A Man of the Field:
Forming The
Volume 1: Reformation
The
Struggle Against Nonduality
Volume 2: Enlightenment
The
Spiritual Sense of the Writings
Volume 3: Regeneration
Spiritual
Disciplines For Daily Life
Volume 4: Uses
The New
Church Mind In Old Age
By Leon
James
October
2002
(draft 17a)
Author
information appears at the end. This document is in the process of being
revised. Please note the draft version marked on top. To print this document,
see Printing Note at the end.
A “field” means doctrine (AC 368)
A "man" signifies faith and
truth (AC 427; 4823)
Volume 1
Reformation
The
Struggle Against Nonduality
Chapter 1
Table of Contents
Access to other Chapters
and Volumes here:
1.
The Writings Are A Divine Scientific Revelation
2.
The Writings Are The Lord’s Second Coming
3.
Heaven Is Created From Rational Love
4. A
Divine Revelation That Surpasses All Others
5.
Swedenborg’s Scientific Experiments In The Spiritual World
6.
Swedenborg’s Dual Citizenship—Natural And Spiritual
7.
This Book Is About Regeneration
REFORMATION: THE INWARD STRUGGLE AGAINST NONDUALITY
The New Church Mind is to
be Formed by the Writings Exclusively
3.
Spiritual Truths Understood Naturally and Spiritually
4.
The Great Battle Of Nonduality Vs. Duality
5.
Enlightenment From The Lord
7. At
The Threshold Out Of Hell Into Heaven
8.
Cooperation in our Regeneration
9.
The Lord’s Relationship to All Religions
10.
The Writings As The Exclusive Source For Spiritual Truths
11.
Separating Nonduality and Duality in the Mind
12.
Reformation by Means of the Writings
13.
Old and New Testament From Perspective Of The Writings
14.
The Writings Are The Last Revelation
15.
The Writings Are For The Rational Mind
17.
The Birth Of The Interior-Natural
18.
Reformation And Regeneration Begin In Early Adulthood
19.
Nonduality Fills The Culture Around Us
20.
Two Methods For Fighting Nonduality In The Mind
Absolute Opposition Between
Duality and Nonduality
1.
Religious Membership Not Required For Salvation
2.
Revelation Is Necessary For Spiritual Truths
3.
The New Rational Consciousness of God
4.
Nonduality is from Self-intelligence
5.
Nonduality In The Mind Opposes Regeneration
2. Incompatibility with the
Writings
4. Duality is the only
reality
1.
The New Age Of The Second Coming
5. The natural and
spiritual mind
1.
Nonduality Is In The Unregenerate Natural Mind
2.
The Spiritual Begins With The Rational
3.
The Spiritual In The New Testament
6. Why nonduality can be
attractive
Titles for the Abbreviated
Citations in the Book
Full Text Free Online Access to All Swedenborg’s
Writings:
Access to other Chapters and
Volumes here:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nonduality.html
Every
spiritual truth in the Writings
is a Divine Commandment
Preface to Volume 1
|
“The
manifestation of the Lord, and intromission into the spiritual world, surpass
all miracles. This has not been granted to anyone since the creation, as it
has been to me.” Emanuel Swedenborg (INV 52) |
This book
presents the perspective on reality given in the Writings of Emanuel
Swedenborg (1688-1772).
It is intended
for all those, regardless of religious or intellectual background, who want to
form a new mind in themselves that is based
exclusively on the Writings. The book’s purpose is to assist them in undergoing
reformation and regeneration in preparation for a conjugial life in heaven.
1. The Writings Are A Divine Scientific Revelation
In today’s
intellectual climate revelations from God, His Name, the Bible, heaven and
hell, Church Doctrine, and the like are automatically considered religious
issues. When I started reading the Writings I was well into my career as a
psychology professor, writer, and scientist. I knew that the two-dozen books of
the Writings that I was studying were categorized as religious books, since I
found them in our university library in the section on Bible Commentaries. But
the books were written by Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish scientist of repute in
his days, and known to many influential intellectuals in
Swedenborg
was a fully rational thinker with a passion and commitment for explanations of
phenomena that span the entire chain of their existence from ultimates to
firsts. And since it is irrational to think that firsts can be from nothing or
from chaos, rationality requires that the first of all phenomena be a rational
Human God.
Swedenborg’s
science was therefore inclusive and centered on a Human God who runs the
universe in a rational way that is discoverable by intellectual investigation.
Swedenborg
relied on the revelations of the Bible for the scientific facts about the
spiritual world. Since he had no direct access to the spiritual world (until
age 57), he extracted the facts from the Bible using both its literal meaning
and spiritual meaning. The Bible reveals many scientific facts about the
spiritual world in relation to the natural world, as for instance:
q
that there is a God who forms and
runs the universe
q
that God is Human
q
that God’s personality is motivated
by Divine Love
q
that God runs the universe by means
of rational laws
q
that there is a spiritual world and
life after death
q
that we are immortal
q
that in the afterlife we live in
either heaven or hell
q
that the spiritual world is within
the mind, thus that the mind is in the spiritual world
q
that spirit and mind are the same
q
that those who make it to heaven are
then angels
q
that those who make it to hell are
then devils
q
that heaven and hell are within us
q
that our character is what
determines whether we are to live in heaven or hell within us
q
that we inherit a degenerate
character that must be regenerated
q
that regeneration consists in
following conscience, not doing evil to the neighbor, loving to do good
q
that our mind or spirit is in
unconscious communication with those who are already in the spiritual world
q
that God manages the smallest
details of our willing and thinking so as to facilitate regeneration
q
that God manages the details of
every event or outcome at the macro and micro levels, including fortuitous
events, accidents, the laws of chance, randomness, regularity
q
and many others
The above
list of scientific facts about the universe is based only on the literal meaning of the Bible.
Swedenborg
also extracted many scientific facts from the spiritual meaning of Bible verses, as for example:
q
that the Bible is the Word and
therefore it is Divine Truth
q
that parts of the Bible are written as
accurate history, while other parts are spiritual visions
q
that spiritual visions are universal
phenomena brought about by correspondences
q
that correspondences are revealed by
God to the human race
q
that correspondences are Divine
Truths accommodated to human intelligence
q
that correspondences are ordered in
discrete degrees or levels in a hierarch of truths from external to inmost
q
that regeneration of one’s character
is achieved by the applying the power of correspondences to one’s daily willing
and thinking
q
that the universe is managed by a
hierarchical order of correspondences that are represented in the spiritual
meaning of the Bible
q
that individual regeneration and
biography recapitulates history and evolution
q
that the Bible reveals the
intellectual history of the human race within the spiritual meaning of the details
regarding names, places, numbers, and descriptions
q
that we live in heaven as angel
couples
q
that in the afterlife we have
spirit-bodies allowing us to live in society, marriage, and an active creative
life
q
that the human race extends beyond
this planet to the entire universe
q
and many more
At age 57
the Divine Human appeared to Swedenborg, held him affectionately in His arms,
and announced to him the mission for which he was prepared by God since early
childhood. Swedenborg was to be the revelator by whom the Second Coming of the
Lord was to be effected. Swedenborg was going to write
and publish a series of books called the Writings. The Writings were to be the
Divine Rational of the Lord which was to be revealed to the human race as a
rational and scientific system of thinking. The Divine Human was to effect its Coming within these rational truths. Any individual who read these truths and understood them, taking
them to be the guides of life, would be regenerated and conjoined to the Divine
Human by means of this new rational consciousness of God. Henceforth this will
be the orderly method of regeneration for the human race.
In order
for the revelations of the Writings to be scientific and rational it was
necessary that Swedenborg have direct access to both worlds simultaneously.
Swedenborg had to be given the means to make empirical and experimental observations
in the spiritual world, such as the following:
q
to be present in heaven and hell and
to interview the people there
q
to watch the resuscitation process
during death and how the spirit emerges from the physical body
q
to talk to people whose body was
being buried
q
to interview various authors well
known from history and the Bible
q
to conduct experiments involving
spirits and their mental abilities
q
to compare the language and script
of the Word on earth and in heaven
q
to interview angel couples in their
homes
q
to travel in spirit to distant
planetary regions in the universe and to investigate the character of spirits
from those planets, and even, to see certain physical scenes on those planets
through the eyes of spirits associated with the people there
q
to be given visual observation posts
from which to describe the shape or form of the land masses of heaven and hell
q
to witness demonstrations of the
spiritual power of truths from the Word
q
to attempt therapy on those in hell
q
to interview new arrivals in the
afterlife and what memories they bring with them
q
to observe the education and raising
of children who arrive from the many earths
q
to experiment with correspondences,
seeing which produces what visual appearance
q
and many more
From all
this you can see that Swedenborg’s Writings constitute theistic science. The
Writings of Swedenborg are rational scientific works written in Neo-Latin by a
Swedish scientist and engineer in the 18th century. They are unique in the history of humankind
because they present a fully rational comprehensive scientific account of all
of reality, God, and human beings.
Prior
accounts in the history of literature were never fully scientific, and never
fully complete and comprehensive. If Swedenborg had merely written what his own
genius figured out, the Writings would remain one of the greatest collections
of rational philosophy, science, and theology anywhere. But the Writings are
not books from the genius of Swedenborg, but much more, something entirely
different, unparalleled in the history and evolution of the human race. The Writings are God’s Rational and
Scientific Revelation now given to the human race for the first time. They
present a fully rational and scientific account of reality, such as God has
created it. If the content of the Writings were merely Swedenborg’s ideas of
reality and God, they would form part of the literature of the world. But if
the Writings are from God, then the Writings are unlike all other books that
could be written.
No one
should decide between these two possibilities without examining the Writings. I
have examined them in detail, like I would a scientific collection of books
which I intend to evaluate. Having done this, I have come to the conclusion
that the Writings are the work of God, the last of the
great revelations intended for the human race and called “the Word.” What is astonishing is that the Word of God
in this new revelation is a science encyclopedia of the spiritual world! Since
the spiritual world is within the natural, and is the cause of all natural
phenomena, you can see why the Writings are a total and full scientific revelation
of God. The human race now possesses two sets of scientific encyclopedias, one
natural, the other spiritual; one about the natural world, the other about the spiritual
world and how it animates the natural.
Now in the
Writings, the human race has before it a full integrated rational description
of God, creation, the universe, heaven and hell, history, truth, love,
marriage, and regeneration.
This new beginning in science and rationality
may be called the new age of THEISTIC SCIENCE.
The Christian
tradition since the Lord’s First Coming has been that He is to come again to
complete the world’s makeover called the salvation of the human race. They
expect the Second Coming of the Lord to take place physically, appearing in the
clouds, calling on those who believe in Him, gathering them together in one
place, and giving them eternal life and happiness in Him. No one can tell you
exactly what this means in terms of details—except those who have read and
understood the Writings. For the Lord has effected His
predicted Second Coming. This Second Advent was to complete the creation of the
human race. He had already appeared physically in history and science, giving
sensuous proof of Himself. When He foretold that He must come again, He did not
mean that He is to come again in His glorified Divine Natural. He was actually
saying that He must come again in His Divine Rational. Then we can know Him
fully, by knowing the Divine Rational that is within the Divine Natural. A
Second Coming in the physical would retard still further the evolution of
rational consciousness in the human race.
The Lord is
Divine Truth, which means that the new heavens He creates are made of rational
loves, and these exist only in rational consciousness. The human race must
evolve rational consciousness to become spiritually enlightened and live in
heaven in eternity. This rational consciousness is brought about by forming our
mind to reflect the order described in the Writings. This rational order is the
Divine Rational of the Lord. From creation this is what the Lord intended, a
human race that would evolve into rational consciousness and capable of having
a celestial mind that lives in heaven. Now these rational truths have at last
been revealed in the Writings. This rational revelation of Divine Truth is the
Lord in His Second Coming.
Can a
neighbor of yours know you if he only knows what you look like but not what you
believe in and how you think? Christians got to know the Divine Natural of the
Lord in a sensuous way, tangible, touchable. Even after the first generation
passed on, the ensuing generations of Christians knew the Lord in this sensuous
way because they believed that He was real, that He had indeed been here on this
earth as God Incarnate. But this is relatively speaking, knowing the Lord like
a neighbor whom we can see with our eyes every morning exiting from the
apartment building, but whom we do not know because we do not know his beliefs
and attitudes.
The Divine Rational
of the Lord is within His Divine Natural, which makes sense because the Lord is
Human. All humans consist of a rational mind within a body. In this world, we
are a rational mind within a physical body, and in the afterlife, we are this
same rational mind, but now in a spirit-body. The Lord is always within His Divine Natural
Sensuous Body, as humans are always within their sensuous body. The sensuous
body is the outward casing for the spiritual rational mind. The Lord’s Divine
Natural Body is the outward Casing for His spiritual-rational mind called the
Divine Rational. This Divine Rational is the origin and source of Divine Truth,
the substance from which all is created. So the Lord’s Divine Rational is the
true Divine Human that we are to love and know. This Divine Rational is what has been revealed in the Writings.
2. The Writings Are The Lord’s Second Coming
The Second
Coming refers to the revelation of the Divine Rational. This revelation was
completed and published on
The
Writings are God’s revelation to the human race of how He creates the universe
and how He runs and manages every detail. This includes the revelation that the
universe is created for a human purpose by means of truth within which is love.
And it also includes the revelation of the existence of two worlds, one being a
natural world where human beings are born and raised, the other a spiritual
world, where human beings awaken a few hours after death and continue
individual life eternally in either a celestial existence in heaven or an
infernal existence in the hells. I mention these things here as general topics
that have been of interest to the human race since the beginning of literature.
But the Writings deal with these spiritual, philosophical, and religious topics
in a rational way that give a scientifically precise and dynamic account of
them. This is what I found so attractive in the Writings the minute I started
reading them in 1981 at age 43, having discovered them in our university
library while I was searching for Bible Commentaries.
Subsequently
I also found out that the Writings of Swedenborg have had a distinguished but
small following, that his books have been translated in a dozen languages, and
that several communities have been created by people who call themselves the
Well, if
the Writings do not spring from Swedenborg’s genius, what is their origin?
God has
created the human race to evolve to ever higher powers of life and being. The
perfecting of the human race is a gradual evolution in which our conscious
cooperation with God is required to increase as we evolve to higher states of
life and consciousness. The method by which the human
race cooperates ever more consciously in its own evolution, is the method of
truth and love. God is a Divine Rational Being whose essence is love and truth
in an infinite degree. Divine Rational is the same as Divine Human, because the
human is defined by the rational. The spiritual is nothing but the human rational
in its essence.
God creates
the universe not out of nothing, for this is irrational. God is infinite in
quantity and complexity, and this infinite quantity is in God as one, that is,
as one coherent whole. Nothing can exist that is not created from this infinite
Divine Rational Substance called love and truth united as one. All things that
exist are kept in existence by God’s substance of truth, within which is love.
3. Heaven Is Created From Rational
Love
Since the
universe is created from truth and into the order of truth, reality is a rational
reality. God is a rational entity and our idea of God is a rational idea. All
laws of the universe are rational laws. The spiritual world and the natural
world are both rational worlds, by necessity of creation. Heaven is a rational
creation. The suns and earths in the universe are rational entities. The human
race is a rational creation and event, with a rational goal, and a rational
method of evolution. The ultimate goal of this evolution is to reach perfection
as a rational being.
Truth
belongs to love. Love is the creating, driving force, power, and goal. When love creates something, it does that by
means of truth. Truth is the exteriorization of love. Love is the
substance, while truth is the form of this substance. Truth can do nothing by
itself, but only from love. Love can’t do anything except by means of truth. Since
all things are created from love by its truth into truth, the human mind is the
highest element of all creation. Only the human mind is created capable of
conscious understanding of truth, which can also be called rational love. The
human mind is to evolve into the ability to understand ever more interior
truths or rational loves, of which the most interior, is God. All things of creation are in God, yet God
is separate from this creation. It would not be rational to think that God
has created Himself! Neither that reality has created itself! God has created
reality, which means that God is outside reality, able to create it and run it.
The method by which the human race is to evolve to ever more
interior understanding of infinite Divine Truth, is the method of Divine
Revelations. This has been the case since the first generation of the human
race. Literature has preserved the long record of Divine Revelations to the earlier
generations. Each Divine Revelation was given by God as a stepped up
evolutionary leap for the human race. Each new revelation took hundreds of
generations to fully digest and incorporate into the fabric of human
understanding. In this way there has been steady progress in the evolution of
human consciousness, as reflected by a world that has left barbaric savagery
behind and has developed for itself an advanced civilization based on rational
principles of mutual cooperation and treatment.
4. A Divine Revelation That
Surpasses All Others
The
Writings are the latest new revelation given by God to the human race.
This is a
special new revelation that surpasses all other Divine Revelations.
These new revelations are for the
first time fully rational and scientific. The human race had to evolve a modern scientific
mind before these new rational scientific revelations could be given. At last,
in the Age of Reason of the 18th century in Christian Western
Europe, the human mind was ready to receive, understand, and accept a full
unqualified and total revelation of God and reality in rational concepts and
terms that the modern mind could readily understand. This was done through the
mind of Emanuel Swedenborg, recognized as one of the great geniuses in the
history of literature and science.
At age 57
Swedenborg was at the height of his scientific and professional career. His
achievements have been well documented in several fields, including metallurgy,
chemistry, anatomy, psychology, theology, education, and legislation. He tells
how the God of His childhood and country, in the image of Jesus Christ,
appeared before him and held him affectionately in His bosom for a little
while. He writes that the Lord then told him that he was being prepared since
early childhood for the mission of Revelator and that the time has now come, in
1741, for him to begin his Divine mission.
Swedenborg’s
awesome mission was to write the 30-volume collection of books called “the Writings”
or “the Writings of Swedenborg.” These Divine Revelations are going to be the
last in the series of Divine Revelations that were to be given to the human
race. They were therefore going to be a full and total rational disclosure of
reality and its workings. Prior Divine Revelations of the Word, such as the Old
and New Testaments, were given in a language of authority
and mystery, but the final portion of the Divine Word for the human race, are
given in a language of rationality and science. No mystery is left standing. No
appeal is made to authority, but only to the individual’s rational understanding.
A Divine
Revelation is given for the purpose of raising the consciousness of the race.
This is accomplished by means of the truths in the Revelation. It is necessary
therefore that people be able to understand the revelation. To make this
possible therefore, all Divine Revelations are given through the mind of an individual
human being, a capable representative of the rest of the race. The man whose
mind was prepared for issuing this last of Divine Revelations had to be a
product of the Age of Reason in Christian Western intellectual culture. It had
to be a modern scientific revelation because the human race had evolved to this
level of rational and spiritual consciousness. The modern mind was unwilling to
believe in a God of mystery and authority. It needed a rational scientific
account of God, reality, and our position in it. Even a sensuous God was no
longer enough. This sensuous God had to have a rational explanation or else He
could not be understood, and what the modern mind cannot understand, it won’t
love. Without love for God, we cannot be regenerated and saved for life in
heaven.
The Age of
Reason in
The
Christian religion was given as both a sensuous and rational revelation to the
human race. The sensuous revelation was the unprecedented event of
Incarnation--God born in history as a human being of flesh and blood. This
event took the human race forward into rational consciousness. Now there was scientific
physical empirical historical evidence and proof of God’s existence. Besides
the sensuous revelation of the New Testament, a rational revelation is also
made there, namely, that God is Human. This was the first time that the human
race had proof that the universe was a rational universe created for a human
purpose by a Human God. God was Human and Rational, thus, Love and Truth. And
He created the universe out of Truth into truth, hence in a rational order.
God’s Laws were rational laws. The presence of God with the human race was
through rational consciousness, rational understanding, rational loves, not
ecstatic emotions or animal sacrifices and ceremonies.
The First
Coming was the Incarnation of God in a physical body. It was a momentous
forward step in the evolution of human consciousness because the human race had
never had this proof before, had never been able to face God in a physical and
natural presence. Now God was part of our history, part of our science, part of
our rational understanding of reality. Prior to God’s Incarnation the relationship
of the human race to God was an indirect one. God could make an appearance in
the sensuous human world by taking over the mind of a celestial individual and
speaking through this person like a mouthpiece. The prophets and various
individuals to whom God appeared in the Bible saw God through such an
appearance, thus not God, but a human being possessed by the Spirit of God. But
since God’s Incarnation, He can appear to human beings as Himself in His Own
Divine Natural Body. This allows a far closer contact with God, hence a far
higher level of consciousness and life for the human race.
The New
Testament Revelations also revealed that there is going to be one more Divine
Revelation necessary to complete the creation of the human race into its full
perfection. This full perfection is the state in which we can cooperate
consciously with God in our preparation for heavenly life in eternity. Full conscious cooperation cannot be done
while there are mysteries left in religion, science, and reality.
The Last
Divine Revelation, or the Last Testament of the Word, has been laid down in
Latin through the mind of Swedenborg, and now we have it, I,
you, and the rest of the endless generations to come. A copy of the Writings as
the New Word is also to be found in every society of the numberless heavens in
the spiritual world.
