A company might have executives setting policy and strategy, engineers designing products, managers handling personnel and others handling various functions. They all do different things -- but if they're doing them with a shared underlying purpose, the company -- and the individuals in it -- will likely be successful. The Lord wants all human society to function in a similar way. We have different skills and individual loves, but if we all share a mutual love -- a love of serving others -- then society will function as one, will be a reflection of heaven and will be a good receptacle for the Lord's love. This can also happen within each of us, as we unify our talents and ideas around a central love. And in an abstract sense, it illustrates how a wide collection of varying ideas can be unified around a shared good intention. That is the kind of love pictured when “one” is used in the Bible, either as a specific number or in the sense of several people or objects “being one.” In more casual references -- when used to identify a specific person or object -- the meaning is relatively literal, and is connected to that person or object.

7130. 'And the people scattered themselves into all the land of Egypt' means that they spread their natural mind in all directions. This is clear from the meaning of 'scattering themselves' as spreading; and from the meaning of 'the land of Egypt' as the natural mind, dealt with in 5276, 5278, 5280, 5288, 5301. A person has two areas of mind, one being the natural mind and the other the rational mind. The natural mind is that of the external man, whereas the rational mind is that of the internal man. What belongs to the natural mind is called factual knowledge, but what belongs to the rational mind is called reason and understanding. The two are also distinguished from each other by the fact that what belongs to the natural mind depends for the most part on the light of the world, a light which is called the inferior light of nature; but what belongs to the rational mind depends on the light of heaven, a light which is called spiritual light.