277. Inflow. The inflow of heaven into the world and the inflow of the soul into all parts of the body: 6053-6058, 6189-6215, 6307-6327, 6466-6495, 6598-6626 (which include evidence from personal experience). Nothing comes into being from itself, but rather from something prior, so everything comes from one primary entity: 4523, 4524, 6040, 6056. Everything constantly continues to exist in the same way that it came into being, because continued existence is a perpetual coming into being: 1
2886, 2888, 3627, 3628, 3648, 4523, 4524, 6040, 6056. Inflow happens according to the divine design: 7270. This makes it possible for us to see that everything is continuing to exist from the primary and underlying reality, because it came into being from that underlying reality: 4523, 4524, 6040, 6056. Every bit of life flows in from that primary underlying reality because that is its source, so it flows in from the Lord: 3001, 3318, 3337, 3338, 3344, 3484, 3619, 3741, 3742, 3743, 4318, 4319, 4320, 4417, 4524, 4882, 5847, 5986, 6325, 6468, 6469, 6470, 6479, 9276, 10196. Every "coming into being" comes from an underlying reality, and nothing can come into being unless it has its own underlying reality within it: 4523, 4524, 6040, 6056.
All of our thinking and all of our willing flows into us: 904, 2886, 2887, 2888, 4151, 4319, 4320, 5846, 5848, 6189, 6191, 6194, 6197, 6198, 6199, 6213, 7147, 10219 (which include evidence from personal experience). Our ability to examine things, to think, and to reach conclusions as the result of analysis comes from an inflow: 2888, 4319, 4320. If the inflow from the spiritual world were taken away from us we could not survive for a single moment, and yet we are in a state of freedom: 2887, 5849, 5854, 6321 (which include evidence from eyewitness experience). The life that flows in from the Lord varies depending on our state and on our receptivity: 2069, 5986, 6472, 7343. In evil people the goodness that flows in from the Lord is turned into evil and the truth into falsity: 3643, 4632 (which include evidence from eyewitness experience). How much we receive of the goodness and truth that is constantly flowing in from the Lord depends on the extent to which evil and falsity in us have been moved out of the way: 2411, 3142, 3147, 5828.
Everything good flows in from the Lord and everything evil flows in from hell: 904, 4151. People nowadays believe that everything is in and from themselves even though it is all flowing in; and they ought to know this from the church's teaching that everything good comes from heaven and everything evil comes from hell: 4249, 6193, 6206. If people believed the way things actually are, they would not take evil into themselves, because they would throw it out of themselves and back into hell, and they would not claim that goodness was their own and therefore would not take any credit for it: 6206, 6324, 6325. How happy our state would be then-with the Lord's help we would have an inward perspective on both goodness and evil: 6325. People who deny the existence of heaven or who know nothing about it are unaware that there is any inflow coming from it: 4322, 5649, 6193, 6479. What inflow is: 6128, 6190, 9407 (which is illustrated by comparisons).
[2] Inflow is spiritual; it is not physical. It flows from the spiritual world into the physical world and not from the physical world into the spiritual world: 3219, 5119, 5259, 5427, 5428, 5478, 6322, 9109, 9110. Inflow flows through the inner self into the outer self and not the reverse: 1702, 1707, 1940, 1954, 5119, 5259, 5779, 6322, 9380. This is because the inner self is in the spiritual world and the outer self is in the physical world: 978, 1015, 3628, 4459, 4523, 4524, 6057, 6309, 9701-9709, 10156, 10472. The appearance that there is an inflow from outward things into inward ones is an illusion: 3721. Within us, inflow flows through our rational faculty into our factual knowledge and not the reverse: 1495, 1707, 1940. The nature of the pattern of inflow: 775, 880, 1096, 1495, 7270.
Inflow comes directly from the Lord and also indirectly through the spiritual world or heaven: 6063, 6307, 6472, 9682, 9683. The Lord flows directly into the tiniest details of everything: 6058, 6474-6478, 8717, 8728. On the Lord's indirect inflow through heaven: 4067, 6982, 6985, 6996. It happens through the spirits and angels who are associated with us: 697, 5846-5866. The Lord flows through angels into the goals from and for which we think, intend, and act as we do (1317, 1645, 5846, 5854), and also into matters of conscience within us (6207, 6213); through spirits, he flows into our thoughts and from there into the contents of our memory (4186, 5858, 5864, 6192, 6193, 6198, 6199, 6319). It is hard for people to believe this: 6214. How the Lord flows into things that are highest and things that are lowest at the same time, or into what is inmost and what is outermost at the same time: 5147, 5150, 6473, 7004, 7007, 7270. The Lord flows into what is good in us and through that goodness into what is true, but not the reverse: 5482, 6027, 8685, 8701, 10153. Goodness gives us the ability to accept the inflow from the Lord; truth apart from goodness does not: 8321. Nothing that comes into our thoughts does us any harm, but what comes into our will does, because it becomes part of us: 6308. The Divine at the highest levels is quiet and peaceful, but as it comes down toward the lower levels within us it becomes unpeaceful and even tumultuous because of the disorder there: 8823. The effect of the Lord's inflow on the prophets: 6212.
There exists a kind of divine inflow that is general: 5850 (which includes some description of it). It is a constant force that causes things to act in keeping with the overall design: 6211. This is the kind of inflow that affects the lives of animals (5850), and also the members of the plant kingdom (3648). Even in us, thought descends into speech and will into behavior in accord with this general inflow: 5862, 5990, 6192, 6211.
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