lose our earthly languages. They are of no use to us in the spiritual world where there is a different language - one that is learned spontaneously and without effort, one that is universal. It is the language of thought. In a sense you could say that we already know this language. All we have to do is think, and our minds are speaking this language.
Of course language requires feelings as well. Swedenborg found that the angelic language is a perfect expression of both the feelings and the thoughts of the speakers. It involves facial expressions, inflections, tones as well as words. It is full of wisdom since it comes from their deepest thoughts, and it is full of love because it always comes from the heart.
There are stories in the Bible of angels speaking to people on earth. There is never a need for an interpreter, since the angel communicates by ideas which are translated in the mind of the listeners into their own language. It sounds to the human as if the angel is speaking Hebrew, or Swedish, or whatever their own language might be. It would be more accurate to say that the angels are sharing ideas which come into the listeners’ awareness in the human languages that they know. (See Heaven and Hell #234-257)
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#16 Angelic writing
Anyone who has attempted to write a book knows that it requires a special kind of effort to put things in writing, quite different from the process of speaking. By putting something in writing, the author provides a gift for the world. In some cases the books continue to enrich people’s lives over hundreds and even thousands of years. For many people books are among life’s greatest treasurers.
I was visiting a friend recently and I couldn’t help noticing the great quantity of books in his home. There were bookcases everywhere, crammed with books on a wide variety of subjects, like languages ancient and modern, history, and science. There were dictionaries, encyclopedias, and all kinds of reference works. I could have spent weeks just browsing through those fascinating tomes.
Since when we die we take with us everything that is special to us, it follows that our love of reading will still be with us in the next life. Do the angels have bookcases? Are their homes full of reading matter? It would certainly seem so.
There are stories in the Word where a person on earth sees into heaven. The prophet Ezekiel had a vision of heaven, and in that vision he saw an angel with the scroll of a book, written on both sides. (Ezekiel 2:9,10) Ezekiel was commanded to eat the book. He found that it was sweet in his mouth. The same thing happened to John on the Isle of Patmos. He writes about taking a book from an angel, eating it, and finding it sweet in his mouth but bitter in his stomach. (Revelation 10:9,10)
The main reason for writing in heaven, is so that the Word of God can exist there - the Bible. When angels read the Bible do they see the same stories that we see when we read it? Yes, but from a totally different point of view, not as earthly stories, but as expressions of the infinite love and wisdom of God. (See Heaven and Hell #258-264)
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#17 Angelic wisdom
One of the great tasks in life is to seek for wisdom. The process begins early in life, and continues forever!
I can remember being in situations where older and wiser people than myself were having a discussion. They were tossing ideas back and forth like bean bags. I was impressed by these people. In addition, I seemed to myself to become wiser just by being in the discussion. It was as if their brilliance illuminated me and made me a little smarter than I was.
Wisdom is spiritual light. When we think of the light of heaven shining so much brighter than light in this world, we can get some idea of the wisdom of the angels. They live in a light that is to some extent inaccessible to us on earth.
There are five main ingredients.
1. Because of their integrity, the higher levels of their minds are open and transparent. The angels do not put any effort into trying to deceive, or trying to impress one another.
2. They have so much light because of the warmth of their love. Just as in this world, heat brings light, so in heaven the love of the angels makes them wise.
3. They are without ego. They love truth because it is true, and not for any credit to themselves or personal gain.
4. They openly and gladly share their wisdom with others. This means that when an angel joins a group of other angels, he or she immediately shares the ideas and perceptions of all the others. In this case the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Through this sharing, each angel becomes wiser.
5. They long for truth the way a starving person hungers for food. Because of this hunger they continue growing in wisdom forever.
(See Heaven and Hell #265-275)
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#18 Angelic innocence [TOP]
There is a wonderful scene in the movie, Star Wars where Luke first meets Yoda. He was looking for a powerful and wise being, and thought, at first, that Yoda was just a child. He found that Yoda was incredibly ancient, wise and strong. There is a similar encounter in the movie, E.T. where an alien being seems to be very young and ineffective but proves to be very different. Both speak a profound truth about the angels of heaven, namely, that they are completely innocent and exceptionally wise.
With little children, innocence comes from the fact that they know very little and have so little power. This makes them dependent on their parents. As they grow, they be come more independent and less innocent.
Jesus said that we have to have the innocence of little children to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 10:14,15). As people age, they sem to return to this quality of childhood, but with the added element of wisdom.
So what is the innocence of heaven like? The angels do not have an exaggerated idea of their own importance, but attribute what is good to the Lord. They know how dangerous it is to be led by self-will and prefer to be led by God. They love goodness and delight in the truth. They are content with their lot, and are not the least bit worried about the future. They do not act deceitfully with others, or try to use cunning to get their own way. When they hear something true they immediately apply it to their lives. They know that their knowledge, vast as it is compared to our own, is nothing. The little that they know is like a drop of water compared to the whole ocean.
This innocence is the essence of the goodness of heaven. It is also the heart of the marriage relationship, which is why partners who deeply love each other are playful, almost like little children.
