Awaken to Love Part 2 - LIVING IN GOD

(1) You Are a Spiritual Being

Fundamental to the Swedenborgian understanding of life and reality is the idea that “everything here comes from (and corresponds to, or is an expression of) everything there”.

The “here” is this material world, embedded in a matrix of space and time. The “there” is where this world originates from, namely, a non-material world of Spirit, a place of Being, where space and time do not exist.

This realm of Spirit or Being is the ultimate reality within and behind all things, including you and I. To this we give the name “God” (a.k.a. the Lord Jesus Christ, Allah, Yahweh, the Great Spirit, Krishna, Vishnu, the All, the One, etc.).

This means two things:

• Firstly, you and I live in God at every moment, like fish live in the ocean. God is not “up there’ or “out there”, while we are “down here”. We are in God; God is the constitutive reality of who we are, the Spirit around us and in us, at every moment.
  
  
• Secondly, since only God truly “is” (is real, is life itself and reality itself) we as human beings have life only as recipients of the inflowing life of God. We are not the independent, self-contained originators of our lives but the receivers and channels of the life of God.

As Swedenborgians often like to say: “We are, because God is.”

And since we have life only from, and as part of, the life of God, the eternal Spirit, this means we, too, are essentially spirit in nature and eternal also. As God tells us, we are made “in his image” (Genesis 1: 27). Thus we share in God’s life and (in infinitely lesser degree!) other, key aspects of the Divine nature: self-consciousness, rationality, the freedom to make meaningful choices and the capacity to envision and create new possibilities.

Our spirit or soul exists in these things. Thus Swedenborg wrote that our mind, our true, inner (but non-material) self, is our soul. The body is but the outward form or manifestation of the soul – the body changes and passes away, as do all material things, but the soul lives forever.

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Moreover, as essentially spiritual beings, we are in the company of other spirits and spiritual realities all the time, every day of our earthly lives. We are surrounded by the good and bad spirits of those myriads of people who have since discarded their own physical forms (“died”).

We are largely unaware of them because, in this earthly life, we are thinking on the natural level and relying on our physical senses.

Nonetheless, even while we are living in our bodies, each one of us is in a community of spirits with our own spirit. Good people are generally more joined to and part of heavenly communities while bad people are more connected to and more influenced by hellish communities. These are the same (spiritual) communities, particular kinds of heavens or hells, into which we come after the dying of our physical bodies.

But what makes good people “good” and bad people “bad”?

That depends on who they are inside, since outwardly we can all appear much the same. Indeed, bad people can appear good and vice versa. As the saying goes, “looks can be deceiving”!

But what makes our inner, private self either good or bad? That depends upon what we love!

it was revealed to Swedenborg that there are two “evil loves”: the love of self (meaning egotism and self-centredness where “it’s all about me”) and love of the world (meaning a primary concern with things that can satisfy and gratify me). There are also two “good loves”: the love of God (meaning some perception, however named, of a love and truth greater than my own self-interest) and love of my neighbour (meaning a commitment to live that greater love and truth for the sake of others’ well-being).

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These loves, whether good or evil, are what form the basic pattern of our thoughts, attitudes and actions in life, i.e. our essential self.

If we care mainly about ourselves and what gratifies our appetites, then, however we may disguise that fact or wear a “public mask” of propriety, a selfish, lonely, demanding self is who we really are. On the other hand, if, despite other personal failings and bad habits, we have a guiding sense of a higher good and try to live out that good for the welfare of our neighbour, then that more loving, open, kindlier self is who we really are.

It’s what we truly care about most that makes us who we really are (inside), our public life and actions notwithstanding. As Swedenborgians often say, “We are what we love.”

This does not mean, however, that we become either “all good” or “all bad”! None of us are either perfect or perfectly evil. Rather, all of us contain a mixture of both. What eventually tips the balance in either direction is the nature of our inner selves, our souls, whether what we love most is for ourselves alone or for God and our neighbour.

If the love that we are is more for the latter, then we are bound to heaven in this life and in the next. If not, then the opposite is the case. People reveal an intuitive sense of the truth of this when they says things like “She’s such an angel!” or “He makes life hell for himself.”

But if the spiritual world is essentially about states of being (rather than places “up there” or “down there”) what are these like? What exactly happens such that we all transition into this other dimension of life?

(2) A Short description of the Spiritual World

It was revealed to Swedenborg that the spiritual world or dimension consists of three parts. Two of these have been well-known by many religions for a very long time: heaven and hell. However there is a third state in-between the other two and serving as a kind of antechamber to them both.

(A) The World of Spirits

Swedenborg called this the “world of spirits”. This is the world of which we are an (unconscious) part while we live our earthly lives and to which we arrive after the death of our physical bodies.

In dying, our inner self or soul – all that we are (feelings, thoughts, memories, sensations, etc.) – is a unity released from our physical body. We take everything of ourselves – our form and appearance, our senses, our personality – everything except our physical body into the spiritual world.

