4803. A matter wholly unknown in the world and worthy of mention is this: The states in which good spirits and angels live undergo constant change and perfection. In this way they are conveyed to the more internal parts of the province in which they dwell, and so into more excellent functions. For in heaven purification takes place constantly, which is so to speak a new creation. Yet the situation is that no angel to all eternity can possibly attain complete perfection. The Lord alone is the perfect One, He being the root and the source of all perfection. Those who correspond to the mouth constantly wish to be speaking, for speaking gives them utmost pleasure. While undergoing perfection they are restricted to speaking nothing but that which is beneficial to companions, the community, heaven, and the Lord. The delight they take in speaking in that way grows in the measure that the desire to regard themselves in what they speak and to strive after wisdom from what is properly their own passes away from them.

377. I am about to discuss the correspondence of the heart and the lungs with volition and discernment. Upon this rests the correspondence of everything in the body, called the members of the body as a whole, the sensory organs, and the body's viscera. Further, the correspondence of physical things with spiritual ones has not been recognized even though it was fully demonstrated in two works, one of which is Heaven and Hell and the other of which is on the spiritual meaning of the Word in Genesis and Exodus, titled Secrets of Heaven. For all these reasons, I should like now to point out the sections of these two works where I have written explanations of correspondence.

In Heaven and Hell, there is material on the correspondence of everything in heaven with everything in us, 87-102; and on the correspondence of everything in heaven with everything on earth, 103-115.

In the work on the spiritual meaning of the Word in Genesis and Exodus, titled Secrets of Heaven, there is material on the correspondence of the face and its expressions with the feelings of the mind: 1568, 2988, 2989, 3631, 4796, 4797, 4880 [4800], 5195 [5165], 5168, 5695, 9306;

on the correspondence of the body in its motions and actions with matters of discernment and volition: 2988, 3632, 4215;

on the correspondence of the senses in general: 4318-4330;

on the correspondence of the eyes and their sight: 4403-4420;

on the correspondence of the nostrils and smell: 4624-4634;

on the correspondence of the ears and hearing: 4652-4634 [4652-4659];

on the correspondence of the tongue and taste: 4791-4805;

on the correspondence of the hands, arms, legs, and feet: 4931-4953;

on the correspondence of the groin and the reproductive organs: 5050-5062;

on the correspondence of the inner viscera of the body, particularly the stomach, thymus, the cisterna, the chyle and its ducts and the mesentery: 5171-5180, 5189 [5181];

on the correspondence of the spleen: 9698;

on the correspondence of the peritoneum, kidneys, and bladder: 5377-5396 [5377-5391];

on the correspondence of the liver and the ducts of the liver, of the bladder, and of the pancreas: 5183-5185;

on the correspondence of the intestines: 5392-5395, 5379;

on the correspondence of the bones: 5560-5564;

on the correspondence of the skin: 5552-5573;

on the correspondence of heaven with a person: 911, 1900, 1982 [2162], 2996, 2998, 3624-3649, 3741-3745, 3884, 4091 [4041], 4279 [4280], 4423 [4323], 4524, 4525, 6013, 6057, 9279, 9632;

on the fact that everything in the physical world and its three kingdoms corresponds to something you can see in the spiritual world: 1632, 1881, 2758, 2890-2893 [2990-2993], 2897-3043 [2987-3003], 3213-3227, 3483, 3624-3649, 4044, 4053, 4156, 4366 [4936], 4939, 5116, 5377, 5428, 4477 [5477], 8211, 9280; that everything you see in heaven is a correspondence: 1521, 1532, 1619-1625, 1807, 1808, 1971, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1981, 2299, 2601, 3213-3226, 3348, 3350, 3457 [3475], 3485, 3748 [3747], 9481, 9570, 9576, 9577. The correspondence of the literal meaning of the Word with its spiritual meaning is dealt with throughout, and is also treated in Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 5-26, 27-69.

1807. 'And he said, Look, now, towards heaven' means a representation of the Lord's kingdom in a mental view of the universe. This is clear from the meaning of 'heaven'. In the internal sense of the Word 'heaven' does not mean the sky that is seen with the eyes but the Lord's kingdom in general and in particular. When a person who regards internal things from external sees the sky he does not think at all of the starry sky but of the angelic heaven. And when he sees the sun, he does not think about the sun but about the Lord's being the Sun of heaven. The same applies when he sees the moon, and also the stars. And so when he sees the boundlessness of the sky he does not think about the boundlessness of this but about the Lord's boundless and infinite power. And the same goes for everything else he sees, for there is nothing that is not representative.

[2] It is the same with the things belonging to the earth. When, for example, such a person sees the dawning of the day he does not think of the dawn but of the rise of all things from the Lord, and of advancement into the daylight of wisdom. Similarly when he sees cultivated gardens, trees, and flowers, his eye is not fixed on any tree and on its blossom, leaf, and fruit, but on the heavenly things which these represent. Nor is it fixed on any flower and its beauty and loveliness but on those things which these represent in the next life. For not one thing of beauty and delight ever exists in the sky above or on earth beneath that is not in some respect representative of the Lord's kingdom; see what has been stated in 1632. Such is the 'looking towards heaven' which means a representation of the Lord's kingdom in a mental view of the universe.

[3] The reason why every single thing in the sky above and on the earth beneath is representative is that it has come into being, and is constantly coming into being, that is, is kept in being, from the influx of the Lord through heaven. It is as it is with the human body, which comes into being and is kept in being by means of its soul, for which reason every single thing in the body is representative of the soul. Inherent in the soul there are use and end in view, but in the body the accomplishment of these. All effects, without exception, are in the same way representatives of the uses which are the causes behind those effects, while the uses are representative of the ends which constitute first beginnings.

[4] People whose concern is for Divine ideas never dwell on the objects of external sight, but from and in those objects they are continually seeing internal things. The most internal things of all are those that constitute the Lord's kingdom, and thus are those which consist in the greatest of all ends. It is similar with the Word of the Lord. The person whose concern is for Divine ideas never regards the Word of the Lord from the letter, but regards the letter and the literal sense as that which represents and means the celestial and spiritual things of the Church and of the Lord's kingdom. To that person the literal sense exists solely as the means which enable him to think about these. Such was the nature of the Lord's sight.