6. Genesis 1

1. In the beginning God created heaven and earth.

2. And the earth was a void and an emptiness, and there was thick darkness over the face ¹ of the deep; and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face ¹ of the waters.

3. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light.

4. And God saw that the light was good; and God made a distinction between the light and the darkness.

5. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day.

6. And God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let there be a distinguishing of the waters from the waters.

7. And God made the expanse and He made a distinction between the waters that were under the expanse and the waters that were above the expanse; and it was so.

8. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening, and there was morning, a second day.

9. And God said, Let the waters under heaven be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so.

10. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas; and God saw that it was good.

11. And God said, Let the earth cause tender plants to spring up, seed-bearing plants, fruit trees bearing fruit, each according to its kind, in which is its seed, upon the earth; and it was so.

12. And the earth brought forth tender herbs, seed-bearing plants, each according to its kind, and trees bearing fruit, in which is their seed, each according to its kind; and God saw that it was good.

13. And there was evening, and there was morning, a third day.

14. And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens, to make a distinction between the day and the night; and they will be for signs, and for set times, and for days and years.

15. And they will be for lights in the expanse of the heavens, to give light upon the earth; and it was so.

16. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to have dominion over the day, and the lesser light to have dominion over the night; and the stars.

17. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth;

18. And to have dominion over the day and the night, and to make a distinction between the light and the darkness; and God saw that it was good.

19. And there was evening, and there was morning, a fourth day.

20. And God said, Let the waters bring forth creeping things, living creatures; and let birds fly above the earth, upon the face ¹ of the expanse of the heavens.

21. And God created the great sea monsters, and every living creature that creeps, which the waters produced abundantly according to their kinds; and all winged birds according to their kinds; and God saw that it was good.

22. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas; and let birds be multiplied upon the earth.

23. And there was evening, and there was morning, a fifth day.

24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, beasts and creeping things and wild animals of the earth according to their kinds; and it was so.

25. And God made wild animals of the earth according to their kinds, and beasts according to their kinds, and everything that creeps along the ground according to its kind; and God saw that it was good.

26. And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and they will have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, ² and over the beasts, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

27. And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

28. And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, ² and over every living thing that creeps on the earth.

29. And God said, Behold, I give you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face ¹ of the whole earth, and every tree in which there is fruit, the tree producing seed will be for you for food.

30. And to every wild animal of the earth and to every bird of the air, ² and to everything creeping over the earth in which there is a living soul, [I give] every green plant for food; and it was so.

31. And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, a sixth day.

CONTENTS

The six days or periods of time, which are so many consecutive states in man's regeneration, are in general as follows:

Footnotes:

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.

Footnotes: