159. It is not easy to perceive however how these matters can be so unless the nature of the state of the celestial man is known. The state of the celestial man is such that the internal man is quite distinct from the external, so distinct in fact that he perceives what belongs to the internal man and what to the external man, and how the external man is governed by the Lord through the internal. But because his descendants desired the proprium, which belongs to the external man, their state became so altered that they no longer perceived any distinction between the internal man and the external. Instead they perceived the internal man as being one with the external, for this is what perception comes to be once man desires the proprium.

A company might have executives setting policy and strategy, engineers designing products, managers handling personnel and others handling various functions. They all do different things -- but if they're doing them with a shared underlying purpose, the company -- and the individuals in it -- will likely be successful. The Lord wants all human society to function in a similar way. We have different skills and individual loves, but if we all share a mutual love -- a love of serving others -- then society will function as one, will be a reflection of heaven and will be a good receptacle for the Lord's love. This can also happen within each of us, as we unify our talents and ideas around a central love. And in an abstract sense, it illustrates how a wide collection of varying ideas can be unified around a shared good intention. That is the kind of love pictured when “one” is used in the Bible, either as a specific number or in the sense of several people or objects “being one.” In more casual references -- when used to identify a specific person or object -- the meaning is relatively literal, and is connected to that person or object.