33. Everyone is capable of knowing very well that no life is possible without love of some kind, nor any type of joy whatsoever except the joy that flows out from the love. Furthermore the nature of the love determines the nature of the life and of the joy. If you took away your loves, and what amounts to the same, your desires (since these stem from love), thought would instantly perish and you would be as one dead. This I have been shown convincingly. Self-love and the love of the world present a semblance of life and of joy, but because they are absolutely contrary to true love, which is loving the Lord above all things and the neighbour as oneself, it is clear that neither of them is love but hatred. For the more anyone loves himself and the world, the more he hates his neighbour and so the Lord. Consequently true love is love to the Lord, true life is the life inherent in love from Him, and true joy is the joy of that life. The existence of more than one true love is not possible. Nor consequently is the existence of more than one true life possible which is the source of all true joy and happiness, such as angels in the heavens enjoy.

9469. 'And fine linen' means the truth from this, that is to say, from the good which has a celestial origin. 'Flax' or 'linen' means truth, see 7601, and 'fine linen' means truth from the Divine, 5319; both kinds of truth exist in the natural man. 'Fine linen' means truth from a celestial origin because of its whiteness and softness.