8857. It is similar with love to the Lord. When that love is dominant it is present in every aspect of his life, as when he loves his monarch or loves his parent. While he is in their presence love towards them shines from every part of his face, is heard in every syllable of his speech, and is apparent in every one of his gestures. This is how to understand the command ¹ to have the Lord unceasingly before one's eyes and to love Him above all, with all one's soul and all one's heart.

Footnotes:

9394. 'And put it in bowls' means present with a person, in the things forming his memory. This is clear from the meaning of 'bowls' as the things which form the memory. The reason why 'bowls' are things forming the memory is that vessels in general mean known facts, 1469, 1496, 3068, 3079, and known facts are nothing other than things forming the memory. Consequently 'bowls' here are the kinds of things forming the memory which hold within themselves God's truths, meant in general by 'blood'. What known facts are in relation to the truths and forms of the good of life with a person must be stated briefly. All the things which are learned and stored in the memory, from where they can be called forth before the sight of the understanding, are called known facts. In themselves they are things which constitute the understanding part of the natural or external man. Since known facts include items of knowledge concerning inner realities, or cognitions, they serve the sight of the internal or rational man as a sort of mirror. For they then become things that can be seen by the internal man, just as fields full of plants, flowers, and various kinds of crops and trees, or as gardens adorned with various things growing there for use and to delight the senses, are accustomed to be seen in the material world by the external man. But internal sight, which is the understanding, sees in the fields or gardens of things forming the memory only those which are in keeping with the loves that govern a person, and which are also in agreement with the chief ideas he loves.

[2] Those therefore who are governed by self-love and love of the world see only such things as agree with those loves. They call them truths and also by means of illusions and appearances make them like truths. And they go on to see such things as accord with the chief ideas they have adopted and love because they themselves are the author of them. From this it is evident that known facts and cognitions, which are the things forming the memory, serve people governed by those two loves as the means to lend support to falsities against truths and evils against forms of good, and so as the means to destroy the Church's truths and forms of good. So it is that the learned who are like this are less sane than simple people; privately they reject the existence of God, providence, heaven, hell, life after death, and the truths of faith. This is transparently evident from the learned of the present-day European world who are in the next life, where a huge number of them are atheists at heart. For in the next life people's hearts speak and not their lips. From all this it is now clear what use it is to which cognitions and known facts are put by those whose thoughts are ruled by delights belonging to self-love and love of the world.

[3] But it is altogether different with those who are governed by delights belonging to heavenly loves, which are love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour. Because they are guided in their thinking by the Lord through heaven, they see and select in the fields and gardens of the things forming their memory only those which are in agreement with the delights belonging to those loves and which are in agreement with their Church's teachings that they love. For these people the things that form the memory are like the paradise gardens of heaven; they are also represented and in the Word are meant by paradise gardens, see 3220.

[4] Furthermore it should be recognized that when known facts or things in the memory become part of a person's life they fade from his exterior memory, in the same way as other things normally do when continual practice or habit makes them spontaneous and instinctive so to speak - the way he carries himself and acts, the things he speaks, contemplates, and intends, and in general all his thoughts and affections. But no other facts become part of the person's life except those which enter into and give form to the delights that belong to his loves, thus those which enter his will. On these matters see what has been stated and shown in 8853-8858; and regarding the exterior memory, which belongs to the body, and the interior memory, which belongs to its spirit, 2469-2494.

[5] The reason why known facts are vessels, and in the Word are meant by every type of vessel, such as bowls, cups, waterpots, and the like, is that each known fact is a kind of general container holding particular and specific truths that accord with their general container. Such general containers in the Word have been arranged into series and so to speak into bundles; and these bundles and series have in turn been so set in order that they resemble the form that heaven takes, thus are set in order from most specific truths to most general ones. An idea of such series can be gained from the series and bundles of muscular tissue in the human body. Each bundle there consists of a number of motor fibres, and each motor fibre consists of blood vessels and nerve fibres. Each bundle of muscular tissue too, which taken as a whole is called a muscle, is enveloped in its own outer covering which sets it apart from others; and the same is so for the smaller bundles within, called motor fibres. Yet all the muscles and motor fibres within them, which are present in the whole body, have been so set in order that they may co-ordinate with one another to act in whatever way the will pleases; and they do so in a manner that surpasses all understanding. The situation is similar with known facts in the memory. These in a similar way are aroused and made to act by that which is the delight of a person's love, that is, of his will, but through the instrumentality of the understanding part. What has become part of a person's life, that is, what has become part of his will or love, is that which arouses them. For the inner man always has these things in his field of vision and takes delight in them to the extent that they are in agreement with his loves. And whatever enters fully into those loves, becoming spontaneous and so to speak instinctive, fades from the external memory but remains ingrained in the internal memory from which it can never be blotted out. This is how known facts become part of life.

[6] From all this it is also evident that known facts are as it were the vessels that belong to the interior man's life, and that this is why known facts are meant by various types of vessels, and in the present instance by 'bowls'. The same is meant by 'vessels' and 'bowls' in Isaiah,

I will fasten him like a peg in a sure place, so that he may be a throne of glory to his father's house; and on him they may hang all the glory of the house of his father, sons, and grandsons, every small vessel - from the vessels of bowls even to all the vessels of stringed instruments. Isaiah 22:23-24.

This refers in the internal and representative sense to the Lord's Divine Human, declaring that all truths and forms of good from first to last come through Him and from Him. Factual knowledge of truth of a celestial type is meant by 'the vessels of bowls', and factual knowledge of truth of a spiritual type by 'the vessels of stringed instruments'. And in Zechariah,

On that day there will be on the horses' bells, Holiness to Jehovah. And the pots in the house of Jehovah will be as the bowls before the altar. Zechariah 14:20.

'The horses' bells' stands for factual knowledge of truth which comes from an enlightened understanding, 2761, 2762, 5321; and 'the bowls before the altar' stands for factual knowledge of good. Similar knowledge is meant by 'the bowls of the altar' at Exodus 27:3; 38:3.

356. It is different for people who have acquired intelligence and wisdom by means of their insights and information, people who have applied everything to the service of their lives and have at the same time acknowledged the Divine Being, loved the Word, and led a life both spiritual and moral (as described above in 319). For them, learning served as a means to being wise and for substantiating matters of faith. The deeper levels of their minds are perceived and even seen as transparent to the light, with a bright color, fiery or azure, like that of clear diamonds or rubies or sapphires, depending on the support they derived, from their learning, for the Divine and for divine truths. True intelligence and wisdom look like this when they are presented visually in the spiritual world. This comes from heaven's light, which is divine truth emanating from the Lord, the source of all intelligence and wisdom (see above, 126-133).

[2] The focal planes of this light in which the shadings stand forth like colors are the deeper levels of the mind; and it is the validations of divine truths through what we find in nature - that is, by learning - that produce these shadings. ¹ Actually, our inner mind probes the material in our natural memory and uses the fire of heavenly love to refine (so to speak) the things there that support it, to draw them off and purify them to the point that they become spiritual concepts. We are not aware that this is going on as long as we are in our physical bodies because in this state, though we are thinking both spiritually and naturally, we still do not notice what we are thinking spiritually but only what we are thinking naturally. However, once we have arrived in the spiritual world we are not aware of what we once thought naturally, in this world, only what we were thinking spiritually. This is how our state changes.

[3] We can see from this that we become spiritual by means of our insights and learning and that these are means of becoming wise only for people who acknowledge the Divine Being in both faith and life.

These people are received into heaven before others and live there with the ones who are in the center (43) because they are in more light than others. In heaven they are the intelligent and wise ones who shine like the radiance of the firmament and gleam like stars. The simple people there, though, are the ones who have acknowledged the Divine Being and have loved the Word and led a spiritual moral life, but who have not developed the deeper levels of their minds through insights and learning in the same way. The human mind is like soil whose quality depends on the way it is tilled.

[4] References to Passages in Secrets of Heaven Concerning Different Types of Knowledge.

We should saturate ourselves with information and knowledge, because it is through them that we learn to think, then to sort out what is true and good, and ultimately to be wise: 129, 1450-1451, 1453, 1548, 1802. Factual information constitutes the elemental basis on which our civic and moral lives as well as our spiritual lives are built and grounded; and it is learned with a view to using it: 1489, 3310. Real knowledge opens a path to the inner person, and then unites that person with the outer in proportion to useful action: 1563, 1616. Our rational functioning is born through information and knowledge: 1895, 1900, 3086. This does not happen through knowledge itself, however, but through the affection of putting it to use: 1895.

[5] There are facts that are open to divine truths and facts that are not: 5213. Empty information should be destroyed: 1489, 1492, 1499, 1580 [1581?]. Information is "empty" if it aims at and strengthens love for ourselves and love for the world, and if it leads us away from love for God and our neighbor. This is because such influences close off the inner person, even to the point that we cannot accept anything from heaven: 1563, 1600. Facts may be a means to wisdom or a means to insanity. Through them the inner person is either opened or closed, and rational functioning either nurtured or destroyed: 4156, 8628, 9922.

[6] The inner person is opened and is progressively completed by means of information if we have constructive activity as our goal - especially activity that focuses on our eternal life: 3086. Then the heavenly and spiritual characteristics of our spiritual person reach out to the information that is in our natural person, and adopt whatever is suitable: 1495. Then the Lord draws out whatever is useful for heavenly life from the information in our natural person, by way of the inner person, and elaborates and exalts it: 1895-1896, 1900-1902, 5871, 5874, 5901. Facts that do not fit, or that oppose, are banished to the sides and eliminated: 5871, 5886, 5889.

[7] The sight of the inner person selects from the information of the outer person only those items that suit its love: 9394. In the view of the inner person, the items that suit its love are in full light, in the center, while those that do not suit are off to the sides, in the shadows: 6068, 6085 [6084?]. Suitable facts are grafted onto our loves step by step, and, so to speak, dwell in them: 6325. We would be born into discernment if we were born into love for our neighbor, but since we are born into love for ourselves and the world, we are born into complete ignorance: 6323, 6325. Information, discernment, and wisdom are children of love of God and our neighbor: 1226, 2049, 2116.

