17. All my experience in heaven bears witness to the fact that the divine nature that comes from the Lord, affects angels, and constitutes heaven, is love. In fact, all the people there are forms of love and thoughtfulness. They look indescribably beautiful. Love radiates from their faces, from their speech, from every detail of their behavior. ¹

Further, there are surrounding auras of spiritual life that emanate from every angel and from every spirit and envelop them. By means of these auras one can recognize even from a distance the quality of the affections of their loves, since these auras flow out from the life of their affection and consequent thought - that is, from the life of their love and consequent faith. The auras that emanate from angels are so full of love that they touch the deepest reaches of life of the people they meet. I have been aware of them a number of times, and they have moved me deeply. ²

I have been able to see that love was the source of angels' life because all the people in the other life turn in a direction determined by their own love. People engaged in a love for the Lord and a love for their neighbor are constantly turning toward the Lord, while people who are engaged in self-love are constantly turning their backs to the Lord. This holds true no matter which way they turn, since in the other life spatial relationships are determined by people's inner natures. These also determine geographical regions, whose boundaries are not drawn the way they are in the physical world but depend on which way people are facing. Actually, it is not angels who turn to the Lord but the Lord who turns toward himself the people who love to do whatever has its source in him. ³ , But there will be more on this subject below, when we discuss geographical regions in the other life.

脚注:

231. That thou art neither cold nor hot. That this signifies that the life is between heaven and hell, because without charity, is evident from the signification of cold, as being not to be in spiritual but in infernal love, of which we shall speak presently; and from the signification of hot, as denoting to be in spiritual love, concerning which also we shall speak presently. It is therefore evident, that by being neither cold nor hot, is signified, to be neither in infernal love nor in spiritual love, but between both; and he who is between both is between hell and heaven.

[2] That such are those who are in faith alone, or in faith separated from charity, has not hitherto been known; but that it is so, is clear from each of the things written to the angel of this church; also from this consideration, that those who are in faith separated from charity live to themselves, to the world, and to a natural disposition, and those who so live are in infernal love; and that yet by reading the Word, and by hearing discourses therefrom, by receiving the Holy Supper, and by many things which they retain in the memory from the Word, they look towards heaven; and when they do so, they are in some degree of spiritual heat; but still because they have not any heat, or spiritual love, since they do not live according to the Word, therefore they are neither cold nor hot. Thus too they divide the mind into two parts; namely, by means of the things of the Word they turn themselves to heaven, and by means of the things of life they turn themselves to hell, so that they halt between both.

When those who are of such a character come into another life, they desire to go to heaven, saying that they have faith, that they have read the Word, have heard sermons, have frequented the Holy Supper, and that by these things they expect to be saved, but when their life is examined, it is seen to be entirely infernal; that is, that they made no account of enmity, hatred, revenge, craftiness, deceitful stratagems; that when they did what was right, sincere and just, it was only in external form, for the sake of appearing such to the world, whilst inwardly, or in their spirit, they thought other things, and many opposite things, believing that thoughts and intentions are of no account provided they do not openly appear before the world. This is why the spirit of such, when loosened from the earthly body, is of such a quality; for it is man's spirit which thinks and intends.

[3] These are they who are meant by the words of the Lord in Matthew:

"Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? But then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity" (7:22, 23).

So also by these words in Luke:

"When ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us, he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are; then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me all ye workers of iniquity" (13:25-27).

[4] The reason why cold signifies infernal love is, that heat signifies heavenly love. (That heat signifies heavenly love, may be seen in the work, Heaven and Hell 126-140, 567, 568; and that love to the Lord, and love towards the neighbour, or charity, are heavenly loves, and constitute heaven, may be seen in the same work, n. 13-19; and that the love of self and the love of the world are infernal loves and constitute hell, n. 551-565. That in the hells also there is heat, but impure, see Arcana Coelestia 1773, 2757, 3340; but that that heat is changed into cold when heavenly heat flows in, see in the work, Heaven and Hell 572.)

4464. 'Only on this [condition] will we consent to you: If you will be as we are' means acceptance of their semblance of religion. This is clear from the meaning of 'consenting' as acceptance, and from the meaning of 'being as they are' as being interested only in external things and not in internal ones, for they would in that case have been as they were, see just above in 4459. There it was shown - in 4459 - what an interest only in external things is and what an interest in internal ones is. Here the reason why a person ought to be interested in internal ones is going to be stated. Anyone who reflects may see that man has communication with heaven by means of internal things, for the whole of heaven dwells within internal things. Unless a person is in heaven as regards his thoughts and affections, that is, as regards the thoughts in his understanding and the affections in his will, he cannot go to heaven after death, since he has no communication with it at all. During his lifetime a person secures that communication by means of truths in his understanding and goods in his will, and unless he secures it then he cannot do so subsequently, since his mind cannot be opened after death to interior things if it has not been opened to them during his lifetime.

[2] Man is not immediately conscious of the fact that a spiritual sphere surrounds him, the nature of which is determined by the life of his affections. That sphere the angels are able to perceive more clearly than any aroma reaching the keenest sense of smell in the world. If in his life he has been interested only in external things, that is to say, in the pleasures that are gained from hatred against the neighbour, from consequent revenge and cruelty, from committing adultery, from self-aggrandizement and consequent contempt for others, from unseen acts of robbery, from avarice, from deceit, and from luxuriousness, and other vices like these, the spiritual sphere which surrounds him is as offensive as the aroma in the world coming from dead bodies, dung, stinking refuse, and other things such as these. Anyone who has been leading a life like this takes that sphere with him after death; and being entirely surrounded by that sphere he cannot exist anywhere else than in hell where such spheres belong. Concerning spheres in the next life and their origins, see 1048, 1053, 1316, 1504-1519, 1695, 2401, 2489.

[3] People however who are interested in internal things - that is to say, who have taken delight in expressing good-will and charity towards the neighbour, and most of all who have found blessedness in love to the Lord - have a pleasing and lovely sphere surrounding them, which is the heavenly sphere itself; and for that reason they are in heaven. All the spheres which are perceived in the next life have their origin in the loves and in the affections deriving from those loves which have governed them. Such spheres have their origins as a consequence in their life, for their loves and affections derived from these loves constitute their life itself. And because they have their origins in their loves and affections derived from these they have their origins in the intentions and the ends in view which cause a person to will and to act in the way he does. For everyone has as his end in view that which he loves, and therefore a person's ends determine what his life is and constitute the essential nature of it; and this is the main source of the sphere around him. That sphere is perceived most perfectly in heaven the reason being that the sphere emanating from ends in view exists throughout the whole of heaven. These considerations show what someone is like whose interest is in internal things and what someone is like whose interest is in external ones, and why a person ought not to be interested only in external things but to be interested in internal ones also.

[4] But someone who is interested only in external things pays no attention to internal ones - no matter how skillful he may be in the conduct of public affairs and no matter how great a reputation he has earned for being learned - because he is the kind of person who does not believe in the existence of anything which he does not see with his eyes or feel by touch, and therefore does not believe in heaven or in hell. And if he were told that he was going to enter the next life immediately after death, where he will see, hear, speak, and enjoy a sense of touch more perfectly than when in the body he would reject it as an absurdity or sheer fantasy, when in actual fact that happens to be the truth. His reaction would be the same if anyone were to tell him that the soul or spirit which lives after death is the real person and not the body which he carries around in the world.

[5] From this it follows that those who are interested only in external things pay no attention at all to what is said concerning internal things, when yet it is these that make people blessed and happy in the kingdom which they are going to enter and in which they are going to live for ever. Such unbelief is present in most Christians, as I have been allowed to know from those to whom I have spoken who have entered the next life from the Christian world. For in the next life they are not able to conceal what they have thought since thoughts are laid completely bare there; nor are they able to conceal what ends they have had in view, that is, what they have loved, for this reveals itself through the sphere surrounding them.