Innocence is a willingness to be led by the Lord. To become innocent is to become like an angel. To be innocent is to be in heaven. (See Heaven and Hell #276-283)
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#19 Peace in Heaven
I was once visiting an older woman, living alone in the remote mountains of Wales. She had something about her that was truly amazing - a kind of contentment. This did not seem to come from her circumstances. She had her share of challenges. It was more something that came from deep inside. This inner quality brought a glow to everything in her life. I had a strong feeling that she had found the secret of happiness. She was at peace.
Innocence and peace are the deepest aspects of heaven. Innocence is the source of all the goodness of heaven and peace is the source of joy.
People who return from a near death experience sometimes describe having had a most peaceful and delightful time, so much so that they were extremely reluctant to return to their usual state in this world. Some manage to hold on to that inner peace when they do return and it changes the whole quality of their life.
Some look for peace in external ways - as if it could come from the absence of strive, or from overcoming problems. But peace is the love of God touching us on the deepest level of our being, which means that peace essentially is a divine quality. The Creator of the universe is at peace, and those who connect with the Creator through love, experience that peace. Although I cannot judge, it seems that that was what I sensed with the woman in Wales.
So long as we live on this natural plane, it is inevitable that we are tossed about in various ways, and we long for peace. The nearest we might get is contentment in God. To work toward achieving greater peace, we can work on our connection with the Prince of Peace. When we feel the joy of God in our hearts, we are experiencing something of that peace of heaven, peace that passes all understanding, peace that is the ultimate goal of all human striving. (See Heaven and Hell #284-290)
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#20 The Connection between Heaven and Earth
A person was hiking alone in the mountains, and stopped to rest. For a moment she felt quite alone, and began thinking how small she was in a remote area of this tiny planet, and its medium sized sun, average galaxy, all in an unimaginably large universe. But the feeling soon passed as she stopped to think of her connections with that other world - the more real world of the spirit. She knew that God was directly present with her as her very life. She also knew that the angels of God were always present - not seen, but sensed in a feeling of peace and contentment.
Then she began to have doubts and fears. Her mind was chilled by anxieties that robbed her of her peace. At first she was alarmed by this. It seemed to wipe away all of the good feelings of the previous state. But then she remembered that we also have devils with us. We do not see them, but we can tell that they are present by the anxiety we feel, and the dark and negative thinking they bring. Remembering this was very helpful. She found that she could tell those evil spirits to get behind her, as she raised her mind to heavenly thoughts and feelings.
After some time of vacillation between the positive and the negative, she remembered another important principle. The Lord and heaven, communicate with us through the Word. So she took out her Bible, and began to read: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.” (Psalm 46:1,2) This reading brought an immediate change of mood. She felt connected to heaven again.
Yes, we live in a physical world, and we are connected with the spiritual one. There are angels present with us at all times, and the Lord, God, never leaves us. We can strengthen that connection by reading the Word, whose stories seem to be concerned about events in the world, but whose deeper meanings connect with heaven itself. (See Heaven and Hell #291-310)
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#21 Heaven and Hell are from the Human race
What are angels, and where do they come from? For years there has been a belief that, before God created the world, He created angels, and that human beings are a totally separate race. In contrast to that, we often hear people talk about a loved one in terms that suggest that having died, the loved-one is now an angel.
So who are angels? Swedenborg’s long experiences of the spiritual realm taught him a very simple principle. All angels began life as people on this or some other planet. Angels are not a separate creation of God, but people just like the ones we know on earth. Popular shows like “Touched by an Angel,” support this idea. The angels in the show look so much like ordinary people that through most of each episode they are thought to be humans. And so the general impression, that good people become angels after death, proves to be the truth! The point is that each one of us is intended to become an angel after we die.
Many people believe this instinctively. Many also have a strong sense that people they know in this world have angelic qualities - “you are such an angel.” Once again, the general impression proves to be the truth. This is the training ground for us to begin to learn what angelic life is like. There are two main qualifications: a love of God, and a love of other people. When we act lovingly, and speak wisely, we are all angels, messengers of God. (See Heaven and Hell #311-317)
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#22 The Gentiles
There are many words used by Christians to describe non-Christians. Most of them have come to have a strongly negative connotation. Looking up the root meanings in “the Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language” we find some of the reasons for this negativity.
ALIEN - Someone “other than” us.
BARBARIAN - A “stammerer,” someone whose language sounds to us like babble.
FOREIGN - “Out of doors,” someone not within our little world
GENTILE - “Belonging to the same Clan or Tribe.” Related to the word “Genteel!”
HEATHEN - “Wild.”
INFIDEL - A person “without faith.”
PAGAN - A “villager or person who lives in the country,” (people who are the slowest to accept new ideas.)
PRIMITIVE - The “first people, the earliest ones.”
SAVAGE - “Belonging to the forest.”
STRANGE - “Someone on the outside” (compare the word: extraneous from which our word stranger comes.)
I guess we are all a little wary of “strangers” but in the Christian world this fear has turned into the doctrine that only Christians can be saved. Many of us have had the experience of meeting someone from a totally different culture and religious background only to find them in some ways more spiritual than the Christians we have known!