[8] It is one thing to be wise, another to be discerning, another to be well informed, and another to act; still, to the extent that we are alive spiritually, these follow in a sequence and are all together at once when we act, or in our deeds: 10331. Further, it is one thing to be well informed, another to acknowledge, and another to have faith: 896.

[9] The factual knowledge of the outer or natural person is in the world's light, while the truths that have become matters of faith and love, and have thus come to life, are in heaven's light: 5212. Truths that are suited to spiritual life are grasped through natural ideas: 5510. Spiritual inflow is from the inner or spiritual person into the information that is in the outer or natural person: 1940, 8005. Facts are receptacles and, so to speak, vessels of the good and the true elements of the inner person: 1469, 1496, 3068, 5489, 6004, 6023, 6052, 6071, 6077, 7770, 9922. They are like mirrors in which the good and true elements of the inner person appear as in an image: 5201. They are all there together in their most concrete form: 5373, 5874, 5886, 5901, 6004, 6023, 6052, 6071.

[10] Inflow is spiritual and not physical: that is, there is an inflow from the inner person into the outer and therefore into its information, but not from the outer into the inner and therefore not from information into the truths of faith: 3219, 5119, 5259, 5427-5428, 5478, 6322, 9110-9111 [9401?]. We are to start from the truths of the church's teaching, which are drawn from the Word, and this teaching should first be acknowledged: it is legitimate to consider facts on this basis: 6047. This means that for people who are affirmatively disposed toward the truths of faith, it is legitimate to use facts intellectually to confirm them, but not for people who are negatively disposed: 2568, 2588, 4760, 6047. People who will not believe divine truths unless they are convinced by the facts will never believe: 2094, 2832. To enter into the truths of faith from factual information is disorderly: 10236. People who do this become insane in matters that concern heaven and the church: 128-130. They fall into the distortions of evil: 232-233, 6047. In the other life, when they think about spiritual matters, they seem to become drunk: 1072. More on their nature: 196. Examples illustrating that spiritual matters cannot be grasped if they are entered from factual information: 233, 2094, 2196, 2203, 2209. Many of the learned are more insane in spiritual matters than simple people because they are negatively disposed, confirming [their opinions] by the information that is constantly and abundantly in their view: 4760, 8629.

[11] People who argue against the truths of faith on the basis of information argue keenly because they depend on sensory illusions, which captivate and convince because they are hard to dispel: 5700. What sensory illusions are and what they are like: 5084, 5094, 6400, 6948. People who understand nothing of the truth and who are also involved in evil can argue about what is true and good in matters of faith without understanding them: 4213 [4214?]. It is not a matter of intelligence simply to confirm a dogma, but to see whether it is true or not before one confirms it: 4741, 6047.

[12] After death, factual knowledge makes no difference-[what make a difference are] the things we have drawn out for understanding and life: 2480. Everything we have learned still endures after death; it merely becomes dormant: 2476-2479, 2481-2486.

[13] The same facts are false for evil people, because they are applied to evil ends, that are true for good people because they are applied to good ends: 6917. True information is not true for evil people, even though things seem true when they say them, because there is evil within them: 10331.

[14] An example of the kind of craving for knowledge spirits have: 1993 [1973?]. Angels have a tremendous desire to know and to be wise, because information, intelligence, and wisdom are spiritual food: 3114, 4459, 4792, 4976, 5147, 5293, 5340, 5342, 5410, 5426, 5576, 5582, 5588, 5656 [5655?], 6277, 8562, 9003. The knowledge of the ancients was a knowledge of symbols and images, through which they led themselves into a familiarity with spiritual matters; but at the present time this knowledge has been totally effaced: 4844, 4749, 4964-4965.

[15] Truths on a spiritual level cannot be grasped without a knowledge of the following universal principles:

1. Everything in the universe goes back to the good and the true and their union in order to be anything - that is, to love and faith and their union.

2. People have discernment and volition: discernment is the receptacle of what is true, and volition the receptacle of what is good. Everything in us goes back to these two and to their union just as everything [in the universe] goes back to the good and the true and their union.

3. There is an inner and an outer person, as distinct from each other as heaven and the world; yet they must become one if the person is to be truly human.

4. Heaven's light is the light the inner person is in, and the world's light is the light the outer person is in. Heaven's light is what is essentially divine and true, the source of all intelligence.

5. There is a responsiveness between the things in the inner person and those in the outer, so that things from either side appear in a different guise on the other side - so different that they cannot be identified without a knowledge of correspondences.

Without knowledge of these and many other matters, only incongruous concepts can be grasped and formed of truths on the spiritual and heavenly levels. This means that without these universal principles, the information and insights of the natural person can scarcely serve for the discernment and development of the rational person. This shows how necessary elementary information is.

Footnotes: