6008. 'And Joseph will put his hand on your eyes means that the internal celestial will impart life to it. This is clear from the representation of 'Joseph' as the internal celestial, dealt with in 5869, 5877; and from the meaning of 'putting a hand on the eyes' as imparting life. For 'putting a hand on the eyes' is used to mean that the external or bodily senses will be closed and the internal senses opened, thus that a raising up will be effected and life will thereby be imparted. A hand was placed on people's eyes when they were dying because 'death' meant an awakening into life, 3498, 3505, 4618, 4621. For when a person dies he does not really die; he merely lays aside the body that has served him for his use in the world and passes into the next life in a body which serves him for his use there.

492. As to the first state, the state of more outward concerns, we arrive in this immediately after our death. Everyone has more outward and more inward aspects of the spirit. We use the outer aspects of our spirit to adapt our bodies in the world - especially our faces, speech, and behavior - to our interactions with other people. The more inward aspects of our spirit are the ones proper to our intentions and consequent thought, which rarely show in our faces, speech, and behavior. We are trained from infancy to present ourselves as friendly, benevolent, and honest, and to conceal the thoughts of our own intentions. So we acquire a habitual lifestyle that is outwardly moral and civil no matter what we are like inwardly. As a result of this habitual behavior, we scarcely know our own inner natures and pay no attention to them.