Isn’t it strange that not only do many Christians deny the possibility of heaven to pagans, but they even deny it to other branches of Christianity and, more sadly, even to members of their own faith community, as in the old adage: “No one is really Christian but me and thee . . . and sometimes I wonder about thee!”
The reality is that the mercy of the Lord is far greater than our own, that in His sight everyone on the planet has been born for heaven, and that even though there are many false concepts in the seemingly endless forms that religion takes, to get into heaven you need only two:
1. A belief in God - or at least a belief in something higher than yourself, and . . .
2. A desire to live a good life according to what you believe.
Any deficit in knowledge can easily be made up for in the other life.
(See Heaven and Hell #318-328)
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#23 Little Children in Heaven
One of the saddest of all human experiences is the death of little children. We cannot believe that a merciful God would let one of these little ones perish. If we could see the other side of their transition we would not be so horrified. We would notice angels tenderly watching over them, angel mothers welcoming them. We would see their bright, innocent eyes full of wonder as they explore their new world. We would enjoy watching them learning in a spontaneous and imaginative way all of the things they need to know. We would see them dancing through the meadows, with garlands of flowers and beauty all around. We would see their new families as they are adopted into angelic foster homes, with perfect care to their every need.
It would be exciting to watch them learn to walk, speak and read without effort. It would be thrilling to see the eagerness with which they drink in the teachings of the Word. We would enjoy being with them as they are taught by pageants and plays, each one designed to communicate some important truth and some deep feeling.
We would watch them grow “physically” as they grew in wisdom and love, their growing bodies perfectly reflecting their spiritual growth. We would eventually see them attain young womanhood and young manhood, the age that they would stay at forever.
We might even see them, pairing off, finding themselves led by the Lord to a perfect married partner, with whom they would then live to eternity.
Would we see the tantrums and selfishness that children on earth experience? Yes - at least to some extent, and this because it is important for them to know the difference between their hereditary instincts and their spiritual life.
And what of non-Christian children? Would they be there? Yes indeed. A merciful God would not exclude a child from heaven simply because the parents were not Christians. God does not require the external ceremony of baptism as a gateway to heaven, but the spiritual process which it represents. In short, if we saw these children, we might still feel sad at our own loss, but would rejoice at their gain. (See Heaven and Hell #329-345)
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#24 The Wise and the Simple
In this world of IQ testing, SAT scores and numerous other measurements of intelligence most of us can’t help feeling rather dull. I have been in situations where the conversation was so far above my head that I was struggling for air. Not normally shy, I found that I did not dare to open my mouth for fear of sounding stupid.
Reading about the wisdom of angels, the question naturally arises, is that situation likely to happen in heaven? Angels are so much wiser than we are.
And then I remember times when I have been talking with a farmer, leaning over the back fence, feeling totally comfortable, not feeling stupid at all, and at the same time having a wonderful sense that I was in the presence of real wisdom. I have had the same experience talking with a grandmother whose education did not reach past High School, but whose words were very profound.
What is it that produces wisdom? It is certainly not intelligence. There are very intelligent people who are not wise at all. It is not from education. There are many highly educated people who lack common sense. Wisdom comes from a love of truth, not for glory, but just because it is true. There are people who have this delight in truth that makes them seekers. They are not content with sham, and are deeply affected and delighted with truth when they find it.
They are not interested in accumulating knowledge. What they learn they translate directly into their lives. They do not understand what it is to learn just for the sake of learning. To them truth is a support for love and living a good life. This is what the wisdom of angels is like.
We can increase our capacity for wisdom by getting in touch with our own love of truth, and by looking especially for those ideas that will make us better citizens of this world and the next. This is how we can approach the wisdom of the angels.
“The human mind is like soil. Its quality is according to the way it is cultivated.” Heaven and Hell #356
(See Heaven and Hell #346-356)
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#25 The Rich and the Poor in Heaven
Is having material wealth good or bad for our spiritual state? Jesus said: “It is hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19:23) Some Christians have deliberately made themselves poor because of this saying. But most of us live with the idea that material wealth is a good thing (why else would there be such a fervor over Lotteries?). The fact is that Jesus was talking about being poor “in spirit” (Matthew 5:3). He was talking about humility.
Are worldly riches curses or blessings? There is a very simple answer. If your eternal lot is heaven, then whatever wealth or poverty you had in this world must have been all right.
“Heaven is for all who live a life of faith and love, whether rich or poor. . . . The rich enter heaven just as easily as the poor. People are not shut out of heaven on account of their wealth, nor received into heaven on account of their poverty.” (Heaven and Hell #357)
We have been born into this world, and need to come to terms with it. It is perfectly all right to seek to be financially successful, provided it is not achieved by fraud or deceit. We are allowed to enjoy the good things of life provided we do not make them more important than spiritual things.
As far as our own spiritual life is concerned, so long as we watch out for greed and materialism, it is good for us to be successful. And as far as our judgments of others are concerned, we need to be careful not to make judgments about people’s spiritual state on the basis of how much money they have, whether it is great or small. Money itself is totally neutral. By our handling of money we can make it good or evil.