It was revealed to Swedenborg that everything there is still very real and tangible to us but simply spiritual rather than physical in nature. Indeed, Swedenborg witnessed that it was a common reaction of many newly-awakened spirits that they could not believe they had died – everything looked entirely as it had before!

There are no beings with wings to be seen (which is why we never read about angels with wings in the Bible either!) Nor, for that matter, are there individuals with horns and pitchforks. Angels and demons certainly do exist but they are the good and bad spirits of those who have previously passed into the spiritual world. There are no angels or demons that are pre-existent, quasi-divine beings who have lived from the beginning with God! Heaven and hell have been formed entirely from the human race, from the kinds of lives (or loves), heavenly or hellish, which people have chosen for themselves while in their bodies here on earth.

In any event, though, heaven and hell are not immediately present to us when we first come to the world of spirits. It is that world that seems more real than anything else to us.

However, we need to remind ourselves (as hard as this is!) that this world, like those of heaven and hell, are not “places”. We are dealing here with a dimension outside of space and time. These “places” are therefore actually spiritual states, meaning states of being, whether good (heaven), bad (hell) or a mix of the two in-between (the world of spirits).

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In this material world, what is spiritual is normally invisible and inward, whereas in the spiritual world there is no materiality and it’s the spiritual that is now completely visible and manifested in all kinds of forms.

(B) Heaven

Swedenborg saw that heaven was really made up of an infinite number of different little heavens, little communities or heavenly societies as he called them.

Each was composed of persons (angels) who shared a similar kind of good love. They did not have wings, as previously noted, nor did they sit on clouds playing harps!

Angels lead busy and satisfying lives in very real worlds of great beauty, doing what they love best that serves to help build up the kingdom in and amongst human beings on earth. They have wonderful friendships and may even marry (becoming “soul mates”!).

(C) Hell

Hell is similarly composed of a diversity of different societies, each one indicative of a particular kind of evil love shared by its inhabitants. It is an ugly, barren and bitter place, although to the eyes of those who live there it seems entirely natural and normal, even “right”. This is because hellish personalities are only comfortable in hellish surroundings (just as heavenly people are only comfortable in heavenly surroundings).

God does not punish people in hell, rather people there, being self-centred, mean and cruel, punish each other. God prevails to keep the evil spirits from hurting one another excessively until they gradually learn at least to refrain from the worst excesses of their natures.

(3) How You Get Where You Are Going

But as newly-awakened spirits, we do not normally go directly either to heaven or to hell. Instead, we first enter that in-between state of the world of spirits. (Note: it was revealed to Swedenborg that those who die in infancy or childhood go directly to heaven, where they are raised by the angels and given their proper place in one of the heavens.)

It is in the world of spirits that the much talked-about (and feared) “judgment” takes place, determining which way we shall go.

Judgment is NOT meted out by God nor by a St. Peter figure standing at the “pearly gates”! What happens is this: we awaken in the world of spirits as completely ourselves, with our particular mix of good and bad. We meet and socialize with others including those we may not have seen since their own passing some time previously.

At first there is a great sense of camaraderie and general delight in a new life that many scarcely expected or believed possible. However, as this is now a spiritual realm of existence, the outer self associated with the material body begins to fade away.

Thus the “public face” gradually disappears and what emerges to sight (and to mind) is the true inner self, the spirit or love that a person really is. In the world of spirits, people go through a process of becoming completely who they really are inside.

Thereafter a separation soon occurs. The truly good become more comfortable in each other’s company and more uncomfortable in the company of the truly evil (and vice versa). Soon each group discovers the paths that lead them to the “place” (i.e. state) most amenable to and like their own. The good spirits soon find other angels waiting for them and other states of goodness (heavens) that are just right for them. Evil spirits find other companions waiting that match their own evil and they soon take themselves off to one of the hells that suits them.

It was revealed to Swedenborg that everyone chooses where it is best and most pleasing for them to go. Those who have made a more heavenly life for themselves while on earth, by the way they have chosen to live (and such that they have, all unconsciously, lived in the company of other good spirits) enter into that society of angels after they die. Those who have made their life a hell by the way they have chosen to live continue in that hell after they have transitioned into the spiritual dimension.

For this reason, Swedenborg saw that, such is the mercy and loving kindness of God, there is a “right place” for every spirit where they will be happiest, according to their own nature. Thus it is that the angels cannot drag an evil spirit into heaven – it would be torture for that person to be there!

So it is that we all go where we need and choose to go. In other words, we all enact our own judgment upon ourselves, by the lives we choose to live here and the kind of love we thereby become.

God does everything – short of forcing us, which would be unloving! – to lead us on right paths. Indeed, Swedenborgians say that God’s plan is to “make a heaven of the human race”.

The truth is, we are all expressly made for heaven by a loving Creator Spirit but that outcome is always ultimately our choice. Our spiritual destiny is in our hands!

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