334. I have also said that the working of divine providence continues forever, because all angels grow more perfect in wisdom forever. Each of us does so, though, on whatever level of desire for what is good and true we had when we left this world. This is the level that is perfected to eternity. Anything beyond this level is outside an angel, not within, and whatever is outside cannot be developed within. This is the meaning of the good measure, pressed down, shaken, and overflowing, that would be poured into the laps of people who forgave others and were generous to them (Luke 7:37, 38 [Luke 6:37-38]), people who are living good and caring lives.

200. Heaven's Form, Which Determines How People Associate and Communicate There

To some extent, we can determine what heaven's form is like on the basis of what has been presented in the preceding chapters - that heaven has a basic similarity in its greatest and its smallest instances (72); that therefore each community is a heaven in lesser form, and each angel in least form (51-58); that as heaven as a whole resembles a single person, so every community of heaven resembles a person in lesser form and every individual angel in least form (59-77); that the wisest people are at the center, with the less wise around them all the way to the borders, and that the same holds true for each community (43); and that people who are engaged in the good of love live along the east-west axis and people who are engaged in truths that derive from the good along the south-north axis, which also holds true for each community (148-149). All these things are determined by heaven's form, so we can figure out what that form is like in a general sense. ¹

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