33. Everyone is capable of knowing very well that no life is possible without love of some kind, nor any type of joy whatsoever except the joy that flows out from the love. Furthermore the nature of the love determines the nature of the life and of the joy. If you took away your loves, and what amounts to the same, your desires (since these stem from love), thought would instantly perish and you would be as one dead. This I have been shown convincingly. Self-love and the love of the world present a semblance of life and of joy, but because they are absolutely contrary to true love, which is loving the Lord above all things and the neighbour as oneself, it is clear that neither of them is love but hatred. For the more anyone loves himself and the world, the more he hates his neighbour and so the Lord. Consequently true love is love to the Lord, true life is the life inherent in love from Him, and true joy is the joy of that life. The existence of more than one true love is not possible. Nor consequently is the existence of more than one true life possible which is the source of all true joy and happiness, such as angels in the heavens enjoy.

681. And the seventh angel sounded.- That this signifies the influx of Divine Truth through the heavens from the Lord, and thence the consequent final changes is evident from the signification of sounding, in reference to an angel, as denoting the influx of Divine Truth from the Lord, and a consequent change in the lower parts, where the evil are (concerning this see above, n. 489, 502). To sound has this signification, because a trumpet and a horn signify Divine Truth about to be revealed, and also revealed, as may be seen above (n. 55, 262). The final change from the influx of Divine Truth from the Lord, is meant by the sounding of the seventh angel, because the number seven signifies what is full and final, as may be seen above (n. 20, 24, 257, 300, 486). The changes in the lower parts, where the evil are, caused by a stronger or milder influx of Divine Truth through the heavens from the Lord, and thus by various kinds of influx, have been amply treated of above (n. 413:2, 418, 419, 426, 489, 493); it is therefore unnecessary to say any more concerning them in this place. That the separation of the evil from the good, and the casting of the evil into hell, and many other changes, resulted from these various kinds of influx, may be seen in the places cited. From these things the signification of the seven angels sounding is now evident.