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.

Mga talababa:

6004. 'Do not be afraid of going down to Egypt' means that natural truth and all that accompanies it must be introduced into the facts known to the Church. This is clear from the representation of Jacob, the one who is told that he should 'go down to Egypt', as natural truth, dealt with just above in 6001; from the meaning of 'going down' as being introduced into, for in order that the introduction might be represented Jacob went down into Egypt together with all who were his; and from the meaning of 'Egypt' as the facts known to the Church, dealt with in 1462, 4749, 4964, 4966.

[2] What an introduction of truth into the facts known to the Church implies is this: The Church's factual knowledge at that time consisted of representatives and meaningful signs contained in ritual observances, for all the ritual observances of the Church sprang from those representatives and signs, as also did the factual knowledge which helped members of the Church to understand teachings about charity. From that factual knowledge they knew who were really meant by the poor, the needy, the wretched, the afflicted, the oppressed, widows, orphans, strangers, those bound in prison, the naked, the sick, the hungry, the thirsty, the lame, the blind, the deaf, the maimed, and many others whom they identified as distinct kinds of the neighbour. By making such distinctions they taught how charity should be exercised. This was what their factual knowledge at that time was like. But at the present day that knowledge has been completely wiped out, as is evident from the consideration that where these deprived persons are mentioned in the Word scarcely anyone knows more than that those who are literally so deprived are meant, for example that those who are literally widows are meant when 'widows' are mentioned, those literally strangers when 'strangers' are mentioned, those literally in prison when they are mentioned, and so on. The kind of knowledge spoken of here flourished in Egypt, which is why 'Egypt' means factual knowledge. The need for natural truth, which is 'Jacob', to be introduced into such knowledge is represented by Jacob's going down into Egypt with all that was his.

[3] Truths are said to be introduced into factual knowledge when they are gathered together into it so as to exist within it. This is done to the end that when some fact comes to mind the truths that have been gathered into it may be recollected at the same time. When for example someone thinks of a stranger, then because 'a stranger' means people who are to receive instruction, all the ways of exercising charity towards such people instantly spring to mind, which is to say that truths spring to mind. The same thing happens when he thinks of any of the other kinds of deprived persons. Once known facts have been filled with those truths any thought based on those facts expands and spreads far and wide, reaching indeed into many communities in heaven simultaneously. For since such factual knowledge consists of so many truths contained within itself, it opens out in that way without the person's being aware of it. But they must be truths that are held within it. It is also an essential feature of Divine order that interior things should gather themselves into exterior ones, or what amounts to the same, prior things into posterior ones, so that finally everything prior should be gathered into what is last and lowest and coexist with it. This is what happens in the entire natural creation. If this were not true, no one could be fully regenerated; for such a gathering of truths within known facts enables interior things and exterior ones, which would otherwise be at variance, to exist in agreement and act as one. If they are at variance the person cannot be governed by good because he lacks sincerity. Besides, factual knowledge dwells in virtually the same inferior light as a person's physical sight. This inferior light is such that, unless it is brightened from within by the light received from truths, it leads to falsities, especially those that are a product of the illusions of the senses, and to evils that are a product of falsities. The truth of this will be seen from my experience presented at the ends of chapters under Influx.