We tend to think of “truth” as something dry, cold, lifeless: information that is valid and important, but not something moving or inspiring. Yet Swedenborg’s works say repeatedly that divine truth - truth from the Lord - was the actual agent of creation, is the ongoing agent in sustaining life, and is, in fact, the Lord Himself. That is difficult to conceive: How can truth make something? How can truth sustain something? How can truth be a person?

But imagine if you could mix elements of dreaming and being awake. In this scenario, you would have the usual control over your thoughts and feelings, and your thoughts and feelings would be continuous, as they are when you’re awake. But the reality around you would be able to bend and shift the way reality does in dreams. If you wanted to climb a skyscraper, jump from it to fly over the Grand Canyon, then dive to the ocean floor, you could do so, with the full experience of reality you have in a deep dream. If you wanted to see your grandmother, who died five years ago, she would be there, to hug you and talk to you and share your tears. Other friends and loved ones would be just a thought away, and you’d be surrounded by beauty limited only by your own imagination. And while all this was happening, your physical body would lie there sleeping.

In such a state, your physical body and physical surroundings are not a factor - in fact, you could say they don’t actually exist in that internal world. The “body” you experience, the surroundings you see, the things you hear and see and taste, all are simply products of your thoughts. So your thoughts actually create the world you live in, and go on creating it every moment.

In a typical dream, of course, that world is a product of only your own thoughts. So imagine that such a world could be shared by many people, or even everyone. In such a world, when you talk to your grandmother, it really is your grandmother, and she is having a similar “dream” experience of talking to you. When you see your friends, they really are your friends, experiencing similar dream-like states.

A number of books and movies have been based on such a concept. In the books and movies, though, the goal typically is to get back to “reality,” meaning back to the physical world. Often, the death of the physical body would mean the death of the dream worlds, too.

But think about it. With all the power you can have in the dream world, the things you can do and people you can see, why would you want to go back to the stiff, limited world of physical reality? And what if the death of the physical body did not snip the thread to the alternative world, but instead freed you to enter it fully?

Such a world is actually close to spiritual reality, as described in Swedenborg’s works. The big difference is that ultimately the “dream” is the Lord’s, and His thoughts and His affections are the ones constantly forming and empowering it, like a great tapestry of potential experience. As humans we are like swirls in the fabric, patterns that can be more or less aligned with those divine thoughts and feelings. Each swirl is unique in the way it weaves together the threads of divine thought, and thus has a unique set of experiences. And the miracle of miracles is that we are free to swirl as we will; that’s what we were created to do. In fact, the whole reason for physical reality - which is a projection of spiritual reality into dead material - is to separate us from divine thought enough to actually experience that freedom.

That divine thought is what Swedenborg means by “divine truth.” It carries all the possibilities for all of our lives, and is by its nature exquisitely, infinitely loving, since it carries the Lord’s love to us and strives constantly to coax us into alignment.

It’s also incredibly powerful, because the more we align ourselves with the Lord’s thoughts, the more we can receive His love and the more truly alive we can be - we can be swirls following the grain of the fabric, and that much more a part of the whole. Also, the more we align ourselves, the more we can see the patterns of the fabric around us - we can see the Lord’s plans for us and everyone else in the world, and fit in to serve His goals. Mentally this is like being in light, and Swedenborg’s works say the divine truth is the actual light of heaven.

So why does “truth” sound so cold and dry? The problem is in us, of course. We’re born into the physical world and our senses are filled by physical things, so we tend to think of “truth” as the aspects of divine thought that can be projected into the physical world. And those aspects are the coldest and driest, with the love awaiting us on the spiritual level.

(Ссылки: Apocalypse Explained 219, 411 [4], 434, 594, 748, 948 [3], 950; Apocalypse Revealed 193; Arcana Coelestia 4687 [3], 4724, 5321 [2], 6880, 6996 [3], 7004 [2], 7056 [2-3], 7058 [2], 7270 [2-4], 8200, 8705 [3], 9407 [1-3], [13], 9410 [5], 9905, 10026, 10060; Canons of the New Church 15; Heaven and Hell 13, 127, 137 [2-4], 232, 347; On the Athanasian Creed 145; The Apocalypse Explained 130 [2], 412 [2], 700 [2], 768 [15], 997 [2-3]; The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem 32 [1-6]; The White Horse 14; The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine 25; True Christian Religion 39, 85, 86-88, 142, 224)

25. Everything good and true comes from the Lord. ¹ The Lord is goodness itself and truth itself: 2011, 4151, 10336, 10619. In both his divine and his human natures, the Lord is the divine goodness that results from divine love, and this goodness is the source of divine truth: 3704, 3712, 4180, 4577. Divine truth radiates from the Lord's divine goodness much the way light radiates from the sun: 3704, 3712, 4180, 4577. The divine truth that comes from the Lord takes the form of light in the heavens and is the source of all of heaven's light: 3195, 3222, 5400, 8694, 9399, 9548, 9684. Heaven's light, which is divine truth acting as one with divine goodness, enlightens both the sight and the understanding of angels and spirits: ² 2776, 3138. Heaven is bathed in light and warmth because it is devoted to what is true and good, since divine truth there is light and divine goodness there is warmth: 3643, 9399, 9400; and [see also] Heaven and Hell 126-140. The divine truth that comes from the Lord's divine goodness gives the angelic heaven its form and design: 3038, 9408, 9613, 10716, 10717. In heaven, the divine goodness that is one with the divine truth is referred to as divine truth: 10196.

[2] Divine truth coming from the Lord is the only thing that is real: 6880, 7004, 8200. Everything was made and created by means of divine truth: 2803, 2894, 5272, 7678. Divine truth has all power: 8200.

[3] On our own we cannot do one bit of good or think one bit of truth: 874, 875, 876. On its own, our rational ability cannot grasp divine truth: 2196, 2203, 2209. Any truths that do not come from the Lord come from our own selves and are not true even though they seem to be true: 8868.

[4] Everything that is good and true comes from the Lord, and none of it from us: 1614, 2016, 2904, 4151, 9981. Things that are good and true are good and true to the extent that they have the Lord in them: 2904, 3061, 8480. On divine truth that comes directly from the Lord and on divine truth that comes indirectly, through angels, and on how they flow in for us: 7055, 7056, 7058. The Lord flows into what is good in us, and through what is good into what is true: 10153. He flows through what is good into truths of all kinds, but especially into genuine truths: 2531, 2554. The Lord does not flow, though, into truths that are cut off from goodness, and such truths do not bring us into a parallel relationship with the Lord the way goodness does: 1831, 1832, 3514, 3564.

[5] Doing what is good and true for the sake of what is good and true is loving the Lord and loving our neighbor: 10336. When we are devoted to the deeper aspects of the Word, the church, and worship, we love to do what is good and true for the sake of what is good and true; but if our involvement is only on a superficial level, with no depth, then we love to do what is good and true only for our own sakes or for worldly reasons: 10683. What it is to do what is good and true for the sake of what is good and true: 10683 (which includes examples by way of illustration).

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