134. Heaven's warmth, like heaven's light, is different in different places. It has one nature in the heavenly kingdom and another in the spiritual kingdom. It also differs in each community, not only in intensity but in quality. It is more intense and pure in the Lord's heavenly kingdom because the angels there accept more divine good. It is less intense and pure in the Lord's spiritual kingdom because the angels there accept more divine truth. In each community, it varies depending on people's receptivity. There is also warmth in the hells, but it is unclean. ¹

The warmth in heaven is meant by sacred and heavenly fire, and the warmth of hell by profane fire and hellfire. Both refer to love: heavenly fire to love for the Lord and love for one's neighbor, and hellfire to love for oneself and love of the world and all the craving that is associated with these loves. ²

The fact that love is warmth of a spiritual origin can be seen from the way we grow warm in proportion to our love, even becoming inflamed and heated in proportion to its intensity and quality, with its full heat evident when we are attacked. This is why it is usual to talk about inflaming, heating up, burning, boiling, and kindling when we are talking about either the affections of a good love or the cravings of an evil love.

അടിക്കുറിപ്പുകൾ:

334. These gifts have been given to mankind to use and enjoy, and they are free gifts, as is clearly apparent from the state of angels in heaven, who likewise have a body, rational faculty, and spiritual character, as people do on earth. They are nourished without cost, for they are daily given their food. They are clothed without cost, because they are given their clothing. They have their lodging without cost, because they are given their houses. Nor do they worry about any of these things. ¹ Moreover, to the extent that they are spiritually rational, they experience enjoyment, protection, and the preservation of their condition.

The difference is that angels see that these are gifts from the Lord, because things there are created in accordance with the state of their love and wisdom, as we showed in the preceding discussion (no. 322), while people do not see this, because things here recur yearly and exist not in accordance with the state of people's love and wisdom, but according to the care they expend on them.

അടിക്കുറിപ്പുകൾ:

1773. Spirits who during their lifetime have taken joyous delight in the Word of the Lord possess in the next life a certain joyous heavenly warmth, which too I have been allowed to feel. The warmth of those who had some measure of this delight was communicated to me. It was like the heat of spring-time. Starting in the region of the lips, it spread into the cheeks; from there it spread to the ears and also went up to the eyes, as well as down towards the central region of the breast.

[2] The warmth which was communicated to me of those who had taken even greater delight in the Word of the Lord and its inner contents which the Lord Himself had taught was more interior. Starting in the breast, it went up from there towards the chin, and also down towards the loins. The warmth of those who have taken still greater delight in it and have been stirred by still greater affection for it was even more inwardly delightful and spring-like. Beginning indeed in the loins it rose upwards towards the breast, and from there it spread by way of the left arm to the hands. I was informed by the angels that this is what actually happens and that when those spirits draw near, such varieties of warmth are felt, though the spirits themselves do not feel them because they are within them, just as infants, children, and young people do not usually feel their own warmth - which they possess in greater measure than adults and elderly persons, because they are within that warmth.

[3] I have also felt the warmth of those who, it is true, have taken delight in the Word but who have not been anxious to have an understanding of it. This warmth was confined to the right arm. As regards such warmth, evil spirits as well are able by their devices to produce a warmth which counterfeits delight and which they can communicate to others. But it is a purely external warmth having no origin in things that are internal. This warmth is such as cools off and becomes something utterly disgusting, as does the warmth of adulterers and that of people who have become engrossed in filthy pleasures.