41. The Heavens Are Made Up of Countless Communities

The angels of any given heaven are not all together in one place, but are separated into larger and smaller communities depending on differences in the good effects of the love and faith they are engaged in. Angels engaged in similar activities form a single community. There is an infinite variety of good activities in heaven, and each individual angel is, so to speak, his or her own activity. ¹

Footnotes:

3804. 'And she ran and told her father' means acknowledgement by means of interior truths. This is clear from the meaning of 'running and telling' as the affection for making known, in this case from acknowledgement; and from the meaning of 'her father' as the good meant by 'Laban'. The bringing about of that acknowledgement by means of interior truths is represented by 'Rachel', who means the affection for interior truth. Consequently these words mean acknowledgment by means of interior truths. The situation is this: The existence of the good which Jacob represents, the good of the natural, like all good in general, is known and acknowledged, but not the specific character of it except by means of truths. For good receives its own specific character from truths, and so it is by means of truths that it is known and acknowledged. For good does not become the good which is called the good of charity until truths have been implanted in it. And the character of the truths implanted in it determines that of the good.

[2] This is why one person's good, though seemingly just the same, is not however like another's, for the good in every single human being throughout the whole world is different from that in any other. It is like human faces in which for the most part affections present themselves, in that none throughout the whole human race is exactly like another. Truths themselves compose so to speak the face of good, whose beauty arises from the form which truth takes; but it is good that produces the affections there. All angelic forms are such, and man would be such if from interior life he were ruled by love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour. Man was created into forms such as these because he was created in the likeness and image of God, and forms such as these are the ones whose spirits have been regenerated, whatever appearance their bodies present. From this one may see what is meant by the statement that good is acknowledged by means of interior truths.