Our spiritual state is more important than our bank account and the degree of usefulness to others is more important than our salary. It is a matter of keeping things in balance. (See Heaven and Hell #357-365)
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#26 Marriages in Heaven
I love helping couples prepare for their wedding. For many of them it is the most significant event of their entire life. We talk about various aspects of marriage, especially the fact that it is a partnership of people who are equal and different.
Naturally we think of love as being the most important ingredient, but I like to point out that love is not a feeling. It lies deeper than our feelings and gives rise to them. Love is a kind of inner consent that says “YES” to this other person, and says “YES” to working with that person to create a lifelong bond of friendship, cooperation, respect and love. Love is a commitment, and a decision.
Many couples agree that falling in love was a spiritual event for them. And many of them select passages for their wedding service that talk about the eternity of marriage. This is of special interest considering that many of them belong to churches that do not believe in the eternity of marriage. It seems that love creates its own perception and its own wisdom. The feeling of love is “this is forever.”
There is a song from “West Side Story” that some couples choose to have sung at their wedding. It is called “One hand, one heart” and includes the refrain: “Only death will part us now.” Just as I am beginning to feel uncomfortable about this refrain it shifts, and on the last verse says: “Even death won’t part us now.”
There is marriage after death. It is between one man and one woman - possibly people who had been married to each other on earth, but only if they truly loved each other on a spiritual level. The force that binds them together is the force of the divine love that joins them into a oneness that is full of tenderness and delight.
I do believe that people who marry for love, marry in the hope that their love will last, not just for a few years on earth, but forever.
(See Heaven and Hell #366-386)
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#27 The jobs of the Angels
Which would you rather have, eternal idleness, or ongoing useful activity? Swedenborg found that the joy of heaven is the satisfaction that comes from doing something useful for yourself or for others. He noted that just as every organ and cell in the body has to make a contribution to the welfare of the whole system, so every angel, and every community of angels is involved in usefulness,. Indeed, this usefulness is the real source of heavenly joy and happiness! The angels have jobs, and they love their work.
But what do they do? We know that there are guardian angels. There are angels who are with people as they die, and other angels that help them as they wake up in the spiritual world. Some angels have the work of welcoming people who died in their infancy and raising them in heaven. Others are sent to protect people on earth from harm.
But the majority of the jobs of the angels would be a total mystery to us. They have a thousand times as many occupations available to them as we do on earth, and most of them are beyond our present understanding. To get some idea of this, imagine visiting a hunter-gatherer community. The community is self-contained, and the needs of everyone are provided for, but the jobs are very limited. Some are employed in making tools, others in finding game, some in preparing food, building shelter, possibly making utensils, clothing and fabrics, and so on. It would not take you long to list all of the jobs open in such a community. You would also find that each individual might have several different things to do to help the group survive. Could you explain to them the various jobs in our modern cities? How many of them do you understand yourself?
Project your imagination into the future of life on this planet. If you could be transported to the year 3000 A.D., and look at the jobs people would be doing more than a thousand years from now, how many of their jobs could you understand?
One more leap of imagination takes you to the spiritual world, to heaven and the uses of the angels. They are far more numerous than jobs on earth, far more satisfying (because each person does what he or she loves to do), and far more valuable. The kingdom of heaven is a kingdom of useful activities, and it is through these activities that the angels find their deepest satisfactions.
(See Heaven and Hell #387-394)
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#28 Angelic Happiness
A person was searching for the truth. On hearing that there was a wise Guru sitting on a mountain, he made the arduous journey up the mountain so that he could put a burning question: “What is the purpose of life?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, the Guru said: “To be happy.”
The man looked very puzzled and a little disappointed at the answer. “Does this mean that I can do whatever I like?”
The Guru replied, “The purpose of life is to have the deepest satisfaction and the greatest happiness. You probably have no idea how to be really happy. Try to find happiness. If you need to learn more, you can always come back and ask again.”
The man descended the mountain feeling relieved. He thought that his own happiness was the most important thing in the world. He got a job, but only went to work when it made him feel good. He got into a relationship, but thought only about his own happiness, taking no interest in the happiness of the other person. After years of self-indulgence and deep disappointment, he decided that he needed to talk to the Guru again. So he made the journey back up the mountain.
“What is the purpose of life?” he asked again, as if he had never asked the question before.
“To be happy” said the Guru. “I told you that years ago.”
“But it doesn’t work. I tried it. I lost my job and my friends and didn’t have that much fun.”
“I told you that you did not know how to be happy. How do you feel about your life so far?”
“It has been miserable.”
“Do you feel that misery is the purpose of life?”
“No, something is wrong.”
“Then you need to learn how to be happy. I will give you a few clues. You will never be truly happy if you live only for yourself, or simply indulge your cravings. To be happy you have to find out some way of giving happiness to others, and being in meaningful and loving relationships with others. When you learn that you will know what heaven is, because you will know what heavenly joy is. Whether you say heaven or heavenly joy it amounts to the same thing. What would heaven be like if it were not joyful?”
“Why does it have to be so complicated?’
“It is not really complicated at all, but for some reason, many people have great difficulty finding real happiness. Please do not settle for some passing pleasure. Eternal happiness is so much better than that.”
