10295. '[These] sweet ones' means affections springing from spiritual good. This is clear from the meaning of 'sweet-smelling spices' as affections for truth springing from good, dealt with above in 10291. As regards their springing from spiritual good, see 10254, 10290, 10293(end). The reason why the incense was made from the spices that mean kinds of truth springing from spiritual good, or what amounts to the same thing, why the kinds of truth that are meant by those spices belong to the spiritual group, is that the worship of God accomplished by means of truths springing from that good is meant by 'incense'. For acts of thanksgiving, adoration, prayer, and the like are what are meant specifically by 'incense', see 9475. Such acts of worship are emanations from the heart expressed through thoughts and speech. The fact that spiritual truths are the means by which such worship is accomplished may be recognized from the ideas a person has in mind while engaged in that worship. For the person's ideas then pass from his memory into his understanding and come forth from there; and anything emanating from there is called spiritual. As regards the worship of God springing from celestial good, such as takes place among those who are in the Lord's celestial kingdom, this is not accomplished by means of acts of thanksgiving, adoration, and prayer, as is the worship among those who are in the spiritual kingdom, thus not by truths coming from the memory but by truths coming from the heart, which act as one with the actual love that governs those people. For the truths that exist with them have been inscribed on their love, and therefore when moved by love to do what is commanded they are at the same time moved to do so by truths, without any thought about them based on what they have been taught, thus without any recollection of them from their memory. The fact that the state of those who are in the Lord's celestial kingdom is such as this may be recognized from what has been shown regarding that kingdom and the spiritual kingdom in the places referred to in 9277. As regards 'incense', that it means acts of thanksgiving, adoration, and prayer, which emanate from the thoughts of the heart through the mouth, see 9475, 10177, 10198.

8701. 'You are not able to do it yourself alone' means without any truth from good flowing in from another source. This is clear from the meaning of 'doing it alone' - when said of God's truth, represented by 'Moses' - as the influx of truth from it alone, and not at the same time from any other source. The situation here may be recognized from what has been stated above in 8685 about the direct influx of God's truth, and the direct and at the same time indirect influx of it. There it is shown that direct influx of God's truth occurs in a person's first state when he is being regenerated, but that influx direct and indirect occurs in the second state, that is to say, when he has been regenerated. When the influx is direct the Lord flows in indeed with good and truth, but the good is not perceived then, only the truth. During this time therefore he is led by truth, and not so much by good. But when the influx is at the same time indirect, the good is perceived; for indirect influx reaches down into a person's outward, sensory level of awareness. So it is that then the Lord leads the person through good.

[2] In general it should be recognized that not until his actions spring from an affection for good has a person been regenerated, for then his will desires what is good, and he finds delight and bliss in doing it. When he attains this state his life is a life of good, and he is in heaven since good reigns throughout heaven. Truth however that composes faith leads a person towards good, and so towards heaven; but it does not place him in heaven. The reason for this is that in the next life all are formed into different communities according to the life of the will, not according to the life of the understanding; for where the will is, there the understanding is, but not vice versa. This is so in heaven, and it is so in hell. Those who are evil are not sent to hell until the evil of their life takes control of them; for when this takes control of them, so too does the falsity accompanying their evil, even as those who are governed by good are also governed there by the truth accompanying their good. All in the next life are brought at last into a state in which their mind is single, that is to say, the intentions of their will are in tune with their thoughts and not at variance with them. The situation is different in the world. There what a person thinks, indeed sees in his understanding, can be at variance with his intentions. But this enables him to be reformed; that is to say, he can understand what good is even though he intends evil, and so can be led by means of his understanding to intend what is good. But in the next life each person is led in accordance with the intentions he acquired when in the world.