290. The Lord from eternity, or Jehovah, brought forth the sun of the spiritual world out of himself, and created the universe and all its contents from it. Part 2 of the present work dealt with the sun of the spiritual world, and the following points were made there. In the spiritual world, divine love and wisdom look like a sun (83-88). Spiritual warmth and spiritual light emanate from that sun (89-92). That sun is not God. Rather, it is an emanation from the divine love and wisdom of the Divine-Human One. The same is true of warmth and light from that sun (93-98). The sun of the spiritual world is seen at a middle elevation, as far from angels as the physical world's sun is from us (103-107). The east in the spiritual world is where the Lord is seen as the sun, and the other directions follow from that (119-124 [119-123], 125-128 [124-128]). Angels always face the Lord as the sun (129-134, 135-139). The Lord created the universe and everything in it by means of that sun that is the first emanation of divine love and wisdom (151-156). The physical world's sun is nothing but fire and is therefore dead; and since nature has its origin in that sun, it is dead. Further, the physical world's sun was created so that the work of creation could be finished off and completed (157-162). There would be no creation if it were not for this pair of suns, one living and one dead (163-166).

47. Divine love and wisdom cannot fail to be and to be manifested in others that it has created. The hallmark of love is not loving ourselves but loving others and being united to them through love. The hallmark of love is also being loved by others because this is how we are united. Truly, the essence of all love is to be found in union, in the life of love that we call joy, delight, pleasure, sweetness, blessedness, contentment, and happiness.

The essence of love is that what is ours should belong to someone else. Feeling the joy of someone else as joy within ourselves--that is loving. Feeling our joy in others, though, and not theirs in ourselves is not loving. That is loving ourselves, while the former is loving our neighbor. These two kinds of love are exact opposites. True, they both unite us; and it does not seem as though loving what belongs to us, or loving ourselves in the other, is divisive. Yet it is so divisive that to the extent that we love others in this way we later harbor hatred for them. Step by step our union with them dissolves, and the love becomes hatred of corresponding intensity.

124. The regions in the spiritual world are not caused by the Lord as the sun but by the angels, depending on their receptivity. I have stated that angels live in distinct regions, some in the east, some in the west, some in the south, and some in the north. I have also stated that the ones who live in the east are engaged in a higher level of love, those in the west in a lower level of love, those in the south in the light of wisdom, and those in the north in the shadow of wisdom.

This variation of place seems to be caused by the Lord as the sun, yet it is actually caused by the angels. The Lord is not at a greater or lesser degree of love and wisdom; as the sun, he is not at a greater or lesser level of warmth and light for one person than for another. He is everywhere the same. However, he is not accepted at the same level by one person as by another, and this makes it seem as though they are more or less distant from each other, in a variety of regions. It follows from this that the regions in the spiritual world are simply variations in the receptivity of love and wisdom and therefore of the warmth and light of the Lord as the sun. If you look at what was explained in 108-112 about distances in the spiritual world being apparent only, you will see that this is true.