The man went down the mountain, continued his life in search of true happiness and eventually died. In heaven he happened to meet the Guru.
“Well,” said the Guru, “what do you think now?”
“I have never known such bliss. This happiness far surpasses any idea of joy I had before, and all the struggles to achieve it were completely worthwhile. This really is the purpose of life!”
(See Heaven and Hell #395-414)
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#29 The immensity of heaven.
A parent was having one of those deep conversations with a ten year old child.
“I want to die,” says the child.
“Why, are you feeling depressed?”
“No, I’m feeling great, but I think I’d better die before it is too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“You might think this is stupid, but I want to die before heaven gets filled up.”
“That would be sad, but what makes you think heaven is getting filled up?”
“We learned in school that the world population is growing, and even now millions of people die every year. They talk about the world getting overpopulated, well, what about heaven?”
“The fear about overpopulation is because the earth has limited resources. People don’t take up much room in this world. In fact you could put the whole population of the world in the Tucson valley. Now since angels don’t need physical food and don’t use up natural resources, there isn’t the same problem. Besides, angels don’t take up any room at all, they are spiritual, not physical. They don’t take up space. The Lord’s heart is large enough to love everyone, from all places in the universe, over all time, so heaven will never be full. So please don’t be in a hurry to get to heaven. There is no rush. And there is plenty for you to do in this world before you go on to the next one. You are so precious in this world, that you should stay here as long as you can, leaving it to the Lord to decide when to call you to heaven. ” (See Heaven and Hell #415-420)
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#30 Between Heaven and Hell
Uncle Fred died. The family was gathered for the resurrection service, and people were saying how wonderful it was that Uncle Fred was now an angel in heaven. Some people looked a little bit askance. They knew too much about Uncle Fred to think that all he had to do was to die and go to heaven. It is not that he was such a bad man either. Like most of us he was a mixture - a little of this, and a little of that. You couldn’t really call him an angel, and you wouldn’t think of calling him a devil. He was “between heaven and hell.”
Swedenborg discovered that very few people are totally ready for heaven or hell when they die. They have work to do. It is reassuring to think that Uncle Fred will have time to continue his spiritual journey after death, and that we will all have time to go through whatever process we need to experience in order to have an undivided mind.
In many ways our life in this world is “between heaven and hell.” We have our good moments. We know the joy of really caring for other people, and have had times of genuine peace. We have also known the frustration of dealing with our own cravings, our weaknesses and our selfishness. We have already begun the process of sorting out our spiritual values, and finding our direction. The more work we do on this as we live our life on earth, the more ready we will be for the heaven the Lord has provided for us after death. (See Heaven and Hell #421-431)
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#31 Every person is a Spirit
Two people were taking a stroll through a beautiful city park. They were very intent on their conversation. They walked alongside the lake, under the great trees, over the bridges, by the fields, talking as they went. After a couple of hours one of them noticed that the sun was setting. They stopped, looked at each other, and wondered where they were. They had no idea how far they had walked or how long. It was as if their bodies had been moving through physical space and time while their minds and hearts were on their own journey, so interesting that it blocked out an awareness of the other.
This is a reminder that we are spiritual beings. We have a physical life, and to some extent we live in a world of space and time, but the real world we inhabit consists of feelings and thoughts. Our mind (or spirit) even has its own sense of time, which explains why we can feel that an hour passes as quickly as a minute, and minutes can drag on like hours.
Our internal world is really a spiritual world. It is not material. It has no weight, and no time-space dimension. As someone said, we are not physical beings with a spiritual life, we are spiritual beings with a physical life. This is good news because it means that our real life, the life that we truly call our own, does not depend on time and space, and so can survive death!
Those two people walking in the park were communicating on a spiritual level, and their bodies were like machines going through their normal activities. If through some tragic accident they were to be killed simultaneously, they would probably continue walking and talking, scarcely aware that anything had happened!
We are on this earthly plane just for a time, to learn lessons that will stay with us forever. (See Heaven and Hell #432-444)
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#32 What it is like to die
A woman was talking about her own death. “I’m not afraid of being dead. I know that we must all die, and I know that God has a place for me in heaven.”
“Well what are you afraid of?” came the response.
“I’m afraid of the process of dying. I see these people who lose their memory, can’t walk anymore, have great pain, - the process seems to be horrible. That is what I am afraid of.”
About twenty years later the woman died. She was almost 90 years old, and still living alone without assistance. Her mind was alert, and she had no significant pain. She stood up to go and take a nap, an aneurism burst, and within minutes she was gone. What was it like for her to die? It seemed as if it was a pleasant process!
Many people who have near death experiences report going through a time of great peace and inner calm, even those whose bodies have been writhing in agony. The love and beauty that surround them in this near death experience are so great that they hesitate to return to this world. Evidently dying is very enjoyable.
Swedenborg was permitted to go through the process as if he was dying, so that he could describe it in some detail. He found that the connection between body and spirit was related to the motions of the heart and lungs, and that when those motions ceased, the spirit was gently withdrawn from the body, and seemed to be lifted up. He noticed that there were celestial angels present with him, sitting silently, and holding his mind in thoughts of eternal life. At this time he was soothed by a most beautiful fragrance. After a while these celestial angels withdrew, and spiritual angels were present, eventually giving him the use of sight by rolling something like a veil from his eyes. At first the light was a dim blue color. When the light increased to the point where he could see again, he noticed these angels, and they told him that he was a spirit - a person living in the spiritual world.
In his case, of course, he had not actually died, but went through the process so that he could tell us about it. What he reported fits well into the near death experience reported by so many. The main point is that the transition between the two world is very pleasant, a very sweet journey to continuing life. (See Heaven and Hell #445-452)
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#33 After death we are in a perfect human form.
When we look at another human being, do we just see a physical object? Are we not seeing an expression of feelings and thoughts, purpose and meaning? Are we not seeing something spiritual?
Looking into a person’s eyes is like looking into their soul. The eyes communicate so many things that are well beyond the merely physical level. We see feelings, determination and intelligence and these are all spiritual qualities. The whole face is an index of the mind, each part communicating something about the person. The physical senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell all have a spiritual counterpart.
So many parts of the human body have become symbols for parts of the spirit - and so we have expressions like: a warm heart, being clear sighted, being deaf to what others say, not having much backbone, not being able to stomach something, being thick skinned, being able to stand on our own two feet, and so on.
Swedenborg found that when people die they cast off the physical body, but then appear in a body in the spiritual world! This body looks physical, but it is spiritual and obeys spiritual laws. The body we seem to have in dreams is something like this. But the spiritual body we have after death is much more real than anything we experience in dreams. Its reality comes from the fact that it expresses who we really are. We need not worry that after death we will be like wisps of smoke - insubstantial beings. We will have a body that feels to us just as solid and real as our physical body does on earth. Unlike the physical body, it grows stronger, more vibrant and younger over time, and it never dies. (See Heaven and Hell #453-460)
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#34 The memory after death
A woman was telling her friend about her life, and the friend, deeply moved by the story, said: “You ought to write a book.”
In a way she was writing a book - it is called the Book of Life, and it is inscribed on the pages of our memory. We all have such a book. And it is written in indelible ink! There are times, of course, when we would like to erase a page or two, but, in computer terms, this is a read-only file. If we could change our memory, we would be in danger of losing the good memories along with the bad. But what are the bad memories? Often they involve events that have been some of our greatest teachers. I have heard people describe horrendous chapters in their book of life, and then say, “and I wouldn’t change it.” Why not? Because it was part of their story, and contributed to their life in a significant way.
As we age, our memory can become less reliable. This might indicate that after death we would have no memory at all, but the fact is that although we lose our material possessions when we die, and though we lose our physical bodies, we do not lose our memories.
Does this mean that we will forever know our telephone number, social security number, address and a thousand details that have no use after death? The external facts are filed away and forgotten. The quality of our life as built up through our earthly experiences is another level of memory, and this remains. Will we be haunted by some memories we would rather forget? No, because in heaven we will live in the present, not in the past or the future. Any time it is of value to have some fact of our life brought back, these memories can be accessed. They are like items in a scrapbook, carefully filed away, and rarely looked at.
All of this is according to the principle that nothing of importance is ever wasted, especially that unique story which is called our book of life. (See Heaven and Hell #461-469)
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#35 Who are we after death?
A person was talking to her friend: “I know that I am going to die one day. I feel healthy now, but I know that our life in this world is limited. I wonder what I will be like after death.”
“That’s easy” answered the friend. “You will be the same person that you are now! When you die you won’t change very much.”
“How can you say that? Maybe I’ll be completely different.”
“Some things may change, but your dominant interests and loves will not change. If they did, you wouldn’t be you any more. You would be someone else. What makes you unique are the things you care about, especially that main love in your heart. That is what makes you to be the person you are, and that does not change after death.”
“Do you mean that I am stuck with my faults and imperfections?”
“No, it simply means that the strongest love in your heart is what you really are. After you put off the earthly body and its imperfections, you can also put off anything that does not fit with who you really are.”
“So who will I be after I die?”
“You will be yourself, only more so.”
“So what kind of life is waiting for me after I die?”
“The life that is waiting for you is your life - the life you are leading here and the life you want to continue to live once you get there.” (See Heaven and Hell #470-484)
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#36 Our environment after death
We can’t help wondering what heaven looks like. The amazing thing is that people in a sense create their own environment in heaven. What they see around them reflects what is going on inside them. This is somewhat true in the natural world. Obviously we don’t create mountains just by thinking about them, or sunny weather, but we do create sunny moods in our heart. Remember the cartoon where a particularly gloomy person walks around with a cloud over his head. Rain is pouring down directly on him and on no one else. There are people who create that kind of atmosphere for themselves.
Swedenborg gives some particular instances. He says that in heaven people who have had a deep love of divine truth live on mountains with their homes sparkling with precious stones. Those who love to keep on learning and developing their minds have homes surrounded by the most beautiful gardens whose plants are constantly changing. People who attribute everything to God have homes with lots of crystal and diamonds.
This is why attitudes are so important. Positive attitudes create a positive environment. Negative attitudes create negative surroundings. This world is the place where we learn how to make our heaven beautiful. How do we do this? We do it by cultivating a love of God, love of other people, honesty, kindness and respect for truth. When we work on developing these positive traits we create a beautiful world inside our own mind and begin work on creating a lovely and delightful environment for ourselves after death. (See Heaven and Hell #485-490)
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#37 Our Facades
People were preparing to go to a class reunion. Some were very concerned about what they would look like and wondered what the other people would think of them after all those years. They thought a lot about what clothes to wear for each function and rehearsed the things they planned to say. They were fearful of the comparisons they expected as to who looked better, who had the best jobs, what people thought of their weight and even the car they were driving. Of course, they were very interested to see what other people would be wearing and what kind of car they could afford.
Others were preparing for the same class reunion. They had not thought of their high school for years. They were very much wrapped up in life as it is in the present. They had been doing spiritual work, trying to rise above critical thoughts, making an effort to live in the present, looking beyond appearances with other people to think of the deeper aspects of their life. They did their packing at the last minute, simply putting in their favorite clothes, hardly even thinking about whether other people would approve or not. They thought that there was no point in trying to impress their classmates. Their purpose in going to the reunion was to be with friends, share something of the reality of their life and learn something of the reality of the lives of others.
When people die and go to the spiritual world there is also a kind of reunion. Shortly after death people find themselves in a world much like the world they left behind. They dress in a similar way, put on similar fronts and still attach importance to external things. This is helpful, enabling them to make contact with others who may have died years before. Usually husband and wife meet, even though one may have died decades before the other. Being in this external state they can recognize each other and make some kind of contact. Eventually they want to go a little deeper. That happens when they put off the facades, and speak what is really on their minds and in their hearts. Then couples can see if they are meant for each other or not. Other relationships also change as true feelings are brought out.
Like class reunions these meetings in the spiritual world have to begin on a fairly external level. Later they can move closer to their true life. Our facades are a temporary way of dealing with others. When the facades are put off life continues on a deeper level. (See Heaven and Hell #491-498)
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#38 Our deeper selves
Class reunions can be artificial and frustrating. They can also be very real and fascinating. It all depends on how much the people are willing to be transparent with each other. If a reunion lasts long enough, some people get tired of the games, throw off the masks and take the risk of saying just what they mean and doing just what they want to do. If more and more people were to do this, it could lead to some interesting changes. They might find that people they had thought of in high school as nerds were some of the people they were most drawn to now and those who were popular felt like strangers to them.
We know how tiring it can be to live behind masks and how scary it is to be open and honest. But in the long run, the masks create tremendous distance and loneliness. People who take the risk of being honest can find true bonds of understanding and love.
The same is true after death. People cannot wear masks forever. It is a wise aspect of providence that when we die we not only put off our material possessions and our earthly bodies, we also put off many of the pretenses of life and become more openly the person we are inside.
To some people this shift to openness is very refreshing. It comes as a great relief to finally be yourself. To others it might be terrifying. But it must happen to all, because in the life after death we can no longer fake it. Life is real and our true nature will come to light. As Jesus said: “There is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known.” (Matthew 10:26, compare Luke 8:17, Mark 4:22)
We can begin the process of becoming more truly ourselves even here on earth. It will make our life more real to others and to ourselves and will bring us closer to the qualities of heaven. (See Heaven and Hell #499-511)
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#39 Orientation
If a person takes on a new job or enters a school for the first time, it is likely that there will be a period of orientation. The person needs to be able to get around in this new location and understand the systems and rules that operate there. It is similar after death. Before arriving at their final home in heaven, newcomers need to have a time of instruction or orientation.
There is one major difference between this kind of instruction and much of our education on earth. When I was in High School I remember the groans that went up when we tried to tackle some new problem in mathematics. “Why are we bothering to learn this? I will never have any use for this in my life.” Various things were said to quell the student revolt, to the effect that learning math was teaching them how to think and that these things would come in handy when they built a house. But we could see that most of us would never build a house, and would forever forget the things we learned in High School math.
Whether that is valid or not is debatable. The scene shifts to Bible study with adults looking at some part of the Word. The question could be raised again: “What is the use of learning this?” One answer is that although much of the material is of no immediate practical value, some principles are so important that they need to become part of our life at once if they have not been so already. The command: “Love your neighbor as yourself” is one of those principles. This is not just some theory that can be learned and as quickly forgotten. It is something to be incorporated into the fabric of a person’s life.
When people learn after death they learn in this spirit. The knowledge goes into action. It does not just go into the memory. Knowing the truth does not bring people into heaven, but living the truth in a useful life does. And, of course, only those who live the truth really know it. (See Heaven and Hell #512-520)
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#40 Why doesn’t God just let us all in?
“God must be very cruel” the person said, with some bitterness.
“Why is that?” was the answer.
“He is all merciful, right? Then why doesn’t He use that mercy to open the gates of heaven to everyone?”
“Get serious. You remind me of the eager sophomore who kept pleading with the coach to let him play the game. Finally the coach relented and let him on the field. He was not only a hopeless player, he soon got injured because he had no idea how to protect himself. The coach finally had to explain to him that it was not merciful to let him play when he wasn’t prepared, and couldn’t handle it. God is the same way about heaven.”
“But heaven is not a football game! I would love to be in heaven. I’m ready. Send me in.”
“You think you are ready, but suppose you find that you don’t like it there?”
“Wait a minute. Why would anybody think that heaven wasn’t nice?”
“Because they are not ready for the life of heaven. God does everything He can to prepare people for heaven, and to help them to love the qualities of heaven, but He does not open the gates to everyone because He knows that some people cannot survive in heaven. They wouldn’t like it, and wouldn’t even be able to breathe in that atmosphere.”
“Are you saying that God can’t MAKE people fit for heaven. He can do anything, right?”
“Well, sort of. God can do anything that is orderly. He uses orderly means to help people prepare for heaven. He is merciful and He is wise.” (See Heaven and Hell #521-527)
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#41 It is not all that difficult to get to heaven If a person takes on a new job or enters a school for the first time, it is likely that there will be a period of orientation. The person needs to be able to get around in this new location and understand the systems and rules that operate there. It is similar after death. Before arriving at their final home in heaven, newcomers need to have a time of instruction or orientation.
There is one major difference between this kind of instruction and much of our education on earth. When I was in High School I remember the groans that went up when we tried to tackle some new problem in mathematics. “Why are we bothering to learn this? I will never have any use for this in my life.” Various things were said to quell the student revolt, to the effect that learning math was teaching them how to think and that these things would come in handy when they built a house. But we could see that most of us would never build a house, and would forever forget the things we learned in High School math.
Whether that is valid or not is debatable. The scene shifts to Bible study with adults looking at some part of the Word. The question could be raised again: “What is the use of learning this?” One answer is that although much of the material is of no immediate practical value, some principles are so important that they need to become part of our life at once if they have not been so already. The command: “Love your neighbor as yourself” is one of those principles. This is not just some theory that can be learned and as quickly forgotten. It is something to be incorporated into the fabric of a person’s life.
When people learn after death they learn in this spirit. The knowledge goes into action. It does not just go into the memory. Knowing the truth does not bring people into heaven, but living the truth in a useful life does. And, of course, only those who live the truth really know it. (See Heaven and Hell #512-520)
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#40 Why doesn’t God just let us all in?
“God must be very cruel” the person said, with some bitterness.
“Why is that?” was the answer.
“He is all merciful, right? Then why doesn’t He use that mercy to open the gates of heaven to everyone?”
“Get serious. You remind me of the eager sophomore who kept pleading with the coach to let him play the game. Finally the coach relented and let him on the field. He was not only a hopeless player, he soon got injured because he had no idea how to protect himself. The coach finally had to explain to him that it was not merciful to let him play when he wasn’t prepared, and couldn’t handle it. God is the same way about heaven.”
“But heaven is not a football game! I would love to be in heaven. I’m ready. Send me in.”
“You think you are ready, but suppose you find that you don’t like it there?”
“Wait a minute. Why would anybody think that heaven wasn’t nice?”
“Because they are not ready for the life of heaven. God does everything He can to prepare people for heaven, and to help them to love the qualities of heaven, but He does not open the gates to everyone because He knows that some people cannot survive in heaven. They wouldn’t like it, and wouldn’t even be able to breathe in that atmosphere.”
“Are you saying that God can’t MAKE people fit for heaven. He can do anything, right?”
“Well, sort of. God can do anything that is orderly. He uses orderly means to help people prepare for heaven. He is merciful and He is wise.” (See Heaven and Hell #521-527)
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Two people were talking about the fact that they were both getting older, and that eventually they would be leaving this world for the next.
“I am a very imperfect person. You have to be so good to get into heaven. I do not expect to be some high and wonderful angel. All I want is to scrape into the outer gates.”
“I don’t understand. It is not difficult to get into heaven. And why would you want to just scrape in? Why not go all the way to the highest level?”
“I feel so unworthy and flawed. I am afraid I won’t get into heaven at all.”
“Look, we are all imperfect. That isn’t the point. The point is, do you love goodness? Do you want to do the right thing? That is all it takes to get into heaven. Just try to live a good life.”
“I do, I do, but I keep backsliding, and making mistakes.”
“So long as you regret your mistakes you are fine. The problem is with people who prefer to make mistakes, who really want to be evil. If you want to get into heaven, all you have to do is do the best you can - believe in God and try to do what is right.”
“I thought that people had to suffer and deprive themselves if they wanted to get to heaven. Some people reject worldly pleasures and eat the most basic foods. They even inflict pain on themselves to make themselves worthy of heaven.”
“I can just see an angel looking down on them and saying - What on earth are those people on earth doing? Preparing for heaven? How do they think they can prepare for heaven by being miserable? Heaven is a place of great joy. You don’t have to do great things to get into heaven. Just live in the world, but keep an eye on heaven and try to bring God and spirituality into the things you do. This is not difficult and does not require people to deprive themselves.” (See Heaven and Hell #528-535)
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