8352. 'Saying, What shall we drink?' means that they cannot tolerate truths because, as a result of their lack of affection [for good], they find them unpleasant. This is clear from the meaning of 'drinking' as being taught truths and receiving them, and also as having an affection for them and consequently making them one's own, dealt with in 3069, 3168, 3772, 4017, 4018, but here as not being able to tolerate them because - as a result of the lack of affection for good, meant by 'the waters were bitter', according to the explanation above in 8349 - they are found to be unpleasant. This temptation consists in their complaining and their grief, because the truths which previously they have found pleasant, and which have thus constituted their spiritual life or the life of heaven for them, now seem unpleasant to them, so unpleasant that they can scarcely tolerate them.

[2] A merely natural person cannot believe that anything such as this could be a cause of grief. For he thinks, 'What difference does it make to me whether truths are pleasant or unpleasant? If they are unpleasant, let them be cast aside.' But a spiritual person has an entirely different feeling. Learning truths and being enlightened in the kinds of matters that belong to his soul and so to spiritual life is the delight of his life. Therefore when those truths are lacking, his spiritual life becomes a trial and burden to him; and this gives rise to grief and anguish. The reason is that the affection for good flows in unceasingly from the Lord by way of the internal man, arousing accordant things in the external man which have previously been the cause of delight belonging to an affection for truth; and when these things are under attack from the evils of self-love and love of the world, in which too the person has previously taken delight, a conflict of delights or affections results, which gives rise to anguish, and this in turn to grief and complaint.

[3] A brief statement needs to be made about the situation when temptation arises through lack of truth. Nourishment for spiritual life consists in goodness and truth, just as nourishment for natural life consists in food and drink. If good is lacking it is as if food is lacking; and when truth is lacking it is as if drink is lacking. The grief this causes is like the grief caused by hunger and thirst. This comparison arises from correspondence, for food corresponds to goodness, and drink to truth. This correspondence is also the reason why food and drink nourish the body better and more suitably if, during a dinner or a luncheon, the person has at the same time as he eats the pleasure of discussing with others the kinds of things he loves than if he sits at table alone without company. In the second situation the person's vessels for receiving food are narrowed, but in the first the same vessels are opened. These things are brought about by the correspondence of spiritual food and natural food. The reason for saying the pleasure of discussing with others the kinds of things he loves is that all that pleasure is related to goodness and truth; for there does not exist anything in the world that is unrelated to them both. What the person loves is related to the good present with him, and that which informs about good and so links itself to that good, is related to truth.

3167. 'And to [her] mother' means to natural truth also, that is to say, spiritual things passed from the rational to it, even as they passed to natural good, dealt with just above. This is clear from the meaning of 'a mother' as the Church, which by virtue of truth is called 'a mother', dealt with in 289, 2717. So that people may know how spiritual things pass to natural good and to natural truth as a result of truth being introduced into good in the rational, a brief description must be given here. Everyone has an internal and an external, his internal being called the internal man, and his external the external man. But few know what the internal man is and what the external. The internal man is one and the same as the spiritual man, and the external man one and the same as the natural man. The spiritual man depends for understanding and wisdom on things that belong to the light of heaven, whereas the natural depends for its understanding and wisdom on things that belong to the light of the world. Regarding those two kinds of light, see 3138. For in heaven none but spiritual things exist, whereas in the world none but natural exist. The human being was created in such a way that in him spiritual things and natural things, that is, his spiritual man and his natural man, should accord with each other or make one. But in that case the spiritual man ought to have control over the things in the natural, and the natural man ought to obey, like a servant his master.

[2] Through the Fall however the natural man started to raise itself above the spiritual man and so turn Divine order itself upside down. As a consequence the natural man separated itself from the spiritual, and spiritual things could not reach it any longer except so to speak through chinks to provide the ability to think and speak. But so that spiritual things might flow in once more into the natural man this had to be regenerated by the Lord, that is, truth from the natural man had to be introduced and joined to good in the rational. When this happens spiritual things have access to the natural man, for now the light of heaven flows in and illuminates things in the natural man, and causes what is there to receive light. The goods there receive the warmth that the light conveys, which is love and charity, whereas the truth receives rays of light, which is faith. It is in this way that spiritual things pass from the rational into natural good and truth. Natural good in that case consists in all the delight and satisfaction gained from having service to the spiritual man as the end in view, and so service to the neighbour, more so to one's country, more so still to the Lord's kingdom, and above all to the Lord. And natural truth consists in all doctrinal teaching and factual knowledge which have wisdom, that is, the performance of those things, as the end in view.