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We use a calendar that has 12 months and 365 days in it. As it nears December 31st, we feel as though something is getting close to an end, and yet on January 1st it feels like a new beginning. Our life is composed of many endings and beginnings. We may live one life, but within this one life we have many different journeys.

(References: Habakkuk 3:17)

160. I will explain in its own section [285-294] that the life of evil people comes from the same source. For now, I need only to illustrate the point by comparison. Both warmth and light flow from the sun of our world, and they flow into trees that yield harmful fruit just the way they do into trees that yield good fruit. The two kinds of tree sprout and grow in the same way. The forms into which the warmth flows make the difference, not the warmth itself.

It is the same with the light. This is diversified into colors depending on the forms into which it flows. There are beautiful and cheerful colors, and ugly and depressing ones, yet the light is the same in either case.

The same holds true for the inflow from the spiritual world's sun of the spiritual warmth that is essentially love and the spiritual light that is essentially wisdom. The forms into which they flow make the difference, not the warmth that is love or the light that is wisdom in their own right. The forms into which they flow are our minds.

We can see from this, then, that we are led and taught by the Lord.