The Divine
Rational Revelations in the Writings could not have been constructed and
delivered through Swedenborg’s mind if Swedenborg had merely to take Divine
dictation and to write down sentences in that way, without understanding them,
without having constructed them out of his understanding. Therefore in order to
have Swedenborg write those sentences he had to first understand all of reality
and God in relation to the human race. He had to understand rationally so that
he could compose those sentences from which others could extract the rational
truths.
5. Swedenborg’s Scientific
Experiments In
The Spiritual World
How was
Swedenborg’s understanding to be enlightened so that he could rationally
and scientifically describe reality and God in relation to the human race?
The answer
is surprisingly simple: Swedenborg had to be given access to a spiritual
laboratory so that he may conduct his experimental and empirical observations
by which he might discover the rational truths of reality and God in relation
to human beings.
These
laboratory facilities were given him as part of the Divine mission, which is
why Swedenborg wrote that the Writings represent the greatest miracle and
wonder ever bestowed upon the human race by God’s Love. Swedenborg’s
experiments with spirit subjects and geographical explorations in the spiritual
world were effected through the intermediary of many
people in the spiritual world. The people who inhabit the celestial regions in
their mind are called angels and have many powers that Swedenborg did not have,
being still a man on earth. These angels intervened of his behalf, protected
him from harm, and arranged for conditions Swedenborg needed to make his
observations and to write them down in a natural language (Neo-Latin and
Swedish). He not only wrote down what happened but was also given the capacity
to provide a scientific and theological context for his observations and
reports. Thus, nothing is wanting in the Writings for fulfilling its role as
the greatest intellectual boon the human race has ever received, or will ever
receive again.
Within a
matter of a few weeks since the Lord’s appearance to Swedenborg, he began to
experience new perceptions as he was reading the Bible. His practiced genius
was able to make detailed indexes of the Holy Book which he read in the
original Hebrew and Greek. To his amazement he discovered that within the
literal meaning of the Old and New Testaments there lay hidden a spiritual
meaning that was not apparent to the reader until each word and phrase was
taken as a correspondence for some deeper spiritual meaning. For example, by
collating many corresponding passages from both Testaments, Swedenborg showed
how any rational and educated person could discover the spiritual message in
each verse. The content of these
spiritual meanings hidden within the literal had to do with the rational
exposition of reality and God in relation to the human race.
This systematic
work of discovery was most important and impressive, and will be a benefit to
humankind for all the ages to come. And yet, this work would not have been sufficient
to constitute the final, total, and thus last, Divine Revelation by which
everything the human race can know and understand. There also had to be a
science to it. Where was the science of it? Extracting a rational system from
historical Divine works in the Bible is admirable, but it is not a scientific
work. The only way Swedenborg could
produce a scientific report of the spiritual world was to be there when he
describes it!
This was
granted to him by Divine intervention as the greatest miracle in human history.
6. Swedenborg’s Dual
Citizenship—Natural And Spiritual
A few
months after his momentous encounter with the Lord, Swedenborg began to have
flashes of conscious presence in the spiritual world. He did not know what is the spiritual world. From his initial flashes it looked
like a version of the natural world, with people walking about in cities and in
the country side where there were forests, deserts, mountains, and lakes. It took just a few months for him to get
adjusted to a full time permanent conscious awake state in both worlds
simultaneously.
Never
before in history has anyone ever claimed to be fully conscious in both worlds simultaneously
and uninterruptedly for 27 years while carrying on their profession and normal
duties and in society. This was especially a significant development because
Swedenborg was an impeccable scientist of the modern Age of Reason in Christian
Western Europe. He was able to connect all his vast modern knowledge of natural
science and biology to his new life in the spiritual world. He wrote daily
notes, forming a coherent description of the relationship between the two worlds.
He was given access by the Lord to any society or individual in the spiritual
world that he desired to investigate. He was given the means by which to
conduct experiments, such as for example, what happens to the mind when you
experimentally remove from it this or that idea or belief. Also, what happens
when you supply this or that truth to an individual, or how people with different
genius communicate with each other through others, in an information network,
what the language of communication is in the spiritual world, how people form
different cultures and civilizations can co-exist, and many such things.
He kept
notes of his meetings and interviews in the spiritual world with thousands of
people in all categories that were relevant to his science and culture. He was
thus able to compare the understanding and state of life of many categories of
people, comparing their demographics with their spiritual character. He was
able to talk to authors from the ancient Greeks whose books he had read and
studied, so that he could compare what happens to the author’s mind when he
goes to the afterlife with these ideas. He was able to speak and travel with
people in the spiritual world who had been born on other planets and thereby he
gained an empirical knowledge of the varieties of the human race. He was able
to visit the high places and the low places of the spiritual world,
encountering there the highest level of the human, and the most depraved.
Because humans retain their ideas and attitudes when they pass on, they can be
explored as to the details of their life and conduct. Swedenborg was able to
make precise cause-effect observations between the ideas and loves we
accumulate as our personality, and the quality of our
life and experience in the spiritual world.
You can see
from all this that no other writings can be compared with the Writings of
Swedenborg.
Now that
the modern scientific Divine Rational Revelations have been given to the human
race, it will take many generations before they are recognized and acknowledged
by many. Since 1771, the year the last work of the Writings was published,
there have been thousands of individuals who have recognized them and
acknowledged them as Divine Revelations. Today, in the computer age of the
Internet, the Writings have become available to anyone who desires them. The
Lord manages every detail in the universe, hence also, who and when anyone gets
to see the Writings, and then, what of it one can understand, love, and
assimilate for life.
No one can
see anything special and spiritual in the Writings who is
not led by the Lord to do so. This is not some special favoritism or
sectarianism of this or that new religion. The Writings are a complete work of rational
science. The only requirement for access to higher human consciousness is to
read the Writings as the Divine Word given to humankind for the enlightenment
of rational consciousness.
No religion
is necessary, no teacher or guru, no initiation
ceremony, no prior qualification of personality, orientation, or character. Nothing is required except a modern
scientific mind able to figure our and comprehend rational ideas laid down in a
rational and scientific manner.
In this
book I have taken the rational arguments and proofs in the Writings and applied
them to my understanding of reality and science. As a trained professional
scientist all my life I have carried my profession and science into the
analysis and confirmation process of all that is in the Writings for anyone to
verify. I have then taken this new understanding of reality and myself and
applied it to what is every individual’s principal tasks
in life: regeneration.
7. This Book Is About Regeneration
The human
race has been for a long time in a “Fallen” or degenerate state by heredity.
This is because all new human loves and tendencies accumulate in the mind and
are passed on by hereditary mechanisms to one’s offspring. Today as each of us
is born into the modern world and culture, we have the potential of becoming a
celestial mind by means of regeneration, which goes on throughout our life in
the physical body. Once we awaken in the spiritual world, a few hours after the
physical body dies, we begin a new life in a spirit-body that contains our will
and understanding. These two organs are filled with our experiences, knowledge,
and affections or loves. We are then to continue forever being the kind of
individuals we became while maturing on earth. Clearly then, it’s a matter of survival and rational self-interest to
see to it that we arrive in the afterlife with a personality and character that
can live in a heavenly sphere, by which we can avoid the eternal misery of
those who sink down into hell because of their distorted and insane character
or personality.
In the
spiritual world all individuals feel totally free to be who
or what they are in their loves and interests. In fact, they are compelled by
the laws of the spiritual world to be on the outside what their affections or
loves are on the inside. While tied to a physical body, our inner madness,
rage, and insanity do not show, being inhibited by society and consequences.
But as soon as we awaken in our spirit-body, nothing that is within can be kept
from coming out. Therefore by necessity there are Divine laws of reality in the
spiritual world that keep the order and make continued life possible in that
order. And so, regions and habitations are set up in the endless expanse of the
spiritual world, in order to accommodate the life for every type of human
beings that enter the world of spirits from the numerous earths in the universe.
There are heavens and there are hells, reflecting the character of those who
live there. And within the heavens and the hells, there are innumerable
sub-regions and societies, each made up of people of a similar character who
live together and share one another’s fate.
This book is about regeneration,
which is the conscious discipline of character change based on the scientific
principles revealed in the Writings.
When we
read the Writings we begin to understand regeneration in a medial,
psychological, and educational perspective that is unique and new. Our prior
understanding is based on the fundamental principle of nonduality, which is
that all things exist in one continuum of the universe or reality. When we begin
to see things from the perspective of the Writings, we can replace every concept
of nonduality into a duality. Every duality is by reference to the natural and
the spiritual as two separate and distinct worlds, tied together by rational
laws of correspondence that have now been revealed by God.
In Volume 1
I show how rational analysis can be used to debunk and deconstruct concepts and
notions of nonduality that are opposed to the dualities in our mind from the
Writings. Once our mind is rearranged in this new mode, we can begin
regeneration, which requires us to cooperate with the Lord by shunning evils as
sins because sins prevent the preparation of our mind for eternal life. This
cooperation must be in all the specifics of our willing and thinking hour by
hour, every day. In Volume 3 I explain how to do this systematically and
effectively by means of spiritual disciplines. These “regeneration disciplines”
consist of doing ordinary things in our daily life from a new motive, which is
that we are striving to obey the Lord’s Commandment that we monitor our willing
and thinking, that we evaluate every particular in the light of the truths from
the Writings, that we desist from willing what is evil and thinking what is
false, and at last, that we detest these things that are in us from hell by
heredity, culture, and unregenerate habits.
Others may also
have an interest in the book, especially the wives of the men who are
undergoing reformation and regeneration by means of the Writings. Women are
also going through the gradual process of regeneration and have to cooperate with
the Lord in that process in order to be saved for heavenly life. They may find
it useful to learn what their husbands are going through from a Doctrinal point
of view. Men and women have categorically different patterns of regeneration because
there can be no overlap of interior nature between men and women (xx). Also,
this book discusses the content and quality of everyday thoughts and feelings
of husbands who are undergoing reformation and regeneration. And since husbands
resist conjugial love from hereditary antipathy, often fiercely and cruelly,
their wives have to endure much abuse and unhappiness in the process of their
regeneration. Knowing the details of their husband’s mental struggles may be of
interest and use to their wives, and to women generally.
Also, all
who are interested in Swedenborg’s Writings and ideas may find much useful
details and spiritual applications to daily life. People who have not read the
Writings may be interested in how I analyze important lifestyle concepts such
as God, religion, spirituality, heaven and hell, love, truth, personality, and
especially, the process of deepening marital relations.
The
No
religious or spiritual mystery is allowed in the
For it is the
case with the life of charity (which is the heavenly life itself) that with
those who are being reformed and regenerated it is continually being born and
growing up and receiving increments, and this by means of truths; therefore the
more of truth there is insinuated, the more is the life of charity perfected …
(…)
In truth, however, there is no life, but in good. Truth is
only a recipient of life, that is, of good. Truth is as the clothing or garment
of good; therefore also truths are called in the Word "clothing," and
also "garments." But when good constitutes the rational, truth
disappears and becomes as if it were good.
(AC 2189)
The
Writings explain why reformation is necessary. The reason given is that we are
born with a natural mind and with the potential of developing also a spiritual
mind. This new mind becomes functional only through reformation and
regeneration of one’s old mind and inherited character. The spiritual mind is
required for a life in heaven after the life in the physical world. Regeneration is the process of character
self-modification and it goes on throughout one’s life here, and hereafter to
eternity (AC 47, 233, 1712, 2877, 5664, 10299; NJHD 148; DP 102; CL 82;
SE 5958; LJ 299; AE 864). The
This book presents practical methods for husbands who want to form the
All
citations in parentheses are to Swedenborg’s books which collectively, are
called the Writings. The places marked by (xx) are still to be filled in. If
you have any of these citations at hand, please email them to me. The standard
Title of the Work referred to in these citations is given at the end.
The Word is the Divine Truth which is in the Lord and from
the Lord … Divine Truth has power in itself, and such power that, by means of
it, heaven was created and the world with all things therein. (HH 137).
Without the Lord's coming into the world no one could have
been saved. It is the same today; and therefore without the Lord's coming again
into the world in Divine truth, which is the Word, no one can be saved. (TCR 3)
In the
spiritual sense, a “man of the field” signifies “the faith and truth of
doctrine” (AC 368, 427, 4823). This book is about the spiritual Doctrine that
each man is to extract from the Word of the Writings, by applying the literal
sense to oneself, to the hundreds of willing and
thinking acts we perform every day in the course of our normal activities. This
use of the literal sense is required for our reformation, regeneration, and
salvation for eternal life in heaven. Every time we apply in this way one of
the literal sentences from the Writings, we are enlightened by the Lord so that
we can perceive the spiritual sense within the literal. This conscious process counts
as cooperation with the Lord in our regeneration. Without this active conscious
daily habitual cooperation with the Lord, we cannot be regenerated. This will
be proven in the book by many citations from the Writings. It is the spiritual
understanding of Doctrine that constitutes faith and truth. The Lord infills
true faith with Divine Love, and from this union we have closeness with Him,
love unto Him, and new interior celestial truths that make us wise like an
angel, and capable of conjugial union with the wife.
To my wife
It is
her internal wisdom that led me to write this book as-of myself. She brought
into our marriage the conjugial love she has in her from the Lord, inborn from
nativity
An inclination to love one of the opposite sex, and with it
a capacity for receiving that love, has been implanted in Christians from
birth, for the reason that this love comes from the Lord alone (CL 466).
Wives are by birth forms of love, so
that it is innate in them to wish to be one with their husbands … But it is
different with husbands; since they are not by birth forms of love, but
designed to receive that love from their wives (CL 216)
The intelligence of women is by
nature modest, gracious, peaceable, compliant, soft and gentle, while the
intelligence of men is by nature critical, rough, resistant, argumentative, and
given to intemperance. Evidence that
this is the nature of women and the nature of men is clearly apparent from the
body, face, tone of voice, speech, bearing and behavior of each sex. (…)
From this I could clearly see that a
man is born a form of the intellect, and a woman a form of love. I could also see what the nature of the
intellect is and what the nature of love is in their beginnings, and thus what
a man's intellect in its development would be like without conjunction with
feminine love and eventually conjugial love. (CL 218)
|
The Word is the only doctrine which teaches how a man must live in the
world in order to be happy to eternity. (AC 8939) |
Quoting from the Writings:
There are two states that man must enter upon and
pass through, when from being natural he is becoming
spiritual. The first state is called Reformation, and the second Regeneration.
In the first man looks from his natural to his spiritual state and longs for
that state; in the second state he becomes spiritual-natural. The first state
is formed by means of truths, which must be truths of faith, and through these
he looks to charity; the second state is formed by means of the goods of
charity, and by these he enters into the truths of faith. Or what is the same,
the first is a state of thought from the understanding, and the second a state
of love from the will.
When this latter state begins and is
progressing, a change takes place in the mind; the mind undergoes a reversal,
the love of the will then flowing into the understanding, acting upon it and
leading it to think in accord and agreement with its love; and in consequence
so far as the good of love comes to act the first part and the truths of faith
the second, man is spiritual and is a new creature; and he then acts from
charity and speaks from faith; he feels the good of charity and perceives the
truth of faith; and he is then in the Lord, and in peace, and thus regenerate.
The man who while in the world has
entered upon the first state, after death can be introduced into the second;
but he who has not entered into the first state while in the world, cannot
after death be introduced into the second, thus cannot be regenerated.
(TCR 571)
The
This
means that every spiritual truth found in the Writings is to be taken as a
Divine Commandment. Every idea and concept we acquire elsewhere must be kept
separated in the external of our knowledge or memory and not allowed to
commingle in the mind that is to be formed exclusively by the Writings. The
Without the Lord's
coming into the world no one could have been saved. The situation to-day is
similar. So unless the Lord comes into the world again in the form of Divine
Truth, that is, the Word, no more can anyone now be saved. (TCR 3)
You
can see from this that the
All Christian
people draw their doctrines from the Word as being their one and only source.
(TCR 629)
God's Word is the
source whence all theology must be derived (Letters 7).
What in particular concerns the
doctrine that now follows, is that it also is out of
heaven, because it is from the spiritual sense of the Word; and the spiritual
sense of the Word is identical with the doctrine which is in heaven. (NJHD 7)
The existence of
writings in the heavens is a provision of the Lord for the sake of the Word;
for the Word in its essence is Divine truth, and from it is all heavenly
wisdom, both with men and with angels; for the Word was dictated by the Lord,
and what is dictated by the Lord passes through all the heavens in order and
terminates with man. Thereby it is adapted both to the wisdom of angels and the
intelligence of men. Thereby, too, the angels have a Word, and read it the same
as men do on the earth, and also draw from it their doctrinals, and preach from
it (AC n. 221). It is the same Word; but its natural sense, which is the sense
of the letter with us, does not exist in heaven, but only the spiritual sense,
which is its internal sense. What this sense is can be seen in the small treatise
on The White Horse spoken of in the Apocalypse. (HH 259)
These passages teach that henceforth,
from the Writings “is all heavenly wisdom, both with men and with angels.” All
Doctrine for the
The Word is the doctrine of Divine
truth, and … everything of doctrine must be from the Word (AE 612)
It is written that “the only source
of human regeneration is the Lord” (AC 10042) and the Lord is the Word (TCR
225; LORD 7; AC 2). Hence the only source of regeneration is the Word, which
for the
The Word of the Divine Human in the New
Heavens today is the Word of the Writings, and this Word is the same as the one
we have on earth:
It is the same Word; but its natural
sense, which is the sense of the letter with us, does not exist in heaven, but
only the spiritual sense, which is its internal sense. (TCR 1)
What in particular concerns the
doctrine that now follows, is that it also is out of
heaven, because it is from the spiritual sense of the Word; and the spiritual
sense of the Word is identical with the doctrine which is in heaven. For there
is a Church in heaven as well as on earth; for the Word is there, doctrine is
there from the Word; temples are there, in which sermons are delivered; because
ecclesiastical and civil governments are there. In a word, the only difference
between the things which are in the heavens, and those which are on earth, is,
that all the things in the heavens are in a state of greater perfection, because
all who are there are spiritual, and spiritual things immensely exceed in
perfection those that are natural. (NJHD 7)
The Word is to be found in all the heavens and is the
source of the angels' wisdom. (TCR 240)
The Word in heaven is written in a
spiritual style which is quite different from the natural style. The spiritual
style is composed simply of letters, each one of which denotes a particular
meaning; and there are dashes, curves and points above, between and within the
letters, which heighten the meaning. The letters used by the angels of the
spiritual kingdom resemble printed type in our world; the letters used by the
angels of the celestial kingdom are in some cases like Arabic letters, in
others like ancient Hebrew letters, but with curves above and below, and
pointing above, between and inside them. Even a single one of these points
conveys a complete meaning. (TCR 241)
It is
clear therefore that the angels read the Writings and this is their only source
of intelligence and wisdom—“doctrine is there from the Word”. Note that Doctrine is the same as the spiritual
sense of the Writings contained within the literal language—“doctrine is
from the spiritual sense of the Writings”
since the Writings are the Word. The spiritual sense cannot be written down in
a natural language, and neither can the spiritual Doctrine drawn from this
sense, since these two are identical. Note also that the spiritual sense of the
Writings in heaven also have a letter! Without an outward letter of the
Word there is no writing possible. So the outward containant of the holy truths
from the Lord, is the letter the angels have. The
angelic writing mode varies in accordance with the level of thinking in the
three heavens, as the passage above describes it (TCR 241).
3. Spiritual Truths Understood Naturally and Spiritually
It’s
interesting to note what natural letters of the alphabet on earth are similar
to the spiritual writing alphabets in the heavens. The written letters of the
second heaven of the spiritual angels resemble visually the “printed type in our world.” The letters of the third heaven of the
celestial angels resemble visually “Arabic letters” and “Hebrew letters.” These
two correspond historically on this earth with the three religions of the
Western world--Islam and Judaeo-Christian. “
Those in heaven pay attention to the Word in the
letter and perceive things there in exactly the same way as anyone is
accustomed to perceive a person's thought as it presents itself in spoken words, or in the inmost heaven as anyone is accustomed to
perceive a person's aims or end in view. (AC 9407)
Note therefore that the spiritual
sense of the Writings only exists in the understanding because it is impossible
to render it in the letter of the Word. If it were possible, the angels would
not need a letter of the Word within which they can see and receive spiritual
things! But the highest angels also need a letter for the Word, written in
visible script, as discussed just above. This is a rational matter to
understand and follows from discrete degrees in all things created (see Chapter
5 Section 6).
Clearly then, the natural literal
sentences in the Writings cannot be same as the spiritual truths.
Prior to our reformation, sometime
in adulthood, we read many things about heavenly secrets, which are knowledges
revealed from heaven. They are called secrets because no human being in all of history
and evolution, can ever discover a single spiritual
truth from self, from experience, or from another human being. Every spiritual truth comes from the
spiritual world which is in a discrete degree above the natural world, so that
one can never access the spiritual from the natural.
This also means that there is no conscious
access possible to our spiritual mind from our natural mind. The spiritual mind
is tied to heaven because all its content is from heaven, and the natural mind
is tied to earth because all its content is from earth. All spiritual truths
that enter our spiritual mind from the angels, is unconscious to us in the
natural. But it has an effect by correspondence. The spiritual meanings enter
the natural meanings that we have obtained from the Writings. This
correspondential activity goes on in the interior-natural mind that is formed
within the natural-rational mind.
Note carefully: the
natural-rational mind reads and understand the Writings naturally, but it is
the interior-natural mind that understands it spiritually, by correspondence. It is the spiritual understanding that we need in order to be
regenerated and saved.
4. The Great
To be saved we must undergo reformation
first, and when that is completed, we begin regeneration. The unregenerate mind
prior to reformation is filled with nonduality. Nonduality is an orientation of the mind in which we are motivated to
prevent the entry into the mind of absolute dualities such as compose every
page of the Writings. For example, everything in the Writings is based on the
idea that God is separate from created things, as He is infinite and created
things are finite. Nonduality puts up a combat against this absolute duality, preferring
the idea that there is a continuum between the finite and the infinite, so that
if we could imagine ourselves to grow more and more perfect, we could become
like God.
Another example is good and evil. In
the Writings there is an absolute and eternal division between good and evil,
or between spiritual truth and falsity. But nonduality in our mind desires to
level them into a continuum so that evil is just a lesser form of good. Still
another example is the spiritual constitution of men and women. The Writings
describe the difference as an absolute duality so that nothing in a man can
ever be like something in a woman, and vice versa. Nonduality is motivated to
prefer a continuum between men and women that yields an overlap in traits.
While this may be the appearance for natural traits, it is not so for spiritual
traits.
There are many thousands of such
items of nonduality in our mind as we begin our reformation. The nonduality is
already ensconced, and receives the support of culture, science, and education.
We therefore are faced with a great and mighty struggle to clean out our mind
from these nondualities. If we leave them there, they destroy the absolute
dualities we take up from the Writings, and therefore, prevent our reformation,
regeneration, and salvation. The nondualities cannot be gotten rid off except
by means of dualities form the Writings, and this only if we acknowledge the
Writings as the Word. For only Divine Truth from the Word has the power to
defeat the hells, and all of the hells are involved in maintaining nonduality
in our mind.
We are in this sorry and precarious
situation by birth. Our spirit or mind is born corrupted by heredity, deformed,
injured, sick, and dying, on its way to hell. The most atrocious evils are
within a beautiful baby, kept suppressed for a few months or years, by the
presence of angels. But as soon as the child grows older, and begins to think
from self, the evils break out and surround the individual, pulling like a
mighty chain tied to hell. We can put on a facade of niceness for the sake of
self-preservation and acceptance by others, but within the heart breathes every
rage, hatred, deception, and obscenity. This sorry and troubling description is
one of the most important revelations of the Lord’s Second Coming in the
Writings. We must know our spiritual state in order to reform and regenerate,
thus be saved for life in heaven. No religious faith or worship can save us,
but only reformation and regeneration. The Writings have been given so that its
truths within our mind, may have the power to battle
and defeat the hells within us.
You can see that it is essential to
acquire in our mind the literal meaning of the Writings. Without this knowledge
of the Writings in sufficient detail, we cannot be reformed because we are unwilling
to give up the nonduality which is in our unregenerate mind. The only way we
have the motive power to reject our own nonduality is by reading, understanding,
and believing the literal sentences of the Writings, even as we believe and
worship Divine Truth or the Lord. This is the only way that the Lord has
provided for salvation in His Second Coming.
Once we imbibe the letter of the
Writings and honor it in our mind as the Word, we have developed into mature
adult minds ready to undergo rebirth and reformation. Now the literal sentences
that are in our mind become Doctrine of Life. We see each sentence as applying
to ourself, even though very obscurely, and sometimes
seeing not even that. But we accept rationally the idea that every sentence
applies to us, in fact, is the Lord speaking to our natural mind. Now we
suddenly become aflame with the desire to reform. We passionately seek out
every nonduality in our mind, deconstruct it, mark it, put it in a special bin,
and substitute for it a duality from those many sentences and ideas we imbibed
from the Writings. Suddenly we see clearly in the light of those sentences and
concepts. This is spiritual vision. For the first time we have a spiritual consciousness,
the very beginning of it because we are in the reformation phase, but much more
brightly when we progress in regeneration.
In the Writings, we read details
about correspondences, the Lord’s Laws of Providence and Permissions, conjugial
love, states of regeneration. All these subjects are spiritual topics, but they
are laid down in a natural language. The
literal meaning of the sentence is not the spiritual meaning that is
contained within it. Because this would be impossible! It is impossible on
earth as it is impossible in heaven, because the Word in both worlds is written
in a visible script with letters.
This is most important to
understand, and is repeated in different ways, in several places throughout this
book. At first this is hard to believe and accept, regardless of how much study
we have done on the Writings. This resistance is similar to the resistance
Christians put up to the idea from the Writings that the Old and New Testaments
have an inner sense, and the only this inner sense is
actually spiritual. They have difficulty believing this because they can hardly
be expected to understand it without the Writings.
Prior to our reformation in adult
life we are called Christians, but after reformation, when regeneration has
begun, we are called True Christians—as the title of the last book of the
Writings clearly indicate: The True
Christian Religion. And the last thing in a section of the Word
recapitulates all of the Word (xx). Hence The
True Christian Religion (TCR) is the special Work of the Writings that
embodies, recapitulates, and completes all that has been written in the Word
before it. All who are called “True Christians” are of the
After reformation, we develop a dual
relationship to the Writings. We continue to study the literal as essential for
the continued development of our natural mind. Remember that every word and
sentence of the literal in the Word contains infinite spiritual secrets (xx).
We need those sentences and ideas in our external memory-knowledges as an
endless source of new spiritual truths that enhance our happiness and consciousness
as angels to eternity. This is why the angels have the Word and read it as the
source of all their wisdom (xx). But remember again how they access these
spiritual truths each time they read the Word in script, or think from it in
their memory-knowledge. The wisdom does not lie in the letters and sentences,
but within them. This is a discrete degree above the script or letter.
Therefore it is impossible to express spiritual truths in the script of the
angels, even though that script is called “spiritual script” (xx).
This is the same for us on earth.
The literal sentences and their meanings in our mind,
are not spiritual since they are in the natural mind. We read the sentences and
definitions about “the heavenly doctrine” and the sentence, “This is the
Heavenly Doctrine.” These are indeed spiritual and heavenly subjects, but what’s
written down is not the spiritual meaning. The Lord has provided for this: that as we and angels read the script, or think from it in
our mind, He enlightens each of us. That’s how it works! Only this enlightenment
is the spiritual sense. It’s like a flash of lightening in a meadow in the
dark—our understanding breaks through the darkness and for an instant, we see the terrain in clear vision. After that
instant we can describe what we have seen, but this description cannot recreate
the vision of the terrain, but only a representation of it in language.
5. Enlightenment From The Lord
When does the Lord give
enlightenment as we read the sentences of the Writings, or think from them in
our mind?
The answer is the same for us now and
later, when we are angels. The Lord gives enlightenment when we try to apply
the sentence or idea in the letter, to our life, that is, to our willing and
thinking moment by moment. This is the “work of charity” or the “life of good”
that we must perform in order be saved. Our willing and thinking moment by
moment consists of a sequence of acts we perform in our will and in our
understanding. Thousands of individual acts of willing,
intending, thinking, and reasoning, go on every day for every human being.
Each one of these is either from hell or
from heaven. Prior to our reformation, all are from hell! (xx), and to be
regenerated we need to get rid of them as-of self, in our conscious mind, by a
free choice motivated by the spiritual truth that they are sins against the
Lord and prevent us from becoming angels. That’s a lot of work! But the Lord
provides for the orderly progress within this psychobiological growth process.
Enlightenment is the flash
of heavenly light the Lord sends into our conscious natural mind, whenever we
examine one of our numerous acts of the day or hour, and evaluate them in the
light of the sentences and ideas from the Writings.
The meaning of the flash that we try
to write down or express in words, is called the
spiritual Doctrine in our understanding (xx). This is the spiritual meaning of
the Heavenly Doctrines now seen spiritually, while before regeneration began,
we only saw their natural meaning, since we could not see what is within those
sentences. Our mind was locked into what was in the outside of the sentences,
namely their natural meaning. This natural meaning was essential to acquire so
that we may use them to evaluate our willing and thinking acts. But now that we
have applied it to ourselves, we are given to see what is within. Note
carefully: the literal is till there,
still true, still holy. It is still essential to imbibe it and understand
it naturally with our rational understanding. NO progress can be made without
this step!
But it must not be the last step!
Mere memory-knowledges of the literal scientifics of the Writings does not have the power to save us, despite their holiness
and essential condition for being saved. Faith cannot save, but charity within
faith, saves (xx). The charity is the works of good we do by modifying our
willing and thinking in accordance with the faith, the Doctrine, the
understanding. The spiritual meaning is then revealed, first to the spiritual
mind, of which we are unconscious, and second, by correspondence, to the interior-natural
mind, of which we are conscious like a flash in the dark.
Prior to reformation, the Lord calls
the works we do as “a hunter of the ground.” We have the Writings, we
acknowledge it as the Word, we study and memorize it, but we do not apply it to
our willing and thinking in particular, but only in general, like a confession
or creed. It is in our mind for a few minutes a week or day, but then out of
our mind, as we carry on intending and willing in the absence of our thinking
about the Writings. But after reformation, we are motivated to change our
moment by moment intending and thinking, so that they conform to what we have
learned from our study of the Writings. In this new state, the Lord calls us “a
man of the field.” We don’t just put the heavenly doctrines into our
understanding, but into our will. This requires gradual regeneration, day by
day, like a gardener or farmer toiling in his field.
Then the Writings are no longer
merely the Word of our religion, but the Lord Himself in His Holy Spirit or
Divine Rational. This is because we can now perceive the Lord within the letter
in a way not perceivable until then. Our love for this Divine Truth develops
our spiritual mind all the way to the Second Heaven of the spiritual angels.
But if our love is for the Lord, and thence for His Truth, our spiritual mind
is developed all the way to the Third Heaven of the celestial angels. To love
the Lord’s Truth is to study the Writings and to make its concepts the
governing ideas in our mind. To love the Lord, and thence His Truth, is to use
this truth to modify our willing and thinking, so that we may become more
agreeable to the Lord, to His Order, and closer to Him in conjunction.
Those who consider themselves in the
UNLESS A MAN IS BORN AGAIN, AND, AS
IT WERE, CREATED ANEW, HE CANNOT ENTER INTO THE
That unless a man is born again he cannot enter into
the
We need to ask ourselves: How is the
The techniques fall into two
categories: critical analysis of ideas and concepts, and systematic methods of self-witnessing
or objective self-observation. Critical analysis by means of the Writings as
the only authority, is the work of reformation
presented in Volume 1. Everything in our mind from heredity, socialization, and
culture must be rearranged and subjected to critical evaluation in this
heavenly light. Our moment to moment intending and thinking, emoting and
verbing, must be monitored so that we may get to know the evils in our unregenerate
character. In Volume 3 this is called self-witnessing and is the actual process
of our cooperation with the Lord in regeneration.
The Writings were given to humankind
universally, but also to each unique individual mind in particular, as pointed
out in this
The acceptance of the Writings is an individual
thing. The
The books claim to be the Lord speaking to man. It is
pointless for a man to decide whether they are or whether they are not until
the doctrines have had access to his mind. If his mind responds to them, he may
see that he is approaching a momentous decision. “Perhaps these doctrines
really are the Lord Himself speaking to me.” If they are, if he accepts them as
such, a complete change comes about, for they have Divine claim on his rational
mind. The reception of them becomes the supreme service to which the rational
mind can be turned.
(Rev. Donald L. Rose, Sermon titled
“The Colt Loosed For the Lord’s Service”
This book
is written for those who read the Writings as the Lord Himself speaking to them
through the rational ideas contained in them. Since the reception of the Heavenly Doctrine must be particular to each
individual, no one can escape the main issue presented here: What
effort is required of each of us to receive the Writings? As soon as
we begin to read the Writings as the Word, we learn that we must be regenerated
to be saved, and that this process is carried out gradually by the Lord, but
only to the extent that we cooperate in the process. Clearly then, reading and acknowledging the Writings as the Word is not enough for anyone to be regenerated, hence saved.
Worshipping in the
How are we to cooperate with the
Lord in our reformation and regeneration? This book presents some spiritual methods and disciplines that help us
to perform this required cooperation. In the Writings, this required cooperative
effort is called being “a man of the field”:
'A man of the field' means the good
of life that has its origin in matters of doctrine.
This is clear from the meaning of
'the field'. In the Word reference is made in many places to the earth (or the
land), the ground, and the field. … And since the Church is not the Church by
virtue of matters of doctrine except insofar as these have the good of life as
the end in view, or what amounts to the same, unless matters of doctrine are
joined to the good of life, 'the field' therefore means primarily the good of
life. But in order that such good may be that of the Church, matters of
doctrine from the Word which have been implanted within that good must be
present.
In the absence of matters of
doctrine the good of life does indeed exist, but it is not as yet that of the
Church, and so not as yet truly spiritual, except in the sense that it has the
potentiality to become so, like the good of life as this exists with gentiles
who do not possess the Word and therefore do not know the Lord.
[2] That 'the field' is the good of
life in which the things of faith, that is, spiritual truths existing with the
Church, are implanted, becomes quite clear from the Lord's parable about the
sower in Matthew …
[3] With regard to the good of life
which has its origin in matters of doctrine being meant by 'a man of the
field', the position is that those who are being regenerated first of all do
good as matters of doctrine direct them, for they do not of themselves know what
good is. They learn to do good from matters of doctrine concerning love and
charity; from these they know who the Lord is, who the neighbour is, what love
is, and what charity is, and so what good is. Those who have come into this
stage are stirred by the affection for truth and are called 'men (vir) of the
field'.
But after that, once they have been
regenerated they do good not from matters of doctrine
but from love and charity, for the good itself which they have learned about
through matters of doctrine exists with them, and they are in that case called
'men (homo) of the field'. …
[4] The same also applies to
spiritual truths which are called doctrinal and are more interior Commandments
still. For matters of doctrine are interior truths which the natural man
possesses, the first truths there being sensory ones, the second truths being
factual, and interior truths matters of doctrine. The latter are based on
factual truths inasmuch as a person can have and retain no idea, notion, or
concept of them except from factual truths. But the foundations on which
factual truths are based are sensory truths, for without sensory truths nobody
is able to possess factual ones. Such truths, that is to say, factual and
sensory, are meant by 'a man skilled in hunting', but matters of doctrine are
meant by 'a man of the field'.
Such is the order in which those
kinds of truths stand in relation to one another in man. Until a person has
become adult therefore, and through sensory and factual truths possesses
matters of doctrine, he is incapable of being regenerated, for he cannot be
confirmed in the truths contained in matters of doctrine except through ideas
based on factual and sensory truths - for nothing is ever present in a person's
thought, not even the deepest arcanum of faith there, which does not involve
some natural or sensory idea, though generally a person is not aware of the
essential nature of such ideas. But in the next life the nature of them is
revealed before his understanding, if he so desires, and also a visual
representation before his sight, if he wants it; for in the next life such
things can be presented before one's eyes in a visual form. This seems
unbelievable but it is nevertheless what happens there. (AC 3310)
This passages
teaches many things, some of which may be summarized in relation to this book:
1. The “good of life” that the
2. The church in us is not made by
knowledge and understanding of the Writings, but by willing and thinking in
accordance with the spiritual Doctrine in our mind that we obtained from the
Writings.
3. Willing and thinking in
accordance with the spiritual Doctrine is only possible to the extent that we
study the Writings sufficiently to have articulated in our mind an accommodated
version that can guide our willing and thinking all day long. This accommodated
version in our mind is called the Doctrine, and it becomes more and more
spiritual as we advance in regeneration.
4. Church membership and worship do
not create the spiritual mind, but only the spiritual Doctrine in our mind, and
this only to the extent that we use it to guide our daily willing and thinking.
5. There are two stages we must
undergo. In phase 1 we do our willing and thinking from the literal Doctrine in
our mind. This is our state of reformation, of obedience to the truth. We do
not yet know the Lord as to His Love, but only the Lord as to His Truth. After
this phase is matured, we enter phase 2 in which we do our willing and thinking
from the love of the Lord and neighbor by means of the truth of Doctrine in our
mind. This truth of Doctrine is now spiritual, whereas before, it was only
natural. This is actual regeneration and salvation. We must not get stuck in
phase 1, for this does not lead to Heaven.
6. There are two levels of willing
and thinking in the natural mind. The lower level is called scientific, based
on natural truths from sensory observations and facts. The upper level of
thinking is called doctrinal, that is, based on the truths from the Writings.
The scientific level (“a man skilled in hunting”) is based on what’s below in
our mind and is purely natural, but the doctrinal level (“a man of the field”),
is based on what’s above and pertains to what is spiritual.
7. The doctrinal level of willing
and thinking must be founded on the scientific or literal level. Truths about
spiritual things remain rational abstractions, not genuine spiritual-rational
truths, unless they are grounded in sensuous actions from our willing and
thinking. The indescribable wisdom and intelligence of angels must rest in
sensuous things in them and around them, which is why heaven is so rich in external
life, in art and sublime conveniences (CL 12).
8. Regeneration is spiritual, therefore it must take place within the outward
level of willing and thinking in our sensuous life. This outward level of life
is where we can make decisions and choices based on our own philosophy, beliefs,
and rational faith. This thinking from self normally starts in early adulthood.
Until then we merely act from the authority of others and the things we have
learned since early childhood. Regardless of the religion in which one is born,
there is no reformation until early adulthood and beyond. After reformation is matured,
spiritual regeneration can begin.
9. Reformation begins when we are
ready to acknowledge the truths from the Writings as Divine Commandments we are
required to perform daily for our salvation.
10. The Writings consist of natural truths
(“scientific truths”) and spiritual truths (“Doctrine”). Both scientific truths
and doctrinal truths appear or are contained in, the letter of the Writings.
Doctrinal truths about spiritual things are first taken up as the literal
language, understood literally or naturally. But later, we understand them
spiritually.
These ten
statements constitute the rationale and general content of this book.
7. At The Threshold Out Of Hell Into Heaven
The theme of the reformation techniques (Volume 1) is
how to identify and deconstruct nonduality in our mind, which we have taken up
from culture and self-intelligence. The theme of the regeneration techniques (Volume 3) is how to perform the daily discipline
of self-witnessing, which consists in monitoring our willing and thinking
moment by moment, keeping track of its ceaseless stream, and modifying it in
accordance with the Doctrine in our mind. We must undergo reformation before we
can begin regeneration.
At this point something will now be
said on how the internal man is reformed and how the external man is reformed by
means of it. The internal man is not reformed merely by knowing, understanding
and being wise, and consequently merely by thinking; but by willing what
knowledge, understanding and wisdom teach.
When a man knows, understands and
has wisdom to see that there is a heaven and a hell, and that all evil is from
hell and all good is from heaven; and if he then does not will evil because it
is from hell, but wills good because it is from heaven, he is in the first
stage of reformation, and is at the threshold out of hell into heaven.
When he progresses further, and
wills to desist from evils he is in the second stage of reformation, and is now
outside hell but not yet in heaven, which he sees above him. A man must have
such an internal in order that he may be reformed; but he is not reformed
unless the external as well as the internal is reformed. The external is
reformed by means of the internal when the external desists from the evils
which the internal does not will because they are infernal, and still more when
the external for this reason shuns them and fights against them. Thus willing
is the part of the internal and doing of the external. For unless a man does
that which he wills there is within him the failure to will which eventually
becomes want of will.
[2] From these few considerations it
can be seen how the external man is reformed by means of the internal. This
also is what is meant by the Lord's words to Peter:
Jesus said: If I wash thee not, thou
hast no part with me. [Simon] Peter saith unto Him: Lord, not my feet only, but
also my hands and my head. Jesus saith to him: He that is washed needeth not
save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit. John xiii.
8, 9, 10.
By washing is meant spiritual washing, which is
purification from evils; by washing the head and hands is meant purifying the
internal man; and by washing the feet is meant purifying the external man. That
the external man must be purified when the internal has been purified is meant
by this, "He that is washed, needeth not save to
wash his feet." That all purification from evils is from the Lord is meant
by this, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me." It has been
shown in many places in the ARCANA COELESTIA that washing among the Jews
represented purification from evils, and that this is signified in the Word by
washing; and that by washing the feet is signified the purification of the
natural or external man. (DP 151)
Reformation eliminates the many
nondualities in our mind and allows us to build up the
According to Rev. Rose:
Every person raised within the
church must come to the time of a possession of a rational faculty… Every
person raised within the church, although he has many times heard the Lord
speaking, must in the privacy of the chamber of his mind know what it is to
acknowledge this and say, “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.” … Even if we
have accepted the Writings, we can still have wrong ideas. …
Suppose that the new truth puts
light upon imperfections in our self. It exposes our evils and proves that our
thoughts have been false. Our pride resists it; the habitual thinking of many
years resist it. … But when we realize that it is the
Lord Himself speaking, our reluctance can give way to a thrilling sense of
progress and change.
(Rev. Donald L. Rose, Sermon titled
“The Colt Loosed For the Lord’s Service”
Nonduality exists in the human mind as
a property of being unregenerate. Regeneration
is effected by the Lord through our persistent application of dualities from
the Writings to our daily willing and thinking. This is the commandment
of performing “works of charity:”
The proper and genuine uses of charity are the uses
of each one's function and administration, as has been said above. These then
become goods of charity, in which love to the Lord exists, or with which that
love is conjoined, when man does them from spiritual fidelity and sincerity,
which those have who love uses because they are uses, and who believe that
every good is from the Lord. But besides these there are other general uses, as
faithfully loving the marriage partner, rightly bringing up children, managing
the home prudently, and dealing justly with servants. These works become works
of charity when they are done from the love of uses; and in reference to a
marriage partner when they are done from mutual and chaste love; such uses are
household uses which are uses of charity. (D. WIS. 10)
The following two things are clear
from this passage. First, that the Lord is present with us nowhere but in our
love of uses, which love is called “works of charity.” Second, that works of
charity refers to our willing and thinking daily as we carry out our activities
and relationships. This motivation of uses in our willing and thinking cannot
be merely “uses of external charity” called “piety,” for this is not itself
spiritual or of our salvation:
To give aid to the needy, to widows, to orphans,
solely because they are needy, widows and orphans, and to give to beggars
solely because they are beggars, are uses of external charity, which charity is
called piety; but these are uses of internal charity only so far as they are
derived from use and the love of use. For external charity without internal
charity is not charity; the internal must be there to make it charity; for
external charity from internal charity acts prudently, but external without
internal charity acts imprudently, and often unjustly. (D. WIS. 10:5)
We are commanded to form the
8.
Cooperation in our Regeneration
This
motive for regeneration must involve all our willing and thinking, moment by
moment throughout the day, in our social, professional, and recreational
activities. How are we to accomplish this? We
need to learn the mental discipline of accomplishing this ceaseless activity
every day. This discipline must be spiritual and its justification and method
must be from the Writings.
Anyone therefore who looks to the Lord and wants to
be guided by Him is in a state of good. But anyone who turns away from God and
wants to be guided by himself is not in a state of good (CL 444)
To look to the Lord is to reason
from spiritual truths obtained from the Word of the Lord. To “be guided by
self” is to reason from natural appearances obtained either from self or from
the ideas of others. The fundamental duality of the
Even those born in a
9.
The Lord’s Relationship to All Religions
After reformation is completed,
regeneration begins, and continues till the end. This is the process of
gradually internalizing the truths in our memory into the choices of our life.
This new mind is appropriately called the
(1)
Religious
membership does not constitute salvation (TCR 254; AC 8762; NJHD 126).
(2)
Therefore,
those born in the
(3)
Hence
also, those born in any religion, and those who have no religion, are
unregenerate and must undergo regeneration, either in this life or in the
afterlife (HH 512, 308).
(4)
Every
individual, regardless of religion or belief system, is born unregenerate, and
in order to be saved for eternal life in heaven, must undergo regeneration (HH
308).
The Lord provides for the salvation
of every individual (TCR 142). Every person is born for eternal life in heaven
(HH 82, TCR 574). The Lord is the same Divine Human for all people on this
earth and on all the other earths in the universe (EU 121; SE 4373, 5513). It
stands to reason therefore that the Lord provides a means for regeneration in
the case of every human being. This
The Church where the Word is and the
Lord is known by means of it, in relation to those outside the Church where
there is no Word and the Lord is unknown is like the heart and lungs in man in
comparison with the other parts of the body, which live from them as from the
fountains of their life ... Before the Lord the universal Church on the earth
is as one Man ... (HH 305)
Here it is revealed that the Lord
unites the entire human race into “one Man” or in the Form of one human being,
even as He unites the body’s many parts into one integrated functioning unit.
There is also a conjunction of heaven by means of the
Word with those who are outside the Church where there is no Word; for the Lord's
Church is universal, and is with all who acknowledge the Divine and live in
charity. Moreover, such are taught after death by angels and receive Divine
truths (HH 308).
This passage reveals that people of
all religions are part of the Lord’s Heaven, the only condition being, not
religious membership, but living an individual life that is good. Good is
defined universally by all religions as worshipping God, obeying God’s
commandments, and loving the neighbor, that is, not
injuring others for the sake of self. Further, the above passages reveal that
all individuals must be taught by angels upon arrival into the afterlife. In
this instruction everyone is given genuine spiritual truths, and these truths are
understood with variety, depending on the genius or religious beliefs of each
individual. All those who lived a life of
obedience to God and love to the neighbor, are able to receive the Divine
Truths from the angels. But since these truths are accommodated to the mind
of each individual, the Heavens are arranged by the Lord in numberless angelic
societies, each different, each unique (AC 10334). Therefore people of
different religions have their own Heavens under the Lord, depending on the
idea of Him they form for themselves (DLW 13).
Those born in a
They who are born where the Word is, and where the
Lord is thereby known, are not of the church, but they who are regenerated by
the Lord by the truths of the Word, that is, they who live the life of charity
… (NJHD 246)
Here we
see once again that Church membership is not saving. Those born in the New Church who acknowledge the Writings as the Word of
their religion, are not saved by Baptism in childhood, or by years of Sunday
Worship, and by graduating from a religious New Church school. Salvation is by
one method for all human beings: regeneration. And regeneration does not begin
until after reformation in early adulthood (AC 3518). Clearly then, the
It is clear from all this that the
10. The Writings As The Exclusive Source For Spiritual Truths
Hence the crucial question: How are
we to reform our mind from the unregenerate state to the state of becoming the
Clearly,
then, it is not permissible for the
Take for instance the concept of
“God” which is universal to all the Heavens. Universal doesn’t mean similar
between the integrated parts. The New Heavens of the Second Coming are at the
center of all the Heavens and closest to the spiritual Sun, or the Lord (xx).
Concepts from this Heaven cannot be exported to the other Heavens in a direct
way, but only in a from accommodated to their genius
and willingness. Similarly, concepts from the other Heavens cannot be imported
into the New Christian Heaven, which is the New Heaven established by the
truths of the Writings (TCR 1).
What applies to heaven also applies
to the Church on earth (TCR 14, 119). And so, once more we see that the
Writings as the Word of the New Christian Heaven, must
be the exclusive source of all concepts regarding salvation of the
It will be shown in this volume that
every concept from the Writings is a duality and every concept not from the
Writings is a nonduality in the
Note that
the individual with a
11.
Separating Nonduality and Duality in the Mind
The advantages afforded to the
Only he who knows how degrees are
related to Divine order can comprehend how the heavens are distinct, or even
what is meant by the internal and the external man. Most men in the world have
no other idea of what is interior and what is exterior, or of what is higher
and what is lower, than as something continuous, or coherent by continuity,
from purer to grosser. But the relation of what is interior to what is exterior
is discrete, not continuous. Degrees are of two kinds, those that are
continuous and those that are not. Continuous degrees are related like the
degrees of the waning of a light from its bright blaze to darkness, or like the
degrees of the decrease of vision from objects in the light to those in the
shade, or like degrees of purity in the atmosphere from bottom to top. These
degrees are determined by distance.
(…)
[3] Until one has
acquired for himself a perception of these degrees he cannot possibly
understand the differences between the heavens, nor between the interior and
exterior faculties of man, nor the differences between the spiritual world and
the natural world, nor between the spirit of man and his body. So neither can he understand the nature and source of correspondences
and representations, or the nature of influx. Sensual men do not apprehend
these differences, for they make increase and decrease, even according to these
degrees, to be continuous, and are therefore unable to conceive of what is
spiritual otherwise than as a purer natural. And in consequence they remain
outside of and a great way off from intelligence. (HH 38)
At the beginning of our reformation
in adult life our unregenerate mind is mixed with dualities from the Writings
and nondualities from self and culture. Our reformation is therefore nothing
but a clash of ideas in our mind, a battle of life and death, a struggle for
heaven or hell. Our own unregenerate will is dead set to lead us to hell, while
the reformed will is from the Lord, hence set to eternal life in heaven.
… man when
regenerated is as to the intellectual part the Lord's, but as to his will part
is his own, these two parts in the spiritual man being opposed.
But though the will part of man is
opposed, yet it cannot but be present; for all the obscurity in his
intellectual part, or all the density of his cloud, is from it. It continually
flows in from it, and in proportion as it flows in, the cloud in his
intellectual part is thickened; but in proportion as it is removed, the cloud
is made thin.
(…)
[3] This condition of things between the will and the
understanding is as if two who were formerly conjoined by a covenant of
friendship, as were the will and the understanding in the man of the Most
Ancient Church, had their friendship broken, and enmity had arisen-as took
place when man wholly corrupted his will part-and then when a covenant is again
entered into, the hostile part is set forth as if the covenant were with it,
but it is not with it, because it is utterly opposite and contrary, but it is
with that which flows in from it-as already said-that is, with the Own of the
understanding.
The "token" or "sign" of the
covenant is this, that in proportion as there is the presence of the Lord in
the Own of the understanding, in the same proportion the Own of the will be
removed.
The case herein is exactly as it is with heaven and
hell. The intellectual part of the regenerated man, from charity, in which the
Lord is present, is heaven; his will part is hell. So far as the Lord is
present in this heaven, so far is this hell removed. For of himself man is in
hell, and of the Lord is in heaven. And man is being continually uplifted from
hell into heaven, and so far as he is uplifted, so far his hell is removed. The
"sign" therefore, or indication, that the Lord is present, is that man's
will part is being removed. The possibility of its removal is effected by means of temptations, and by many other means of
regeneration. (AC 1044)
The above
passage teaches several things about how we are to undergo reformation and
regeneration:
(1)
All
the willing we do prior to reformation in adult life is evil from hell and
cannot be regenerated.
(2)
Reformation
is the struggle of opposites in our mind. The truths we acquire from the
Writings are the Lord with us in our “intellectual part,” but our will part, or
our willing and intending, is hell with us since there is nothing in it but
evil affections of every kind. This evil doesn’t show in our social personality
because we are motivated by selfish affections to simulate what is required, and
to hide how we would desire to behave.
(3)
Prior
to reformation our evil affections or motives, called cupidities and lusts in
the will, create falsities in the understanding, from which we have false
beliefs where we see falsity as truth, and truth as
falsity. This falsified mental life is called “clouds” in the mind. And as the
“density of his cloud” thickens, the more is one’s mental life impaired and
falsified in every intention of the will and every reasoning
of the understanding. This is our unregenerate life until reformation begins in
early adulthood when we can make the conscious rational lifestyle choice to
rearrange our thinking in accordance with the Writings. Then for the first time
the Lord becomes actually present in our understanding as opposed to being there
nominally or by reputation.
(4)
Our
automatic progress to hell can be reversed by allowing the Lord to remove the
cupidities and lusts in our will and to give us a reformed will. The Lord
cannot do this without our conscious cooperation. This conscious cooperation is
to learn the truths of the Writings and to consider them as Divine Commandments
for living. Then the Lord is present actually and can remove the old will. He
does that by Himself for we have no power whatsoever. The process of replacing
the old will is gradual and proceeds only so far as is made possible by our
actual daily cooperation, minute by minute. And “in proportion as it is
removed, the cloud is made thin,” meaning that the life of evil and spiritual insanity
is gradually removed during the years of regeneration. But nothing is removed
by the Lord except that which we allow.
(5)
While
we are regenerating, from young adulthood to the end, our mind is in
opposition, partly sane and partly insane, though not at the same level in the
mind, for they are kept apart by the Lord who prevents commingling (DP 296; cf.
AC 2426). Commingling would lead to profanation and a fate worse than hell (cf.
AC 3757).
(6)
Once
our understanding is filled with the dualities from the Writings, we are
expected to proceed as-of-self in our daily struggle
with choices. We are to recognize and isolate all nondualities that are in our
mind from many sources. From this categorical rearrangement, the
(7)
After
reformation, the childhood and adolescence of the
(8)
As
we struggle daily, in our willing and thinking, the Lord gives us a “sign” of
His presence: It’s our awareness that the old cupidities and lusts we are
familiar with, no longer appear in the same situations. We become aware of this
during temptations, and in other ways.
To initiate and complete our
reformation we must examine our chief concepts as they exist in our mind, and
deconstruct them, so that we learn to distinguish between the nondualities and
the dualities. This volume is about learning the process of eliminating
conceptual nondualities and establishing dualities of life, called Doctrine, and
thereby forming as-of self the
The Lord is creating our gradual
regeneration step by step, but only to the extent that we actively cooperate
with Him moment by moment in our willing and thinking (TCR 371, 577; 615; cf.
TCR 464; BE 15, 13). What does this cooperation consist of? What is it that we
have to do in order to be considered “cooperating”? This book gives two broad
answers. Volume 1 deals with Reformation, which is the struggle against
nonduality in our mind. Since we internalize our culture and education, our
unregenerate mind is suffused with all sorts of concepts and ideas and
attractions that are nondualities.
For example, many people are
attracted to Eastern nonduality in the form “self=divine,” or the idea that
self is an illusion or unreality, while in reality we are God (see Chapter 1).
Another example is scientific nonduality or materialistic science which asserts
that only the natural world exists and denies heaven and hell. Another example
is psychological nonduality which introduces and supports ideas that clash with
dualities in the Writings, such as the idea of unconditional love and
self-acceptance (see Chapter xx Section xx).
One final example is the cultural
nonduality of pluralism and relativity which are opposed to dualities such as
heaven and hell or genuine truth and adulterated truth. Our reformation
consists in struggling against these nondualities in our mind from all these
sources. The motive or purpose must be to replace them with the dualities we
take up from the Writings. This process of replacement, if it’s going to
succeed, must be done consciously, with full awareness and rational
understanding. Therefore I illustrate in this volume various ways of using
rational analysis to deconstruct and debunk the nondualities in our mind. To
think and will from the Writings is the cooperation we must perform to be
conjoined to the Lord and have heavenly life:
The freedom of choice resulting from
this is the ability to will and to think from the Lord, that is, from the Word,
and also the ability to will and to think from the devil, that is, contrary to
the Lord and the Word. (TCR 371)
Volume 3 deals with Regeneration,
which is the struggle against our inherited and acquired lusts and their
falsities in our mind. I describe many kinds of spiritual disciplines that I
found suitable for developing the
12.
Reformation by Means of the Writings
The
We first are to change our thinking
by studying the Writings every day and forming the Doctrine of Life in our
understanding. Often readers believe that I am exaggerating when I mention that
the study of the Writings should be a daily task. But consider what you do if
you are going to succeed as a student, scholar, or expert at anything whatsoever.
It requires many hours a week that amount to daily portions, and this, week
after week, until there is accumulation. This is what needs to be done if we
are going to accumulate enough Doctrine in our mind to serve as Divine Guide in
our every moment of willing, thinking, and behaving. The accumulation of
Doctrine can never cease because Doctrine is to be understood more and more
interiorly in order to serve our regeneration. The highest angels continue to
regenerate by means of more and more interior ideas they receive from the Lord
when studying the Word.
Consider also what would prevent you
from serious daily studies of the Writings, given that you know that it is the
Lord present with you and through which He wants to regenerate you by giving
you ever more interior visions and truths of Himself and of heaven.
So I am not exaggerating when I
frequently repeat this requirement that we study the Writings daily as a
serious student. Overcoming the obstacles that pose
themselves to prevent this, is a key element of reformation. They can all
be overcome by holding this one genuine idea in your focus: The Writings are
the Lord in His Word of the Second Coming and every truth in it is a Divine
Commandment for me. To love the Writings is therefore to love the Lord. To
postpone the Writings is to love something else above the Lord. To have a distaste for studying the Writings is to love self above
the Lord. Since we all start that way, we must compel ourselves to act in opposition
to our resistance or avoidance of Him in His Word in which He is Himself, His
Own Divine Truth.
The more interior our understanding
of Doctrine from the Writings, the more we are willing to think and act in
accordance with our Doctrine.
They who are being regenerated, at
first do what is good from doctrinal things, for of themselves they do not know
what is good, but learn it from the doctrinal things of love and charity; from
these they know who the Lord is; who is the neighbor; what love is, and what
charity; thus what good is. (AC 3310)
Regeneration is a gradual process
over our entire life on earth, and beyond (AC 9410). It is a conscious process
because it can go on only with our conscious cooperation (DP 114). This takes
the form of monitoring our thinking and willing, assessing them in the light of
the understanding of Doctrine in our mind, modifying our thoughts and decisions
accordingly, and continuing every day to live in this manner. Doing this as-of
self prepares our mind for heaven. To
do it as-of self means that we struggle in the natural mind as if we were doing it alone but knowing in our rational mind that it is the Lord
doing it by the infinite power of His Divine Wisdom from His Divine Love
(AC 47, 233, 1712, 2877, 5664, 10299; NJHD 148; DP 102; CL 82; SE 5958; LJ 299;
AE 864).
To the extent that we progress in
our regeneration day by day, and week by week, to that extent the Lord reveals
to us more and more interior spiritual truths as we study the Writings. Our
consciousness is thereby enlightened and we can think and understand things in
the light of heaven.
The Word is not understood except by
those who are enlightened. … The human rational cannot apprehend Divine things,
nor even spiritual things, unless it is enlightened by the Lord … Thus only
they who are enlightened apprehend the Word … They who are in the good of life,
and thereby in the affection of truth, are enlightened (NJHD 256).
This new understanding is
simultaneously applied to all things around us and guides our willing and
thinking, and to the extent that we are persistent and consistent, to that
extent the Lord can create a new will within our reformed understanding. Now we
continue life on earth in this celestial state of mind and life. Meanwhile we
continue to have this new mind perfected by the Lord until His judgment of the
right time, and then we pass on, leaving the physical body, and awakening in a
spiritual body. Upon that momentous occasion angels are present, and help us to
prepare fully for entrance into heaven. This period of preparation is fairly
brief, equivalent to less than a few months in relation to the pacing we are
used to from the natural world (HH
498). We then enter the heaven of our society where we
find our house and our spouse. That is our bliss and happiness in eternity.
If we don’t do this daily work, there
is only one other way, which is to remain infernal as we were born, whereupon
when we arrive in the afterlife we are prepared for life in hell and our
spirit-body sinks down to its level of miserable and inhuman life.
Evils are as it were heavy, and fall
of themselves into hell; and so also falsities that are from evil (n. 8279,
8298). (HD 170)
The Writings play an essential role
in this overall process of reformation, regeneration, and preparation. Without
the Writings the
The Word is the only doctrine which teaches how a man
must live in the world in order to be happy to eternity. (AC 8939)
A human being is created for everlasting life, and
any person can inherit that life, so long as he lives in accordance with the
means of salvation prescribed in the Word; every Christian, as well as every
non-Christian who possesses a religion and sound reason, assents to this
proposition. (TCR 340)
Without the Word there is no rational conception of
the Lord, and thus no salvation (SS 111)
As to the formation of faith: it is effected by man's going to the Lord, learning truths from
the Word, and living according to them. (TCR 347)
I spoke with those who placed the only means of
salvation in reading the Word. They were overhead, and said that they take
great care that all in their society are diligent in reading the Word. But I
told them, that this does not save, but that they must live according to the
Word, and that nobody can live according to the Word except he be in the
doctrine of truth from it; otherwise, they do not know how they are to live,
for, from the sense of the letter of the Word, they are able to defend
everything that belongs to their life, be it what it may, and this to protect
falsities. It was shown also what is the nature of the Word in the letter, but
that those who are in doctrine from the Word, see the
Word and read it, quite differently; they consequently understand it, and are
thus able to become rational: otherwise, this cannot take place. It was shown,
also, that the reading of the Word is not attended to by the Lord, and
therefore does not promote salvation, unless they are in the life of truth; and
that they cannot be in the life of truth, except they be in doctrine from the
Word (SE 5961).
For the
formation of the
13.
Old and New Testament From Perspective
Of The Writings
If we could be saved by the Old and
New Testaments then the Writings were not necessary! The salvation of the
As we have now one God in the
church, who is God Man and Man God, this church is called the crown of all the
churches. (INV 43)
These are evidences that this has
been granted for the sake of the
(…)
This
(…)
After these things, from good
elevated to Himself, He founds a new heaven, and from the evil removed from
Himself, a new hell; and in both He establishes order, so that they may stand
under His auspices and under obedience to Him to eternity; and then through
this new heaven He successively inaugurates and establishes a new church on
earth. (CORONIS 0)
You can find other passages that say
similar things (e.g., AR 68, 73; TCR 786-788; AE 91-92; and others). You can
see from these considerations that there is not going to be an endless
procession of Churches in the evolution of our race. There are a definite
number of steps or phases that the Lord brings the race through so that He
might complete His creation, which is that we become celestial minds capable of
living in His New Heavens. The
14.
The Writings Are The Last
Revelation
The Lord in His First Coming taught
that He must come again to complete His Divine mission of the salvation of the
human race (AC 4060). The Lord gave the Old Testament through Moses and the
Prophets. That was the equivalent of the Word’s legs and feet. It was so
obscure that the Jewish Church is called a “representative of a Church.” The
literal of the Word reveals the level of understanding of the people who
receive it at the beginning of a new dispensation. Consider the literal of the
Old Testament. By today’s standards scholars call it pre-modern, superstitious,
racist, barbaric, and obscure in meaning. It is written at a level entirely
unacceptable to the modern mind concerned with human rights, humanism, and
rationality. You can see why I said that it is the legs and feet of the Divine
Word. It does establish that there is God, and that God rules all details of
the universe. It establishes that God saves human beings for eternal life in
happiness and bliss if they follow His commandments, but puts away all others
into an eternal hell of misery. Enough is established by this Old Testament Word
to save those who obey the commandments of their religion.
But after many generations the level
of thinking of the Old Testament was no longer believable to the generations
that were surrounded by more advanced civilizations and intellectual traditions
in the East and the West. A new Word was then given as the New Testament by the
Lord Himself in His First Coming. This Word is like the entire midsection of
the body, including the abdomen and the chest and the arms. The level of
thinking is a discrete degree above that of the Old Testament. Enough is
established in this Word to once again be able to save for heaven all those who
obey its commandments as being from the Lord. These commandments, even in their
literal statements, are more internal than those given in the letter of the Old
Testament. The level of thinking of the Old Testament is corporeal-sensuous,
while that of the New Testament is external rational.
The new truths and principles were
for the rational mind, unlike the Old Testament where the truths were for the
external mind that is close to the body senses. For example, the Old Testament
tells nothing specific about the afterlife. The only level of thinking the
people were capable of at that time was the idea that heaven is what a reformed
earth will be after the resurrection from the graves. That idea of heaven was a
heaven in the physical world. But the heaven of the New Testament is “within
you,” thus not out there or here, but in the interior of the human mind. To go
to heaven is not to go to a place but to develop a state of mind in which
heaven can exist:
Heaven is in the man; and there is a
place for him in heaven according to the state of life and of faith in which he
is (AC 9305)
The New Testament Commandments were
also at a higher level of rationality, suitable for the new mind. “Love thy
neighbor” meant not just your own ethnic group or religion. “Being married”
meant not just doing what you please but what God demands and consecrates. “Adultery”
is not just what you do, but also what you desire and think. In the New
Testament level of reasoning, willing and thinking become more important for
salvation than ritual sacrifices or prayers. Not overt doing is the measure of
salvation but inward thinking and intending. So a new more interior, more
rational method was made available by the Lord through this new Word.
As deeds and works are from the will
and thought, so are they from the love and faith, consequently they are such as
the love and faith are; for it is the same thing whether you say one's love or
his will, and it is the same thing whether you say one's faith or his
established thought; for that which a man loves he wills, and that which a man
believes he thinks; and when a man loves what he believes he also wills it and
as far as possible does it. Everyone may know that love and faith are within
man's will and thought, and not outside of them, for love is what kindles the
will, and the thought is what it enlightens in matters of faith; therefore only
those that are able to think wisely are enlightened, and in the measure of
their enlightenment they think what is true and will it, or what is the same,
they believe what is true and love it. (HH 473)
But in the course of time a new
modern mind emerged from the successes of science and modernism. The New
Testament was no longer believable to this new mentality and civilization that
rejected mystery of faith and anything spiritual that could not be understood
and justified by the modern mind. Those who still adhered to the New Testament
as religion still were not able to be saved thereby because internally their
rational mind rejected mysteries (TCR 116, 182; AE 870). When all these people
across the centuries after the First Coming entered the afterlife, their mind
was not at a level of reasoning that could support life in heaven which was a
spiritual-rational state created by spiritual-rational truths.
These people of the “spiritual
church” were all stuck in the spiritual world, unable to go up, being kept by
the Lord from sinking down (TCR 119; AC 7975). At last the generations on earth
reached the intellectual capacity to receive and understand the last portion of
the Word. This was the Lord’s Second Coming in the Writings. This new Word was
like the head of the body, which is why the
The Lord has revealed the spiritual meaning of the
Word at this day because a doctrine of genuine truth has now been revealed.
This doctrine is contained in part in The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly
Doctrine, and now in some shorter works which are in process of
publication.********** And because this doctrine and no other agrees with the
spiritual meaning of the Word, therefore that meaning has now for the first
time been disclosed, along with a knowledge of correspondences. (De Verbo 7:8)
Add to these most manifest evidences, that the
spiritual sense of the Word has been disclosed by the Lord through me, which
has never before been revealed since the Word was written among the sons of Israel;
and this sense is the very sanctuary of the Word: the Lord Himself is in this
sense with His Divine, and in the natural sense with His Human. Not a single
iota in this sense can be opened except by the Lord alone. This surpasses all
the revelations that have hitherto been made from the creation of the world.
(INV 44)
Now a new way is provided again for
salvation. The level of thinking of this new Word is spiritual-rational:
Without the Word there is no rational conception of
the Lord, and thus no salvation (SS 111)
The Word of the Writings are the Lord’s Divine Truth in His Second Coming to
humankind. This is the only way of discovering who the Divine Human is.
No other door way has been provided by the Lord for the new salvation, the new
Heavens. The angels read the Writings and derive therefrom their Doctrine of
Life and all their ineffable knowledge and wisdom (AC 1405, 1767). They have no
other religion but the Word of the Writings.
Not everyone who reads the Writings
is willing to raise their level of thinking to the rational reasoning presented
in the Writings. In that case one does not read the Writings as the Lord in His
Word. One sees no more in it than books of excellence by a magnificent genius,
if appreciated, and if not, one sees only the fantasies of a religious madman. Only
those who read the Writings as the third portion that completes the Word of
God, can see in it genuine spiritual truths.
[in the Word] they are
called "drunkards" who believe nothing but what they apprehend, and
for this reason search into the mysteries of faith. And because this is done by
means of sensuous things, either of memory or of philosophy, man being what he
is, cannot but fall thereby into errors. For man's thought is merely earthly,
corporeal, and material, because it is from earthly, corporeal, and material
things, which cling constantly to it, and in which the ideas of his thought are
based and terminated.
To think and reason therefore from these concerning
Divine things, is to bring oneself into errors and
perversions; and it is as impossible to procure faith in this way as for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle. The error and insanity from this
source are called in the Word "drunkenness."
(…)
Spirits are perfectly well distinguished from each other,
as to whether they are in the faith of charity or not. Those who are in the
faith of charity do not reason about the truths of faith, but say that the
thing is so, and also as far as possible confirm it by things of sense and of
memory, and by the analysis of reason; but as soon as anything obscure comes in
their way the truth of which they do not perceive, they defer it, and never
suffer such a thing to bring them into doubt, saying that there are but very
few things they can apprehend, and therefore to think that anything is not true
because they do not apprehend it, would be madness.
These are they who are in charity. But-on the
contrary-those who are not in the faith of charity desire merely to reason
whether a thing be so, and to know how it is, saying that unless they can know
how it is, they cannot believe it to be so. From this alone they are known at
once as being in no faith, a mark of which is that they not only doubt
concerning all things, but also deny in their hearts; and when they are instructed
how the case is, they still cling to their disbelief and start all kinds of
objections, and never acquiesce, were it to eternity. Those who thus persist in
their contumacy heap errors upon errors. (AC 1072)
15.
The Writings Are For The Rational
Mind
Rev. Donald L. Rose has noted in a
sermon that the Lord has need of our rational in order for Him to enter our
mind:
As they were untying the colt, its
owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?" They replied,
"The Lord needs it." They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on
the colt and put Jesus on it.
(Luke 19:33-35)
In reading this story of the Word,
we may picture ourselves addressed by those words: “The Lord hath need of him.”
The colt has various significations and is especially related to what is
rational (see AC 2782, 5741, 6376). We can see here the Lord’s emissaries sent
to bring the rational mind to himself. The owner of
the rational questions this action. The so-called owner of the rational is the
man himself.
In this story we see especially the giving of the
Writings to man (see ISB 20).
(Rev. Donald L. Rose, Sermon titled
“The Colt Loosed For the Lord’s Service”
We accumulate knowledge about the
Writings from our education and from study. Where in the mind is this
accumulation? Of course it is in the organ of the understanding, but this has
several discrete levels, each with a totally different psychological function.
The sentences of the Writings can be understood according to one’s level of
mental functioning at the time. In the lowest intellectual mentality, called
the natural-corporeal mind, the Writings are understood as a storybook about
heaven and hell sprinkled in among mostly incomprehensible pages. At the next
level of intellectual mentality, called the natural-sensuous mind, the Writings
are understood as a storybook about the spiritual world mingled with Church
doctrine and a lot of history about the previous churches and the mentality of those
people. At the third an uppermost level, called the natural-rational mind, the
Writings are understood as the new Rational Word, revealing a coherent rational
system of theology tied to the Bible and corroborated by Swedenborg’s special
mission as the revelator of the Lord’s Second Coming. And the more we study the
Writings at this level of understanding, the more we create suitable “vessels”
or dualities, in which the Lord will implant spiritual truths. And with more
and more study of the Writings, we can begin to see the marvelous rational web
and framework of truths by which the Lord maintains reality.
To live from the Word is to live from the Lord, for the Lord is in the
Word, yea, He is the Word. (AE 754)
16. Anatomy Of Regeneration
These are three levels of the
natural mind. This is the mind we build up totally by ourselves through
experience and choice. It feels like our very own life, our very own identity,
and so it is called the self. The conscious self, whom we know ourselves to be,
has these three levels of mentality and functioning.
At some point in our adulthood,
early on or later, we feel the motivation to undergo reformation. We have been
studying the Writings before this, but it was a lukewarm thing. But now we feel
a new passion for studying the Writings, excited by the thought that it is the
Word of the Lord speaking through the rational mind of this awesome 17th
century Swede. We now begin to think about the topics of the Writings in a
personal way. For example, while you’re doing something somewhere, you begin to
think about what it will be like to be an angel, what it’s like to have an
occupation there, and to have friends and neighbors. Now for the first time you
are applying the Writings to yourself. Before this, it was a storybook you
inherited by culture and family.
Or take another example. While
you’re doing something somewhere, you begin to think about the heavy emphasis
the Writings place on the principle of no salvation without regeneration.
Suddenly the thought occurs to you: What about my own regeneration? Now for the
first time you stepped across a threshold. You applied the Writings to a vital
part of yourself, your concern for your salvation. You know enough about hell
to want to avoid it! You eagerly go back to the Writings and search it for
passages on regeneration. You quickly find out that before you can begin
regeneration you must undergo reformation. You begin to worry, feeling a vague anxiety.
You’ve now crossed another threshold. The anxiety you felt was the first step
you took in your reformation. It was a brief, very brief, view into the
difficulty of the task that lies ahead. The thought occurs to you: Perhaps I’m
not ready for all this. But you are, and you go ahead. You systematically go
through all your main belief systems and hold them up to the principles of the
Writings. One by one they must be rationally deconstructed and discarded, like
Abraham had to smash the icons of his inherited false religion.
Sooner or later this great task
comes to its completion. Suddenly the thought occurs, usually prompted by the
wife, “Why am I wasting time holding on to the non-heavenly behaviors and
traits?” We refuse to face, close up, so from afar we look at it and retort:
“But look how much I know about heaven” or, “But look how much I love the Word
and the Doctrine” or, “But look what great progress I’ve already made compared
where I was before reformation” etc. But at last we find the motivation to
begin our regeneration with full sincerity, though not yet with full success.
You’ve just crossed the final big threshold. You’ve taken your baby step in the
process of regeneration. You’re now fully committed to condemn your evil loves.
From then on the Lord will fight with you in a series of spiritual temptations,
precisely designed for your struggle to map out the hell within you. The
temptations reveal your inner delights to yourself. Normally they’re hidden
from your focus and attention, conveniently tucked away so that you can
continue to enjoy them, even while you continue to declare you passion and love
for the Writings.
But you also continue to study the
Writings at an accelerated rate in comparison to before. You’re driven to find
the relevant truths, those that can help your predicaments. They are everywhere
now—in your marriage relationship, in your work situation, even in your
recreation. Everywhere you feel challenged by what you passionately believe and
know, and your seeming inability to align your willing and thinking with what
you know is right. For example, you know that scortatory interests harm the
conjugial relationship. Yet, you feel delight in them, secretly. You beg the
Lord to purify you, but you find His answer in the Writings: “You have water.
You have soap. Go wash yourself, like a real man.” And you feel ashamed. You’ve
just made a step in a new direction. You repented of an evil delight you’re
holding in secret. Like Adam and Eve who were ashamed of their nakedness after
they had eaten of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil:
Now you feel driven out from your
paradise. Nothing of the many delights you’re so attached to, can be allowed to
stay around. No one. If you catch yourself arguing for
mercy, that you’ve given up so much already, you feel forced to withdraw the
mercy request, realizing full well, everything must go. An
affection must be traced to its origins by a simple test of duality: Is
this delight from heaven or from hell. There is no in between, so there is no
hiding any more. Now you’ve taken your last baby steps in regeneration. You’re
fully ready because fully committed to the idea that not one can be left
standing. All must be exterminated, every one of our delights that are form
hell. And it seems that they are all from hell. Now you begin to apply what you
know form the Writings to everything of your threefold self: your affections
and delights, your thoughts and style of reasoning, your outward acts of the body
and its appearance. Now you begin to see new things.
For the first time you become
conscious that you have an inner perception of spiritual things as you think
about the sentences of the Writings, and apply them to your willing and
thinking all day long. You begin to see how every sentence applies to you,
though how may remain obscure for some time. But you are all excited again
about your new level of consciousness. You search the Writings with trepidation
and suddenly sentences you didn’t pay much attention to, now spring to life
before you. You have living proof that the Lord is managing the process of your
regeneration in every detail—what sentences come to your attention when, and
what they say about you, about whatever you’re struggling with at the time. You
feel a great relief and you recall the Lord’s statement that His yoke is light.
At last you can feel the living certitude that you want to be in His hands more
than in yours. It now terrifies you as you think back on your earlier period
when you were anxious that getting closer to heaven is giving up all the fun in
life, and begged for more time. Now you can see that your best chance is not
with you, but with the Lord. So you’re relieved in your heart and your love for
the Lord takes a big leap.
17. The Birth Of The Interior-Natural
What is happening now as you read
the Writings? You’ve almost gotten used to it now: You can see within the
Letter! It just comes to you automatically. You’re reading the sentences,
you’re reflecting, figuring out what they mean rationally, and suddenly you see
what they mean spiritually. You now understand what is happening in a
scientific way, like anatomy or physiology, and like agriculture or gardening. Regeneration
is a biological process of steady growth built on spiritual truths implanted in
the mind by the Lord’s activity in us through the sentences of the Writings
that are firmly established in our conscious mind. These sentences are established
firmly because they form the basis of our thinking, of our concluding and
analyzing anything. We have appropriated those sentences and rational ideas.
They are no built up as our own edifice. Now the Lord can enter into the interior
of this edifice, and implant spiritual truths. We are not conscious of this
activity directly, but the Lord creates a new thing in our mind, a new organ,
more interior than the natural mind. This new organ is called the
interior-natural.
Note that this new organ is
spiritual and of celestial origin. There is nothing in it from self or the
natural world. What’s in it is a correspondence to what’s in the spiritual
mind. We are not conscious of the spiritual mind and its activates,
but we are conscious of the natural mind. And now this new interior organ gives
a new function, a new conscious awareness of spiritual understandings and
meanings. Spiritual topics that before this we understood in a natural way, now
we understand them in a spiritual way, like the angels of the First Heaven.
This new spiritual awareness and understanding would not be possible without
the sentence and their rational understanding, that we
gathered for ourselves in the natural-rational mind. This is obvious because
the new interior-natural organ of spiritual perception is located within the
natural-rational. It cannot be located anywhere else in the natural mind.
Our prior understanding of the
Writings was external-rational or natural-rational, not yet spiritual-rational
(AC 978, 2654, 4286; AE 355:14). The spiritual only begins with regeneration
and this only begins in adult life (AE 803; AC 8780; AC 3518:[2];
TCR 587), if ever. Therefore the
The
18. Reformation And Regeneration Begin In Early Adulthood
When a child is first instructed he is affected with
the desire of knowing, not at first for any end that is manifest to himself,
but from a certain pleasure and delight that is born with him and is also
derived from other sources; but afterwards, as he grows up, he is affected with
the desire of knowing for the sake of some end, as that he may excel others, or
his rivals; and next for some end in the world; but when he is to be
regenerated, he is affected from the delight and pleasantness of truth; and
when he is being regenerated, which takes place in adult age, from the love of
truth, and afterwards from the love of good; and then the ends which had
preceded, together with their delights, are separated little by little, and to
them succeeds interior good from the Lord, which manifests itself in his
affection. From this it is evident that the former delights, which had appeared
in the outward form as good, had served as means. Such successions of means are
continual. (AC 3518)
This passage clearly
shows that reformation and regeneration begin in early adulthood, and not
before. The first phase of reformation
starts when as adults we become rationally convinced that the Writings are
indeed the third and final portion of the Threefold Word. It is a step beyond
the received creed. It is the exercise of a new individual choice under the new
vision of rational understanding and confirmation. It’s the confidence we have
when we can explain it rationally and confirm it in our principles and
philosophy. The Writings are indeed the Word. It is beyond the idea that the
Writings are “divinely inspired.” This is a nonduality if the idea admits other
inspired books and authors so that the Writings are seen at the extreme end of
a continuum lined up with other “inspired” books.
This idea of the Writings is not yet
the stage of reformation. One must cross over to the position that “the
Writings are the third portion of the Threefold Word.” This is what the
The second phase after this is to
understand rationally how it is that the Writings are the Word in the same
sense as the Old Testament and the New Testament are the Word, not in some
lesser degree. This phase establishes the idea that the Writings are Divine
Truth, that they are the Lord Himself in His Second Coming. The worship
of the Writings is the same as the worship of the Lord. We must realize in a
rational way how it is that for the
[5] It is now clear from these
things that the spiritual sense of the Word was to be revealed for a new Church
which will acknowledge and worship the Lord alone, and hold His Word sacred,
and love Divine Truths and reject faith separated from charity. Concerning this
sense of the Word more may be seen* in THE DOCTRINE OF THE NEW JERUSALEM
CONCERNING THE SACRED SCRIPTURE (n. 5-26, and following numbers); as, in this
section, what the spiritual sense of the Word is (n. 5-26); that there is a
spiritual sense in all things of the Word in general and in particular (n.
9-17); that it is by virtue of the spiritual sense that the Word is Divinely
inspired, and holy in every expression (n. 18-19); that hitherto the spiritual
sense has been unknown, and why it was not revealed before (n. 20-25); and that
henceforth the spiritual sense will be possible only to one who is in genuine
truths from the Lord (n. 26). (DP 264)
Enlightenment is the influx,
perception, and instruction people receive from the Lord when they read the
Word. (AC 10215)
All worship of the Lord, appears
from the Word (AC 440)
Where the Church is, there the Lord
is worshipped, and the Word is read (NJHD 8)
The individual becomes a
In every particular of the Word there is a spiritual
sense from which it derives its holiness. (DP 264)
What in particular concerns the doctrine that now follows, is that it also is out of heaven, because it is
from the spiritual sense of the Word; and the spiritual sense of the Word is
identical with the doctrine which is in heaven. (NJHD 7)
Our illumination or enlightenment
from these truths is proportional to our struggle to consciously cooperate with
the Lord as He gradually regenerates us day by day and hour by hour. The rate
of progress is proportional to the extent of our daily willing and thinking in
accordance with the truths we take up from the Writings. The truths for our
salvation that we take up from the Writings are called Doctrine in our mind:
He who does not know the arcana of heaven must needs believe that the Word is supported without
doctrine from it; for he supposes that the Word in the letter, or the literal
sense of the Word, is doctrine itself. But be it known that all the doctrine of
the church must be from the Word, and that the doctrine from any other source
than the Word is not doctrine in which there is anything of the church, still
less anything of heaven. But the doctrine must be collected from the Word, and
while it is being collected, the man must be in enlightenment from the Lord;
and he is in enlightenment when he is in the love of truth for the sake of
truth, and not for the sake of self and the world. These are they who are
enlightened in the Word when they read it, and who see truth, and from it make
doctrine for themselves. (AC 9424)
This clearly says that all Doctrine
is from the Word. For the
19.
Nonduality Fills The Culture
Around Us
Since our as-of self role in
regeneration is so crucial it makes sense to learn how to do it effectively.
This learning is called performing spiritual disciplines. Spiritual disciplines
allow us to discover the innumerable things in our mind that we receive from
culture and heredity. Once we know what they are we can reject them as-of self
by rational considerations. The culture we live in contains a variety of
nonduality traditions, attitudes, and popular followings to which we are
exposed from childhood onward. It is not readily obvious how nonduality is
promoted in our mind when we enjoy our favorite sit-com program or admire a
book for its message, or see our teenager practicing meditation. What about
Yoga or Tai Chi or vegetarianism? Sometimes the philosophy is embedded in a
mere formality we follow, like “Namaste” with which my Yoga teacher ends every
class. Once in a while she adds the explanation: “It means: the God in me
greets the God in you.” You can see the fundamental nonduality within this
formality routine since it is motivated by the idea that self=God, and that is the
fundamental nonduality.
Sometimes nonduality comes to us in
a secular Western tradition like Ayn Rand’s ethics of Objectivism or
This deadly conviction, that God infused and copied
Himself into men, was held by the people of the most ancient church in its
final period leading up to its termination, as I have heard from their own
lips. On account of their horrendous belief that they were thus gods, they lie hidden deep within a cavern, which no one can approach
closely without falling victim to an inner vertigo. (TCR
470).
And sometimes we see nonduality in
Christian traditions like the popular notion that there is no hell, or the idea
that long and repentant prayer brings salvation and holiness. The nonduality
here is the idea that prayers can be more or less effective on a measurable
continuum of how long and with how much self-blame or guilt one prays with.
Duality on the other hand recognizes a distinct and categorical separation
between spiritual things and natural. Praying long and with much guilt is
separate and distinct from the spiritual reasons the Lord grants a prayer. He
grants all prayers that are inspired by Him, and this is a duality rationally
opposed to the idea of “effectiveness” of prayers. (AE 325) (See Chapter 1,
Section 3)
Scientific education and science
reporting in the news media are also nondualist and opposed to the fundamental
duality of natural world and spiritual world.
From this ordering of creation it
can be seen that the coherent linkage from first things to last is such that
taken together they make up a single unit; in this prior cannot be separated
from posterior, just as cause cannot be separated from the effect produced by
it. Thus the spiritual world cannot be separated from the natural world, nor this from the spiritual. In the same way the heaven
where the angels are cannot be separated from the human race, nor the human race from that heaven. It has therefore been
provided by the Lord that one should perform services for the other, that is,
the heaven of angels should perform services for the human race, and the human
race for the heaven of angels. (LJ 9:[3]).
No concept or theory from dualism is
allowed today into science. It remains staunchly nondualist and materialistic, that
is, insisting that a world that is not physical does not exist. News stories
surround us with materialistic interpretations whether they be
on archeological finds, biological evolution, stellar formations, or brain scan
technology. The modern culture around us continues in an intellectual climate
of popular nondualities that deny all the scientific and spiritual dualities we
have from the Writings--between mind and body, natural world and spiritual
world, self and God, good and evil, heaven and hell, absolute truth and
absolute falsity, revelation and self-intelligence, regenerate and
unregenerate, uncreate and created, and many others. Without these rational
dualities of reality we have a falsified science and no religion or spiritual
sanity (DL
188). (See Chapter 4 Section 7)
Surprisingly,
To acknowledge that the Writings are
the Lord in His Second Coming and to understand this in a rational way makes
our spiritual growth and progress possible. If we are exposed to some idea or
principle that runs contrary to a single sentence in the Writings, we would
know instantly that we want to reject that idea. We do not need more than one
statement in the Writings for what is the absolute truth. Every statement in
the Writings has a Divine warrant of truth and validity. Of
course, by comparing a collection of statements on a topic one gains deeper
understanding of the topic. Still, one occurrence gives enough
understanding to exclude from our assent any idea that is contrary to it. This
makes deciding all life choices so much simpler.
They who are in the genuine doctrine of truth from
the Word, and in enlightenment when they read the Word, see everywhere truths
that agree, and nothing whatever that is opposed; for they do not dwell upon
what is said therein according to appearances, and according to the common
apprehension of men, because they know that if the appearances are unfolded,
and as it were unswathed, the truth is laid bare. (AC 9424)
Those who do not acknowledge the
Writings as the Lord have much more difficulty since they have to compare and
weigh things in balance. It becomes a matter of equity in their mind: how many
passages say this and how many say that, etc. What is the preponderance of the
evidence, etc. This leaves plenty of wiggle room for
going wrong and we lose the full protection of heaven. We start wondering how
many mistakes are contained in the Writings. We start thinking that Swedenborg
was but a limited human being hence did make mistakes, either his own or those
of his age and civilization. These are murky thoughts from which we are spared
merely by being totally categorical in our acceptance of the Writings as the
Lord Himself in His Word.
The acknowledgment of the Divine
source of the Writings brings about an entirely new state … A man must loose
something of self-esteem in accepting the Writings entirely. For before that he
can exalt his own intelligence, granting that the Writings are true here and
true there, but still, as it were, holding himself above them. … Many are most
reluctant to acknowledge this, for it is to give up too much. … If there is
indeed a Divine mind, a God, then true rationality is to become a servant to
truth.
This is a joyous recognition. When
an individual really understand the Divine claim on his rationality,
straightaway he complies. … It is a wonderful liberation and a real beginning
when we acknowledge Divine Revelation. Before that we are free to say perhaps
this is right and perhaps that; perhaps this is good and perhaps that. We have
so-called open minds to everything, even things which contradict each other. In
this state we do not make progress.
(Rev. Donald L. Rose, Sermon titled
“The Colt Loosed For the Lord’s Service”
Further, this absolute affirmative
attitude allows us to revere and worship the Writings as the Lord Himself.
Whether we adore and worship the Writings or the Lord is the same, for the Lord
is the Word (NJHD
263, DP 172). How marvelous it is to love the
Lord in this way, through his Word, for the Lord speaks to us only through the
Word (TCR
231). It is nonduality in our mind that weakens this
absolute Divine status of the Writings of Swedenborg.
20.
Two Methods For Fighting
Nonduality In The Mind
The source of all nonduality is a
natural inherent opposition to the fundamental duality. The natural mind before
it is regenerated is immersed in nonduality and its concepts are arranged to
fit the apparent order of the physical world entering through the sensory
organs and brain. This apparent order is sensuous and by its own logic excludes
the spiritual that it cannot see, and is aversive to
all absolute dualities that refer to things unseen by the physical eyes or
undetected by physical machines (DLW
66, 92). This is why our modern mind must
be regenerated, and it takes place by re-arranging the concepts from nonduality
to duality by means of the rational truths we take up from the Writings.
These rational truths accurately
reflect reality and serve as cognitive vessels into which we can receive
spiritual truths (NJHD 51; AC 3508). There is no salvation or eternal life in
heaven without undergoing regeneration while we are still attached to the
physical body (HH 470). This obligatory process progresses only to the extent
that we consciously cooperate with the Lord. It does not go forward at all if
we do not cooperate, for the Lord cannot do it on His Own, nor can He compel us
(BE 69, TCR 615, 577; DP 234). It stands to reason therefore that we ought to
learn how to detect nondualities in our mind out of a desire to cooperate in
our regeneration.
This book proposes two types of
methods that can help us to guard against nondualities in our mind. Volume 1 deals with learning how to
analyze common ideas to which we are exposed from culture and the times. I show
with many illustrations how to find the nonduality hidden in the assumptions
behind these ideas. Volume 2 deals
with the process of enlightenment that is needed to undergo regeneration. Volume 3 deals with learning how to
monitor our feelings, thoughts, and acts in our daily behaviors, also for the
purpose of cooperating with the Lord in our regeneration. Many illustrations
are given showing how to infuse a religious motive in everything we do, turning
daily life into a series of spiritual disciplines. The approach involves
tracing the implications of our daily choices and habits to see where they lead
to nonduality or the denial of the fundamental dualities of our religion. All
dualities are unique permanent distinctions that never cease to eternity (DLW
226).
For example, the popular ideas of
unconditional love and unconditional self-acceptance run contrary to the
duality of unregenerate and regenerating, or to good and evil. A notion
promoted by mental health professionals is the idea of equity in relationship
between husband and wife. Equity is the policy of sharing everything
fifty-fifty—chores, contribution, responsibility, status, independence. This is
a nonduality that threatens the conjugial duality of an absolute and permanent
distinctness in all things between man and woman, or husband and wife (CL 33). Many conjugial self-witnessing disciplines for husbands are described
and related to the Writings. They all follow one principle: that the husband
should learn to love acting from his wife rather from himself. While
learning this he ought to simulate so that he always enacts the conjugial
stance: to love acting from the wife more than acting from self. Many of the
illustrations are from my personal self-observations as a husband who is
forming a
I hope that you will find in this
presentation useful tools for your reformation and regeneration. If so, think
about sharing the knowledge with others who may also find it helpful. For
comments and questions, I welcome your email:
leon@hawaii.edu The Web address of this document
is: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nonduality.html and contains links to related
articles that can also be accessed.
All truths are from
the Word, which is spiritual light…
and nothing ought to be believed except the truth (INV 7)
A Gallup
Poll in 2002 reported that about 7 percent of Americans believe in “absolute
truth” when asked in a survey—among those who categorized themselves as “Christians.”
Among those who categorized themselves as without a religious affiliation, only
4 percent believe in absolute truth. What does it mean that nine out of ten
people today in our society declare that absolute truth does not exist? It
demonstrates that nonduality is reigning in the entire generation, regardless
of religious background. Nonduality has replaced the traditional dualities of
religion in the mind of the postmodern age. The
The
Writings teach that all truth from the Lord is absolute truth because the Lord
is absolute truth, and this is only from Him. Everything from Him is absolute
truth within which is absolute love (xx). Nothing from Him can be anything but
absolute truth because He is Absolute Truth Itself within which is Absolute
Love. In this sense, “absolute truth” means Divine Truth. Since the
inauguration of the new age of the Second Coming, the human race has received
conscious rational access to Divine Truth through the Writings. Everything in the
Writings is Absolute Truth, because it is Divine Truth, from the Lord, for the
Word is the Lord Himself (xx). The denial of the existence of absolute truth is
therefore a symptom of spiritual insanity. The unregenerate person today,
regardless of religious or other background, inwardly denies absolute truth
because it denies Divine Truth as the Divine Human, preferring for a God some
invisible and unfathomable something called “the universe” or “the everything
which is nothing” or “the energy” or whatever. There is an endless variety of
ways that the unregenerate mind can fabricate denials of absolute truth. There
is a big payoff at stake: Denial of God means the delight of making up our own
god, even ourselves as god, or something within us as god, and even to the
gross insanity of believing that one is above God.
The
Writings make a simple and accurate point: whatever is not from the Lord cannot
be absolute truth, but whatever is from the Lord is absolute truth. Further,
the Lord reveals absolute truth to every individual who seeks for it in His
Word, and nowhere else (xx). And for the
This is the fundamental duality that
has been weakened, or suppressed entirely, in the minds of people today as a
result of the severe climate of cultural nonduality.
The
categorical reasoning of the Writings, when presented for evaluation to a random
sample of people, would be rejected today as sectarian, fanatic, prejudiced, or
dogmatic. They point to other instances of sectarian religious groups in the
past and those of today, and see in the Writings a similar exclusionary
dogmatism, unjustified by the light of human reasoning and intelligence. We
know quite a bit of the historical record of dogmatic religions from the
Writings, and we can explain rationally why this persuasive approach to
religion is wrong headed, and impedes rather than aids the salvation of its
adherents (xx). But at last, the human race was given a Divine method for
regenerating from nonduality to duality, from a base in self, to the Lord as
the Base of reality. The
These new
revelations give the rational means by which any reader can enter into all
previous and future mysteries about the afterlife, the spiritual world, devils
and angels, spirits from other planets in the universe, life in heaven and
hell, and how the Lord regenerates every individual who cooperates, and so
leads the person to eternal life in heaven. And many additional things are now
revealed by the Lord in the Word of His Second Coming, relating to how the Lord
manages the universe, how the Lord manages our willing and thinking through
other spirits, how physical events depend completely on spiritual events, and many
details about the past history of the race. The
Second Coming is the final completion of the creation of the human race. At
last every individual anywhere can now form a celestial mind for themselves, capable
of eternal life in heaven. The only requirement is a willingness to be reformed
and regenerated by a life in accordance with conscience and truth from the
Writings.
Some might
argue that acknowledging and worshipping the Writings as God Himself is a religious
requirement for salvation, and similar therefore to previous sectarian faith.
But this view is not based on the actual information in the Writings. The
Writings give rational, objective, empirical, and scientific explanations and
demonstrations of who God is, and the invariant mechanisms by which the
universe is run and kept running by laws and principles anyone can study and
understand. Reality is not something one can invent or discover. It must be
revealed to be known. The earlier forms of revelation led to dogma because they
were not scientific and rational revelations. They were full of mystery and
unexplained workings behind the scenes by an invisible and little understood
Deity. If this had been the new revelation once more, dogma would again be inevitable.
But dogma can no longer exist in the light of rational explanation of religion,
God, regeneration, heaven, and hell.
All anyone
needs to do to verify what I’m saying here, is to read the details in the
Writings. The full set is available online for searching and reading at this
Web address:
1. Religious Membership Not Required For Salvation
The
Writings show why the Second Coming was necessary at this time in history and
evolution of the race. This new creation, called the
This is
called reformation and is the prelude to regeneration that goes on till the end
of life in the body. Then, a few hours later, the individual awakens in the spiritual
world in a spirit-body and continues immortal life in either heaven or hell.
All are instructed in the truths that have been revealed in the Writings, and
those who can receive them, enter heaven, but those
who reject the truths, enter hell. It has nothing to do with religious
membership, belief system, or past misdeeds and sins. The only requirement for
entering eternal life in heaven is to accept the truths that are taught to all
novitiate spirits as they arrive from the earths in the universe in great
numbers every day (xx).
In this
new universal age, all religions and cultures have been rendered equivalent in
salvation.
That means
that henceforth anyone, regardless of religion or culture, has a way of
salvation by undergoing reformation and regeneration in accordance with the new
truths revealed in the Writings. Since the vast majority of people today go
through life without having even heard of the Writings, they are instructed as
novitiate spirits as soon as they arrive in the afterlife. Why the Writings? Because
the Lord had to chose a revelator through whom the New Word can be given and
written down (TCR 779). There is no other way possible from creation. Salvation
has always been be new revelations from the Lord. All
evolutionary steps of the human race were accomplished in this way, by new
truths given to the race by means of a revelator who writes down and teaches
the New Word of the Lord (xx). Spiritual
truths cannot be discovered but must be revealed from the Lord (xx). And
only spiritual truths in the mind can make it possible for an individual to
live in heaven (xx).
To be saved
means to develop a mind that can live in heaven. No one is saved by merit,
status, reputation, initiation, birth, or membership. Who is saved is a
scientific issue. It is a matter pf psychobiology, just as it is a matter of agriculture
as to which plant survives and flourishes in the face of insects and the
weather.
Hence no
one can have any spiritual truths from any other source but the revelations
from the Lord to one individual who writes them down for others to read,
understand, and believe. Through this knowledge, there is contact with the Lord
who can then effect actual regeneration and salvation, to the extent that we
are willing to cooperate with Him. Without this conscious intellectual system
obtained from the revealed Word, regeneration cannot actualize in this life. This necessary regeneration process cannot
take place in the afterlife except to the extent that the individual has led a
life of good in accordance with conscience that was considered from God. If
conscience was thought of as the voice of self within, or the voice of our
higher self within, then we refuse the truths of regeneration when instructed
in the afterlife. This was empirically demonstrated to Swedenborg by much
careful observation he made over many years, involving thousands of individuals
arriving every day in the afterlife (xx).
2. Revelation Is Necessary For Spiritual
Truths
Why is a
revelator needed? Why does the Lord not come Himself, in the natural world for
all to see, as He did at the Incarnation? Many people have this physicalistic
idea of the Lord’s return and His physicalistic exercise of Divine power to
flatten all objections and doubts about the Divine. Why would He not do this
since this would convince everyone as they are convinced that airplanes exist
and the moon is made of rock, not cheese.
The
Writings explain that the First Coming was to create in the human race a
sensuous consciousness of Him as God. This was accomplished by glorifying the
natural human self He acquired as a Child growing up among the people with whom
the Word was at that time and point in the race’s evolution. To glorify His
natural human self means that He made it one with the Divine in Himself (xx). This
act of making the human Divine, created a new reality by which the human race
could see Him and understand Him. It was important for the human race to be
able to have a definite view of Him in order to feel close to Him and love Him.
By this love alone can the human race receive from Him what it needs in order to
be saved. And now we know that this
what we need to be saved: Understanding Him in scientific detail. This
kind of rational and full understanding of Him makes it possible to receive
from Him the eternal endless blessings of salvation. These blessings of salvation and happiness are received within the
rational understanding of Him.
Heaven is
made of His Truth within which is His Love. Clearly then, our access to heaven
is by means of learning His truth, understanding it, and loving it. Then we
have heaven or salvation. A revelation is therefore always needed to bring
Divine truth to our understanding. If we reject this truth, we deny ourselves a
mechanism for receiving heaven. The only thing we can receive in man-made or
man-discovered truth, is hell. It’s a simple practical
matter: You can hop on a real helicopter to take you up the mountain,
or a wooden helicopter that will never take of the ground except when lifted
and thrown back down by a hurricane. It’s not a mystery, not a secret
membership of the favored, not a slot you can buy by means of power, influence,
and money. Everyone has equal access through willingness to receive.
In the
First Coming of the Lord at His Incarnation, the human race was able to see God
in a Natural Body. Until then the Lord was not visible, though He appeared to many by taking over the spirit-body of an angel and speaking
through the angel. What people then saw was not the Lord, but the angel from
whom the Lord spoke to them. Many such encounters are described in the Old
Testament. But this arrangement was only temporary because it did not allow the
closest possible contact between the Lord and the human race. How can one love
a God who only speaks through an angel, not through His Own Presence?
The Lord
then came into the natural world through the virgin pregnancy of a woman who
birthed the Divine Child (xx). The Lord did not allow this new natural human Form
of Himself to have full perception into its interior mind so as to see who He
was in reality. He wanted this Child to grow up like other children so that it
would develop a natural self and personality. This could not have occurred if
He had not limited the Child’s vision into Himself. He gradually taught this Child
in an external way, about who He really was, doing
this by means of the Hebrew Word, or the Old Testament (xx). This is how the Child
gradually learned from the Word who He was and why He had been incarnated. It
was a self-realization that came to Him consciously from His external
environment—the Holy Book that the Jews had guarded over the centuries. The
purpose of this gradual self-realization, rather than instantaneous revelation
and vision, is described in great detail by the Lord in both the Old Testament
and in the Writings. But in the Old Testament these descriptions were hidden by
the language of correspondences, which are now revealed and rationally
explained by the Lord in the Writings. This is why the Writings are called
Heavenly Secrets (AC 1). These revelations about Himself could not have been
given before this. The reasons are fully explained in the Writings.
The Lord’s
Incarnation was necessary so that the human race could form a genuine and true
“picture” of Him, without which we could not get close to Him and love Him from
an inmost love. Without this inmost love unto Him from Him, no one could
receive the ultimate celestial blessings that He longed to bestow on every created
human being. Therefore the Lord had to Incarnate and show
Himself to history, science, and physical reality. But this was only the first
step in the makeover of the human mind. The final step could not as yet be
taken by the human race. Seventeen more centuries of preparation had to pass,
until the human race had acquired a modern rational mind. The final revelation
can only exist in the human rational mind. This step was completed in 1771 when
Swedenborg published the last work of the Writings called The True Christian Religion (xx).
This second
step of the Lord’s revelation of Himself was to create a new mind within the
natural one, that could function to give us rational
consciousness of Him, not merely sensuous consciousness from His natural and
physical Appearance to the race. This new rational mind is called the spiritual
mind and the Lord creates it in everyone to the extent that one is willing to
apply the New Truths to our daily willing and thinking--regardless of religious
background! The Lord saves and elevates to Himself every individual of the
human race anywhere in the universe, to the extent that the individual allows
Him to do this. Spiritual freedom is
maintained by thinking with rational concepts about spiritual truths. For
example, to think that there is no absolute truth is to think naturally about
spiritual things. To think this is a persuasion rather than a rational opinion.
Ask a random sample of those who deny absolute truth to state their
justification. You will discover that they have no rational justifications.
They put together various inconsistent or unrelated things they pick up here
and there when they are impressed by someone or some writing. Yet they feel
convinced. Hence it is a persuasion. There is no mental freedom for those who
are in a state of being convinced from persuasion (xx).
3. The New Rational Consciousness of God
Approaching the spiritual domain
through sensuous consciousness leads to states of persuasion and loss of
rational freedom, hence, loss of spiritual sanity. There is then an inability to
recognize which spiritual propositions are true and which false. Even worse,
truth is seen as falsity and falsity is seen as truth (NJHD
171). There is no exit from
this hell in the mind except through one door provided by the Lord for every
religion and every philosophy—reformation and regeneration. For those who are
ignorant of the Writings or are unable to read it and comprehend it, the Lord
provides an inner conscience through which He speaks to them and guides them in
their daily willing and thinking—but only to the extent they are willing to
obey the voice of conscience and to take it as God’s Voice within them. In the
afterlife they are informed and instructed who this inner voice was, and those
who listened to the voice of conscience as God’s Voice, recognize His voice
then, accept the details of the New Truths about Him, and with these in their
mind and understanding, enter their heaven and eternal bliss.
The voice of conscience is effective
for salvation since it provides rational consciousness of super-human
authority, that is, of God’s connection and intimate closeness to the
individual.
We can only
love God when we feel close to Him and connected. And only in this love can
we be saved and receive eternal blessings from Him. Those who withhold and reject this love in themselves from Him, arrive
with a mind unfit for heavenly habitation. They sink down into hellish
habitations where they eek out a miserable existence among others who are like
them. What is amazing is that the Lord does not keep them there, but they keep
themselves there, for when at any time they have the desire to visit heaven,
they do so, but quickly cast themselves back down, being seized with explosive
and insane hatred for the life they find there. Amazingly, they find the unspeakably
miserable life in hell more desirable and pleasurable than the life of love, truth,
and beauty in heaven.
In the Word
of the New Testament, the voice of conscience is represented as the “Holy
Spirit.” The followers of the Lord at His First Coming loved Him in His
physical presence, that is, they knew Him from sensuous consciousness.
Seventeen centuries of intellectual development had to happen before the race
was sufficiently prepared for His Second Coming, that is, in our rational
consciousness of Him. This rational consciousness did not exist with the
Apostles and the Christian Church, except in a slight degree, through their
belief in the existence of the Holy Spirit within them. A full awareness and
rational understanding of what it means to have the Holy spirit
within, only became possible when the spiritual-celestial mind could be created
within the modern version of the external rational mind, developed by science, education,
art, and culture. Human beings had to
evolve so that they might be willing to love the Lord from rational
consciousness.
Until then,
people were willing to love Him from sensuous consciousness—e.g., His Blood, His
Tunic, His Relics, His Sacrifice, His Miracles, His Resurrection. They were
unable to love Him from rational consciousness, such as the idea that He and
the Father were the same Person. It takes rational consciousness
to understand how the Lord manages every detail of our willing and thinking,
and yet we are still full of evils. It takes rational consciousness to
understand that people keep themselves in hell and that it is not a forced
punishment. It takes rational consciousness to understand how discrete degrees
operate in every object and in the human mind. And what cannot be understood is not revealed by the Lord since it
would place people into spiritual harm far worse than they can place themselves
on their own through fantasies and distortions (xx).
Further,
people cannot love what they don’t understand (xx). These are the rational
reasons why the revelations of the Second Coming could not be given until
modern times. Sensuous consciousness of God is a type of connection that allows
only a distant relationship of love, while rational consciousness of the Lord
allows the inmost relationship of love capable by the human race. And every
good and truth the race has, is from this rational love unto Him that we have
from Him.
Even today,
these ideas appear to most people as vague, imaginative, inconclusive, unbelievable. Many people are willing and able to love God
when He makes Himself sensually or sensibly present through physical miracles,
a physical voice form heaven, a physical pestilence brought on the people by
their sins, and the like. Furthermore, people can only feel actually forgiven
if they see tangible evidence of it, like sacrifices being offered as atonement,
in the olden days. Today, people still expect as proof of God’s existence, physically
evident miracles, special gifts and physical powers, a successful outcome to
their projects and prayers, objects they consider sacred, and so on. This
sensuous consciousness of God is a natural relationship, not spiritual. It has
been vastated and consummated, and a new rational consciousness, serves in its
stead.
Miracles close the internal man, and deprive man of all that
free will, through which and in which man is regenerated. Free will really
belongs to the internal man; and when this is closed up, the man becomes
external and natural; and such a man does not see any spiritual truth. Miracles
also are like veils and bars lest anything might enter. This bar, or this
obstruction, however, is gradually broken, and [then] all truths become
dispersed. (INV 6)
Rational
consciousness allows the idea of the universal Church (HH
308), that is, the idea
that religious affiliation cannot save but what can, is individual
regeneration. Faith based on sensuous consciousness is persuasive faith, which
the individual rejects in the afterlife (xx). But rational faith remains in the
afterlife and saves. This is because all the heavens have been recreated by
the Lord through the new rational truths He unveiled in His Second Coming.
Now people must come into the afterlife with rational consciousness of
spiritual things, in order to form a plane of life that supports heavenly
existence. This is because He is Divine Truth, and all truth is rational, and
all things are created by means of Divine Truth (xx). Unless we have rational
truths of God we cannot be conjoined with the Lord. Without conjunction through
our rational idea and love for the Lord, our presence in heaven is not
possible.
Prior to
the formation of the New Heavens there were the old heavens and their vast
outskirts where people were able to live adequately while waiting for the New
Heavens to be created (xx). Then, when Swedenborg
published the last work of the Writings in 1771, the New Heavens were completed
by means the new truths that the Lord revealed to the angels and those living
in the outskirts of heaven (xx). A vast migration was then accomplished by the
Lord, instructing everyone there in His new rational truths, and admitting and
accommodating all those who were willing to receive the new rational truths
about Himself. But here on earth things take much
longer! Only a few people today are willing to form the
Remains are like some
heavenly star, which, the smaller it is the less light it gives, and the
larger, the more light. (AC
530)
4. Nonduality is from Self-intelligence
Nonduality
is the intellectual process of our natural intelligence when we think about God
and spiritual things. This opposition between the natural sensuous mind and the
rational spiritual mind, is a developmental process of
the human mind—even the Lord as a Divine Child growing up on earth made Himself
go through this process. When He was still growing up as a young child, the
Lord consulted his natural mind or natural intelligence, about the truths of
the Old Testament He was reading. He then revealed to Himself from within His
Divine, that He is not to consult natural intelligence regarding the truths of
the Word. Instead, He instructed Himself to rely on truths that He is going to
reveal to His natural mind from His spiritual mind (HH
308). It is a natural
step therefore, for everyone to first attempt to discover spiritual truths by
using one’s own natural intelligence. Afterwards, the Lord reveals to us when
we read the Writings, that we must no think naturally
about spiritual revelations. We must read the revelations as Divine Truth
already, and then, and only then, trying to understand what we read. This
understanding is not passive but active. It is a rational process of figuring
out what the literal language of revelation says. The goal of this
understanding is to avoid doubt and questioning based on our own prior ideas
and attitudes. Instead, all our mental effort must be in understanding how the details
we are given are true and rational. This is the activity what builds our rational
consciousness, and nothing else.
The general
belief that there is no absolute truth is an instance of this nonduality
operating today in the natural mind. Absolute truth is a spiritual idea since only
God is absolute, and His truth is absolute truth. This is known from revelation
that God gives to all people through their religion and culture. To accept
genuine revelation is therefore to have an idea of God that is rational. This
rational consciousness of God saves the person, as long as one obeys God’s
commandments in daily life. But to deny absolute truth is to consult one’s
self-intelligence in matters of spiritual truths, and this is forbidden because
it leads to spiritual self-destruction:
Those things
which are from one's own intelligence have no life in them, since nothing good
proceeds from man's proprium (NJHD 256).
[in the Word] they are called "drunkards" who
believe nothing but what they apprehend, and for this reason search into the
mysteries of faith. And because this is done by means of sensuous things,
either of memory or of philosophy, man being what he is, cannot but fall
thereby into errors. For man's thought is merely earthly, corporeal, and
material, because it is from earthly, corporeal, and material things, which
cling constantly to it, and in which the ideas of his thought are based and
terminated. (AC 1072)
Spiritual self-destruction
means that people in the afterlife refuse to let go of their self-imposed
spiritual insanity, thereby keeping themselves in the hells that exist in every
human mind (NJHD 256).
Self-intelligence
in matters dealing with natural things is called the external rational level of thinking, or the natural-rational level
of the mind. This external rational level is to be contrasted with the interior
rational level, which is called the spiritual-rational level of the mind. The
difference between the natural-rational and the spiritual-rational is like the
difference between hell and heaven. Why then is the natural-rational capable of
giving us science and civilization? Wouldn’t the natural-rational mind become
insane and not capable of living a modern life of law and order in democracy?
The answer is that it would indeed, were the Lord to allow that. But the
Lord wills that we succeed in our physical environment with this
self-intelligence based on our experience and reflection.
Our successes in the natural world is powered by the Lord, even when
we deny it. He gives His power and intelligence to people’s goals and plans
regardless of their acknowledging Him and regardless of whether they live
wickedly or well in this world. He does this out of love for the every
individual and His greatest desire to keep the individual in a state of
spiritual freedom as long as possible. Only in spiritual freedom can we choose
willingly to love Him. In this way He keeps everyone in a state in which they
can decide freely to cooperate in regeneration and thus be saved for eternal
happiness. But this Divine assist in the background, works out only for our natural
activities and ideas. It would be spiritually disastrous for the Lord to do the
same thing in spiritual things and ideas that we form for ourselves in freedom
and rationality.
Instead of
this disastrous direct intervention in the background, the Lord provides
indirect management or assistance in His open revelation of the Word. This
allows us to be informed in genuine truths about Him, and thereby to reject the
falsities of truths we invent in the natural mind. Spiritual truth cannot be
discovered like natural truth. This is a Divine Law of Providence (AC
6047 [2], INV 22, SE 4131).
All genuine spiritual truth must come to us from the Lord into the external
natural mind, by means of the written revelations of His Word. When we accept
genuine revelation as Divine truth, we are allowing the Lord to create our
spiritual-rational mind, the mind we must have to live in heaven.
By Adam, or
man, and by Eve his wife, was there meant a new church, and by the eating of
the tree of knowledge, the fall of that church from good to truth, consequently
from love to the Lord and toward the neighbor to faith without these loves, and
this by reasoning from their own intellectual, which reasoning is the serpent
(AC 8891).
The
American intellectual climate we live in exposes nearly everyone to ideas of
nonduality. Some are imported from Eastern religions and philosophical systems, some are Western in tradition and contemporary
formulation. And some are indigenous to the
Every one after death is immediately bound to his like, the
good to their like in heaven, but the evil to their like in hell (LJ 69)
The power
that governs all loves is called conjugial love, and it is based on the
permanent and absolute distinction between a man and a woman (CL 44). It would
be instantly destroyed by any switching around of sexual identity (to use a
modern phrase), and so the duality of man and woman cannot be turned into a
nonduality or a continuum of masculinity-femininity. Eastern nonduality is the
opposite view that all distinctions are illusory, temporary, unreal, and to be
transcended. Self=God, man=woman, individual=Divine, material world=spiritual
world, corporeal=spiritual, energy=God, evil=good, angel=man, and so on. You
can see that some of these equations are imported from the East, but others are
indigenous to the West, as for example the idea in materialistic science of human
sexuality as a continuum on a masculinity-femininity scale. Nonduality is a
property of the natural mind and acts against all spiritual-rational concepts
of duality. Nonduality is a corporeal-sensuous style of reasoning that looks
outward and downward in the spiritual mind, seeing a continuity of degree
between everything conceivable. This is why nonduality is also in science,
where it is called materialistic monism (i.e., “only the natural world exists”).
Another
reason that the natural mind reacts against the spiritual mind is that the
natural mind consists not only of substances of the spiritual world but also of
substances of the natural world, as was said above (n. 257), and substances of
the natural world from their very nature react against the substances of the
spiritual world. For substances of the natural world are in themselves dead,
and are acted upon from without by substances of the spiritual world. And
substances which are dead, and are acted upon from without, resist from their
own nature, and thus from their nature react. From these considerations it can
be established that the natural man reacts against the spiritual man, and that
there is a conflict. It is the same thing whether it is said the natural and
spiritual man, or the natural and spiritual mind. (DLW 260)
If any idea
of nonduality were to be confirmed in the
Nonduality
is a natural consequence of the natural mind. Rational nondualities abound in
modern science and in humanistic philosophy and psychology. The
natural-rational mind is a modern development needed for the build up of the spiritual-rational
mind. But its initial or unreformed state, is opposed
to spiritual-rational ideas to the extent that we have confirmed in our mind
the theory of nonduality of existence, that is, believing that the natural can exist
by itself, without the spiritual or God. This belief may be around in society
and culture, but it is not necessary to confirm it and believe in it within our
interior mind where we are free to believe whatever we want. If we do not
confirm the ideas of nonduality we remain open to believing spiritual truths from
the Word, that are not accessible to the natural mind.
This belief opens up the spiritual mind, and we for the first time begin to
live like a genuine human. The genuine human only begins in the
spiritual-rational mind. Everything below it in the natural-rational mind, the sensuous
mind, and the corporeal mind, is not genuine human, but animal (xx). Our natural
mind is superior to animals in language and thinking power, but this is merely
a continuum of superiority in physiology and functioning. The human begins with
the spiritual rational at reformation in adult life. Only the spiritual mind is
human, and we are born with the capacity to become genuinely human and to have
our spiritual mind opened in adult life. The spiritual-rational mind can be
opened only by revealed truths from the heaven from the Lord. This is also why
the
Nonduality
permeates our modern culture and is a dictating force in politics,
entertainment, recreation, education, science, the arts, man-woman relations,
and articulated or fashionable lifestyles. Eastern nonduality did not create
nonduality in the Western mind. Rather, the enormous appetite of modernism for nonduality
in Western cultures, have created a mental marketplace for the imported ideas
from the culturally rich fabric of Eastern religions and philosophies, and
their physical and mental disciplines and arts. The imported nonduality mixes
around with the indigenous nonduality with the result that we are surrounded by
a culturally rich web that enters into our mind from everywhere--into public
life, mental health practices, group and individual therapy, popular
followings, professional ethics, morality in relationships, and lifestyle
choices relating to health, physical programs, and “spirituality.” Thus, nonduality in our mind is a
significant presence that must be dealt with first when we start our
reformation in adult life.
One who knows
nothing about discrete degrees, that is, degrees of height, can know nothing
about the state of man as regards his reformation and regeneration, which are
effected through the reception of love and wisdom of the Lord, and then through
the opening of the interior degrees of his mind in their order. Nor can he know
anything about influx from the Lord through the heavens nor
anything about the order into which he was created. For if anyone thinks about
these, not from discrete degrees or degrees of height but from continuous
degrees or degrees of breadth, he is not able to perceive anything about them
from causes, but only from effects; and to see from effects only is to see from
fallacies, from which come errors, one after another; and these may be so
multiplied by inductions that at length enormous falsities are called truths.
(DLW 187)
You can see
then that nonduality is the mind we have when we begin our reformation and
prior to being on the road to regeneration. The
5. Nonduality In The
Mind Opposes Regeneration
If any
imported element of nonduality were to be admitted and confirmed in the
When we try
to write down the spiritual insight that came in the application, we can do so,
but when we read it in another state of mind, we only see something natural in
it, and we may even believe that this natural that we see, is spiritual. But it
is not. The spiritual-rational only functions in the spiritual mind, and the spiritual mind is closed when we fall back
into a natural state. We need many years of constant spiritual discipline to be
able to remain steadfastly in a state of mind where we are consciously living
from the spiritual mind through the natural, and not merely from the natural
(see Volume 3 for spiritual disciplines). In the unregenerate state of mind the
natural mind is turned downward towards earth, but at reformation, the natural
mind is turned around, and now faces heaven (xx). When the natural mind faces
heaven, it faces the spiritual mind, and it obeys. Prior to that, it does what
it pleases from itself, and thus, it slides easily into hell. The turning around of the natural mind is effected at reformation by means of rational analysis of
everything in our mind, comparing each element with the truths of the Writings
that we study and endeavor to understand rationally. All that is needed a this point to make the process effective, is to apply it
to our daily willing and thinking. This application gives birth to the
spiritual mind and opens it for continued growth. By the end of reformation,
everything in the
A constant and
effective mental vigilance is therefore necessary in order to manage our willing
and thinking moment by moment every day. This orientation is fully efficacious
against the spiritual invasion of “strange fires” in the surrounding ocean of
cultural and scientific nonduality. Constant self-witnessing is also an
efficacious mental management technique that gives us the ability to cooperate
with the Lord in our regeneration (BE 69, TCR 615, 577). I discuss this in
Volume 3 under the topic of spiritual disciplines that we can use for the
conscious self-management of our daily activities. Since this is the very arena
of our regeneration it is crucial that we make use of available techniques the
Lord puts at our disposal. I will show that the numerous resistances we
experience in our daily regeneration efforts, stem
from ideas of nonduality, either imported or indigenous. Rational analysis
of our ideas that is informed by the Writings, creates
dualities to replace every form of nonduality in the mind.
It is
important to understand in detail, not just in general, what danger nonduality
poses to the
A
persuasion of falsity extinguishes and as it were suffocates everything
spiritual and celestial; as everyone may know from much experience, if he pays
attention. They who have once conceived opinions,
though most false, cling to them so obstinately that they are not even willing
to hear anything that is contrary to them; so that they never suffer themselves
to be informed, even if the truth be placed before their eyes. (AC 806)
All nonduality concepts have at
their core nonduality. Search if you like and see if you can find one that is not so marked
from within. Every nonduality concept is opposed to our mind because it
contradicts the duality concepts that we have from the Writings.
Chapter 1, Section 2
I became
aware of the dangers that nonduality might pose to the New Church mind when I
was recently asked to comment on a brief article by Wilson Van Dusen titled
“The Highest Insight in Hinduism and in Swedenborg” (first published in the Messenger
June 2001; reprinted in ISI News, Newsletter of Information Swedenborg,
March 2002, issue 54, pp. 8-9). It was about nonduality and introduces the
issue as follows: (discussed further in Chapter 2 Section 1)
Hinduism's
advaita vedanta or non-dual theology, probably
represents the highest mystical insight possible. It is the insight that
ultimately only God exists. My friends know that I regard Swedenborg's mystical
revelations as the greatest ever. We can then ask the question, Can we also
find non-dualism in Swedenborg? The answer is a resounding yes. The highest
revelation of Hinduism is also in Swedenborg's revelations even though the two
traditions had no contact.
In order to
understand what this article is saying in relation to Swedenborg I needed to
research how Hindu nonduality exists in the ideas of Americans today. Searching
for nonduality sites on the World Wide Web yielded a large quantity and
diversity of information on contemporary formulations of traditional
definitions. I then went back to Dr. Van Dusen’s article and felt surprised at
the opening claim, quoted above. How can nonduality be compatible with the
Writings when every concept I know from the Writings is grounded in permanent
and absolute dualism: God/creation; love/wisdom, heaven/hell; create/uncreate;
natural/spiritual; spiritual/celestial; regenerating/unregenerate; good/evil;
truth/falsity; Father/Son, Esse/Existere; infinite/finite; will/understanding;
and so on. Nonduality would deny that these distinctions are absolute and a
permanent feature of reality. As we read in the Writings:
Good exists
from creation, and it varies in degree from the highest to the lowest. When its
lowest degree reaches zero, evil arises on the other side. So there is no
relationship or progress of good to evil, but it relates and progresses
to what is more or less good. Evil relates and progresses to what is
more or is less evil, because these are opposites in every single detail. (CL
444)
There is
therefore an inherent clash in the
1. Evil and good cannot exist together in man's interiors;
and consequently neither can the falsity of evil and
the truth of good.
2. Good and the truth of good can be introduced by the Lord
into man's interiors only so far as the evil and the falsity of evil there have
been removed.
3.
If good with its truth were introduced there before or in a greater measure
than evil with its falsity is removed, man would depart from good and return to
his evil. (DP 232)
Chapter 1, Section 3
Nondualism
is opposed to the definition of reality given by dualism because nondualism
asserts the contrary view that all dualities stem from a temporary illusion
created by the mind, which itself is an illusion created by its many
attachments to temporary things. And so, when the individual awakens from this
illusion (maya) all dualities drop off, leaving behind nonduality as the only
reality called God (Brahman). Nondualism urges that every individual mind
awaken from this illusion created by the unreal self (atman), and when all attachments
drop off and the self is emptied, there remains the only Reality (Brahman).
This is the basis and foundation stone of religious and philosophic nonduality.
Every other concept derived from this defining proposition must also be
congruent with nonduality. Therefore not a single concept in nonduality can be
similar in meaning to any concept in the Writings where dualism permeates every
concept to its core assumptions and implications. To attempt to commingle the
two by arguing for similarities leads to a clash of doctrine in the
The
kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he
hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that
field. (Matthew 13:44) (AC 5886)
This
confirms what has been stated in the Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church
in its universal and in its particular form, at the beginning of this work,
namely, "The Lord came into the world to remove Hell from man, and He did
remove it by means of combats with it and victories over it, thereby subduing
it and reducing it to obedience to Himself." And further, "Jehovah
God came down and took upon Him the Human for the purpose of reducing to order
all things in heaven and all things in the church; because at that time the
power of the devil, that is, of hell, prevailed over the power of heaven, and
upon earth the power of evil over that of good and in consequence a total
damnation stood threatening at the door. This impending damnation Jehovah God
removed by means of His Human, thus redeeming angels and men. From this it is
clear that without the Lord's coming no one could have been saved. It is the
same today; and therefore without the Lord's coming again into the world no one
can be saved" (see above, n. 2, 3). (TCR 121)
Given birth
by the Writings, the
all
truths - not only the general ones but also the particular, and indeed the most
specific - must in heaven have been arranged into that order so that one truth
relates to another within a form like that in which the members, organs, and
viscera of the human body relate to one another. That is, their uses relate to
one another in general, also in particular, as well as most specifically, and
act so as to be a single whole. … When therefore truths have been arranged into
an order like that into which heaven is arranged they exist in heavenly order
and are able to enter good. Truths and goods exist in such order with every
angel, and they are also being arranged into such order with every person who
is being regenerated. (AC 4302)
Eastern and
Western nonduality forever strives to empty itself of the rational order into
which the celestial mind is arranged from creation (AC 5113). It grounds itself
in corporeal and experiential things instead. Its religious life of discipline
is in physical and mental disciplines accompanied by prescribed physical
exercises and communal chanting or rituals of initiation. These are traditions
that were established long before the religious civilization initiated in the
West by the First Coming. From the perspective of the New Church mind the
highest content it can find in the mental exercises (often called “meditation”)
consist in sensuous visions and corporeal metaphors of spiritual ideas like
God, heaven, sacred objects, forms of energy, action at a distance, merging
into the all, divine vibration, mystical union, transcendental, universal
spirit, and many such things, all of which are below the rational in the New
Church mind. This is also true of all forms of nonduality including Western
and scientific sources. It is one thing to think about God in a natural
way, and another to think from God in a spiritual way (DP 142). To think about spiritual things in a natural
way means to think of them only in metaphors.
From the
point of view of the Writings, natural
metaphors have no spiritual-rational content except as correspondences of each
other. The knowledge of the correspondences is natural, but from them
one can be introduced to spiritual meanings (AC 9280). The spiritual cannot be
seen in the lower portions of the natural mind, but starts to be seen above the
corporeal and above the sensuous, in the external rational region of the
natural mind (AC 978, 4286; AE 355:14). Below this, there is no spiritual
content because no rational. Correspondences are
rational only to the extent that they are understood from the idea of discrete
degrees between the natural and the spiritual (D. Wis. 2). This alone is
rational. Any form of nonduality cannot rise to the rational level, but sinks
down to the material. Material ideas cannot be spiritually rational because
they deny what is not natural. Scientific theories that assume materialism are
based on material concepts or natural-rational reasonings. They reject or spew
out whatever idea that is not natural. These natural things of the mind that that
are the highest in nonduality, correspond to the lowest spiritual level, and is
compared in the Writings to "the intestines" (AC 10030).
Nonduality
as a religious and philosophic discipline leads to the notion that the control
of the body and the corporeal mind, is a way to spiritual
things. There is no requirement for the rational to be initiated and developed.
The spiritual is said to develop when these physical exercises and mental feats
are performed. Hence the focus and emphasis on corporeal and
mental disciplines, martial arts, initiation rituals, and diet. It is
taught that spiritual “energy” issues from the body in particular places
identified as “chakras.” Also, that performing well practiced physical
movements of a certain style help the practitioner to become “one with the
flow, one with nature.” This sensation of integration is by itself considered
as the spiritual attainment. It’s a spirituality that is emptied of any
rational content in contrast to
Chapter 1, Section 4
[3] The human rational - that is to say, the rational formed
from images of worldly things received through the senses, and later on from
images of things analogous to actual worldly ones, such as are received from
factual knowledge and from cognitions - virtually laughs or mocks if it is told
that it does not live of itself but only appears to itself to do so. It likewise
laughs if it is told that the less anyone believes that he lives of himself,
the more he is truly living, that is, the more wise and intelligent he is, and
the more blessed and happy. And it also laughs if it is told that that life is
the life which angels possess, especially those who are celestial and are
inmost or nearest to the Lord; for these know that nobody except Jehovah alone,
that is, the Lord, lives of himself.
[4] This rational would also mock if it were told that it
has nothing of its own, and that its possessing anything of its own is an
illusion or an appearance. Still more would it mock if it were told that the
more it is subject to the illusion that it possesses anything of its own the
less it in fact possesses, and vice versa. It would likewise mock if it were
told that whatever it thinks and does from what is its own is evil, even though
it was good [in its effect], and if it were told that it has no wisdom until it
believes and perceives that all evil comes from hell and all good from the
Lord. This is a conviction, indeed a perception, that exists
in all angels, yet they possess selfhood or a proprium in fuller measure
than all others. But they realize and perceive that their selfhood comes from
the Lord, even though it seems to be completely their own.
[5] This rational would again mock if it were told that in
heaven the greatest are those who are least; that the wisest are those who
believe and perceive that they themselves are the least wise; that the happiest
are those who wish the greatest happiness to others and the least to
themselves; that heaven consists in wishing to be below everyone else, but hell
in wishing to be above everyone else; and that consequently the glory of heaven
does not hold within it anything at all of that which the glory of the world
holds.
[6] This rational would similarly mock if it were told that
in the next life space and time do not exist at all but states in accordance
with which there are appearances of space and time, and that life becomes more
heavenly the further removed it is from the things that belong to space and
time and the closer it comes to that which is eternal - for that which is
eternal has absolutely nothing within it that is received from the notion of
time or anything analogous to it. In the same way would the rational mock at
countless other things it could be told.
[7] The Lord
saw that such things were present in the merely human rational and that this
rational therefore mocked Divine things. He did so from the Divine spiritual,
which is meant by the words 'Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian', 2651, 2652. The fact that a person is able from within to have
insight into the things residing with him that are below is well known from
experience to those who have perception, and also to those who have conscience,
for they see clearly enough to reproach themselves for what they think. This
exemplifies how regenerate persons are able to see what their rational prior to
regeneration is like. In man's case however such perception is received from
the Lord, but in the Lord's case it was Self-derived. (AC 2654)
The
Writings reveal that the
In contrast,
the New Testament reinterprets the Old Testament text in a more rational,
abstract, and spiritual way. The New Testament introduces external rational
concepts that can serve as vessels for containing genuine spiritual-rational
ideas, not mere natural representatives of spiritual ideas (NJHD 51; AC 3508).
The representations in themselves are not spiritual just as the literal
sentences of the Word are not spiritual, but only the spiritual correspondences
to which the literal represented.
Truth
Divine is not received by anyone unless it has been accommodated to his
apprehension, consequently unless it appears in a natural form and shape; for
at first human minds apprehend none but earthly and worldly things, and not at
all spiritual and heavenly things. Wherefore if spiritual and heavenly things
were set forth nakedly, they would be rejected as if they were nothing, (AC
8783)
Anyone reading the Word without at the same time thinking of the
spiritual meaning in the sentences has then read nothing spiritual (AC 9280). Further, the content of the
spiritual meaning one thinks of must be revealed truths about God, heaven, sin,
love, faith, and regeneration. This process of rational analysis is a necessary
step for applying the rational rules of correspondence that have been
revealed. Without this rational
application, the faith of one’s religion, including the
The
Christian mind prior to the Second Coming in the eighteenth century could not
be regenerated from natural to spiritual by means of the ideas it obtained from
the literal text of the New Testament. Christians who passed into the spiritual
world between the First and Second Coming, were kept “in waiting” in the
spiritual world, until such time as the Writings were completed. They then were
instructed in the new spiritual-rational revelations, and by means of these in
their understanding, they were at last admitted to heaven (TCR 115). All those
who were willing to receive the Heavenly Doctrine were made part of the New
Heavens of the Second Coming (TCR 1)
Because it is here said, "until
the words of God are consummated," it shall also be told what is signified
by the Lord's last words to the disciples, which are these:
Go
ye and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you all the days, even
until the consummation of the age. Amen (Matt. 28:19-20).
"Until
the consummation of the age" is until the end of the church (n. 658); and
then, if they do not go to the Lord Himself, and live according to His
commandments, they are left by the Lord; and being left by the Lord they become
like pagans, who have no religion; and then the Lord is with those only, who
will be of His New Church. These things are signified by "until the words
of God are consummated," and by "even until the consummation of the
age." (AR 750)
But before
the Lord’s Second Coming, Christians were not able to be constituted into a new
heaven because unable to receive spiritual-rational truths about the Divine
Human. During the First Advent, the Lord was reticent to multiply miracles
because this strengthens corporeal spirituality and weakens rational
spirituality. Since the Second Advent no miracles are allowed (AC 7290). The
Lord on earth frequently taught abstract and rational ideas, encouraging,
challenging, sometimes teasing, the disciples to
prompt them to think more abstractedly and rationally about Him, heaven, and
regeneration. But these rational vessels were not yet dualist enough. The Lord
was unable to bring to them concepts of absolute dualism, for they were
uncomprehending and unwilling. In a matter of a few generations even these few
and obscure rational concepts were diverted and turned downward towards many
forms of heretical nondualities that prevent regeneration in confirmed
believers. When confirmed believers of Christian nonduality arrive in the
afterlife they are unwilling to be instructed in the dualities of the Heavenly
Doctrine (AC 2329, 5256, 10736-10738, 10821; TCR 821; SE 408; HH 321). Thus
they cannot be saved.
More
gentiles are saved than Christians. For people who have thought what is good in
regard to their neighbour and have willed for him that which is good accept the
truths of faith in the next life more readily than those who called themselves
Christians; and they acknowledge the Lord more than Christians do. (AC 2284)
The
interiors cannot be so closed up with the heathen as with Christians (n. 9256).
Neither can so thick a cloud exist with the heathen who live in mutual charity
in accordance with their religion as with Christians who live in no charity;
the reasons (n. 1059, 9256). (HH 321)
A principal
example given in the Writings, is the idea implanted
by allegiance to the Nicene Creed (325 AD onward) of a “Son from Eternity”
which created a nonduality between “Three Divine Persons” being of “one
substance” and formed into one “Godhead.” (TCR 174, CAN 43) This idea was
called a “mystery” and it replaced the Father/Son duality that the Lord taught
to the disciples, which was “the Son born in time” and “the Father from
Eternity” and not, “the Son from Eternity in the One Godhead” and “the Father
from Eternity in the One Godhead.” The generations following the apostles were
unable to understand the Incarnation of the Father Himself in the external form
of the Son born in time. The Divinity of “the Son born in time” within whom was
God the Father Himself, could not be understood and believed, until the
generations were prepared by rational science and philosophy to understand more
abstract dualist concepts in discrete degrees. The Lord could say to them “The
Father is in Me” but they could not but take this
description in the natural sense. At this level of thinking, it is not
possible to see an identity of Personhood between Father and Son. Therefore
the mind is thrown back to the idea of “Two Divine Persons in One Godhead.” The
only other option is that the Father is Divine while the Son is human—the
“Arian heresy” that the Nicene Creed was designed to defeat. In the Writings
these are also called “Socinian spirits” (DP 231; TCR 94, 380, AR 0, LJ 38).
1. The New Age Of The Second
Coming
At last, in
the Writings of the Second Coming, the Lord has brought humankind the gift of spiritual-rational
ideas that are fully suitable for being infilled by the celestial ideas of the
angels. The literal explanations of the Writings are first received in the
external rational of the natural mind. This in itself is not spiritual but is
well suited for the construction of rational “vessels” that can be infilled
by spiritual-rational truths from the Lord through heaven (AC 9280, 8783,
3508). This infilling is the opening of our spiritual mind. It is the one and
only way the
Cognitions are vessels for receiving good and truth entering
in from the rational. The way in which the vessels
receive and the amount they receive determine the nature of their enlightenment
and how far they are enlightened. Vessels which receive good and truth from the
rational are the truths themselves belonging to the natural, which are no more
than facts, cognitions, and matters of doctrine. From the order according to
which they flow in and from the order which exists among them there they become
goods. This is the origin of the good of the natural. (AC 3508)
The absolute duality of every concept in the
Writings rests on the revealed existence of discrete degrees of separation
between levels of creation, and therefore, between the levels in the mind.
These
levels in the mind can never touch each other or be in the same sphere—they can
only communicate by spiritual-rational correspondence. The natural level which
includes the sensual and corporeal, is the lowest
region or outmost level of the natural mind. It is closest to the body senses
and identifies itself with the physical environment. The physical environment
and the body are material, but the natural mind is natural-spiritual. The
highest portion of the natural mind is called the external rational, which is
therefore natural-spiritual, not yet spiritual-rational or celestial (AC 978,
4286; AE 355:14). The spiritual itself cannot exist in the external rational
because it is in a discrete degree above it. The spiritual mind has its
rational which is called the interior rational or the spiritual-rational, not
from the natural world, but only and exclusively from the spiritual world by
means of influx from the Lord through heaven (AC 9280, LJ 10).
The existence of these three degrees in people can be seen
from the elevation of a person's mind even to the degrees of love and wisdom
possessed by angels of the second and third heavens. For all
angels were born people, and a person is, in respect to the interior elements
which are those of his mind, a heaven in miniature form. Consequently
there are from creation as many degrees of height in a person as there are
heavens. The human being is furthermore an image and likeness of God, and these
three degrees are therefore engraved on a person because they exist in the
human God, which is to say, in the Lord. (DLW 231)
The
angels with each person inflow into the individual’s spiritual mind by means of
spiritual-rational truths. This inflow is proportional to the extent to which
the individual thinks and wills daily in conformity to the external rational
truths they understand. The more the angels inflow
with spiritual-rational truths, the more we are regenerated, the more we become
spiritual-rational and sane and wise. In this way, we are prepared for heaven,
which is living in the highest level of the mind called the celestial degree.
This level is constructed of interior rational truths that are an image of the
Lord’s Divine Rational order in the universe. Duality is the only reality
because all things in the Divine Rational are arranged into discrete order.
Chapter 1, Section 5
The difference between natural, spiritual and celestial
things is such that there is no proportional relation between them. Therefore
natural things cannot in any way by any approximation approach in likeness spiritual things, nor spiritual things celestial
things. That is why the heavens are distinct. I have been given to know this
from much experience. Again and again I have been conveyed into the company of
spiritual angels, and I then spoke with them in their spiritual way of
speaking, and what I said I then made a point of remembering. When I returned
into my natural state-the state every person in the world is in-I then tried to
recall what I had said from my earlier remembrance and write it down, but I
could not. It was impossible. No words were to be found and not even any mental
concepts by which to express it. The spiritual mental concepts and words were
so removed from natural mental concepts and words that there was not the least
approximation. Surprisingly, when I was in that heaven and spoke with angels, I
then knew no other than that I was speaking in the same way that I speak with
people here. But afterward I found out that the thoughts and speech were so
dissimilar that the one could not approximate the other, consequently that they
have proportional relation.
[3] There is a similar difference between spiritual and
celestial things.
(De Verbo 3)
It is
therefore very important to distinguish between the external rational of the natural
mind and the interior rational of the spiritual mind, as discussed
before. These two rational levels of the human mind are in discrete degrees (DP
154, TCR 564; AC 978, 4286; AE 355:14). Nothing of the spiritual can exist in
the natural, but only within the natural by correspondence of discrete degrees.
There is no continuity between the external rational and the interior rational
(or spiritual-rational), because one is in the natural mind and the other in
the spiritual mind. This means that it is not possible to keep increasing the
natural-rational (or natural-spiritual) and eventually arrive at the interior
rational (or spiritual-rational). In the New Church mind regeneration is going
on when the external rational is turned around by our rearranging all its
concepts and affections to be in conformity and obedience to the literal
sentences we take up from the Writings into our understanding where it is
called “the Doctrine of the Church” (NJHD 257). This is the process of being
reformed and regenerated. From birth and heredity, the external rational of the
natural mind is arranged according to the world and nature—thus in the
appearances of nonduality:
Human rational truth does not apprehend Divine things,
because these are above the sphere of its understanding, for this truth
communicates with the memory-knowledges which are in the natural man, and in so
far as it looks from these at the things which are above itself,
so far it does not acknowledge them. For this truth is in appearances, which it
is not able to put off; and appearances are born from sensuous things, which
induce a belief as if Divine things themselves also were of a like nature, when
yet these are exempt from all appearances, and when they are stated, this
rational truth cannot possibly believe them, because it cannot apprehend them.
[3] If for example it is stated that man has no life except
what is from the Lord, the rational supposes from appearances that in that case
man cannot live as of himself; whereas he for the first time truly lives when
he perceives that he does so from the Lord.
[4] The rational supposes from appearances that the good
which man does is from himself, and yet there is
nothing of good from self, but all is from the Lord.
[5] From appearances the rational supposes that man merits
salvation when he does what is good; whereas of himself man can merit nothing,
but all merit is the Lord's.
[6] From appearances man supposes that when he is withheld
from evil and is kept in good by the Lord, there is nothing with him but what
is good and just, nay, holy; whereas there is nothing in man but what is evil,
unjust, and profane.
[7] From appearances man supposes that when he does what is
good from charity, he does it from his will; whereas it is not from his will
part, but from his intellectual part, in which charity has been implanted.
[8] From appearances man supposes that there can be no glory
without the glory of the world; whereas in the glory of heaven there is not a
particle of the world's glory.
[9] From appearances man supposes that no one can love his
neighbor more than himself, but that all love begins from self; when yet in
heavenly love there is nothing of the love of self.
[10] From appearances man supposes that there can be no
light but that which is from the light of the world; whereas in the heavens
there is not one whit of the light of the world, and yet the light is so great
that it surpasses the world's
[11] From appearances man supposes that the Lord cannot
shine before the universal heaven as a sun; when yet all the light of heaven is
from Him.
[12] From appearances man cannot apprehend that in the other
life there are motions forward; whereas those who are there appear to
themselves to move forward just as do men on earth-in their dwellings, courts,
and paradises; and still less can he apprehend if it is said that these moving
forward are changes of state, which so appear.
[13] Nor can man from appearances apprehend that spirits and
angels, who are invisible before our eyes, can be seen; nor that they can speak
with man; when yet they appear to the internal sight, or that of the spirit,
more manifestly than man does to man on earth; and their voices are heard as
distinctly; besides thousands of thousands of such things, which man's
rational, from its own light, born from things of sense, and thereby darkened,
cannot possibly believe. Nay, the rational is blinded in natural things
themselves, not being able to apprehend, for instance, how those who dwell on
the opposite side of the globe can stand on their feet and walk; and it is the
same with very many other things. How blind then must the rational not be in spiritual and heavenly things, which are far above
natural things? (AC 2196)
You can
see from this list that nonduality is according to appearances and the rational
thinking of the external mind is not capable of believing contrary to the
sensuous appearances of its life and reasoning. This is why revelation is
necessary! Because from revelation the rational mind that has been formed
to look only outward to the world of the sensuous body, can turn itself around
and face upward to the spiritual world which enters through the
interior-rational mind, and not through the external rational (AC 978, 4286; AE
355:14). Therefore the source of all rational-spiritual concepts we can know is
from revelation in the Writings. Those who deny and reject revelation are
therefore trapped at the level of thinking of their external rational (AC 978,
4286; AE 355:14).
1. Nonduality Is In The Unregenerate Natural Mind
The devil's hatred is against spiritual truths and goods,
because merely natural truths and goods are the direct opposites of these, for
merely natural truths and goods are in their essence falsities and evils,
although to those who are merely natural and sensual they appear to be truths
and goods (AE 754).
All
ideas and affections in the external rational mind which have not been reformed, are opposed to all ideas we have from the Doctrine
of the Church in our mind. When we read the Writings as Divine Truth, we
acquire in our conscious mind heavenly concepts that function as external
vessels suitable for being infilled with spiritual-rational truths inflowing
from the spiritual world through heaven as we read the Writings (AC 9280,
3508). This infilling is proportional to the extent that our daily willing and
thinking is made to conform to the Doctrine of the Church which is in our
understanding.
Regarding thoughts: All the thoughts of people, including
each single idea in them, involve conceptions drawn from space, time, person,
or material-things that appear in natural light or the light of the world. For
no one can think anything apart from light, just as nothing can be seen without
light. And natural light or the light of the world is lifeless, being from the
sun of the world, which is nothing but fire. Nevertheless, the light of heaven
flows into that light everywhere and continually, giving it life and making
possible the perception and understanding of things. The light of the world by
itself cannot impart any perceptive or intellectual ability or confer any
natural or rational sight, but it does so from the light of heaven, because the
light of heaven comes from the sun of heaven, which is the Lord and so is life
itself.
The influx of the light of heaven into the light of the
world is like the influx of a cause into its effect-the nature of which will be
explained elsewhere. It is apparent from this what natural thought is like, or
ideas of thought in people, namely, that they are inseparably bound up with
notions of space, time, personality and material. Because of this, those
thoughts or ideas of thought are very limited and restricted, and so are crude,
and must be called material. (De Verbo 3:6)
There are also in our natural self reasonings that are
grounded in falsities impressed from infancy. Moreover, we apprehend by
manifest sense what is in our natural self, but not so what is in our rational,
until we have put off the body. This also causes us to believe the body to be
every thing; and all that does not fall into the natural sense, we scarcely
believe to be anything.
From such causes and many others, it results that we receive
truths in the natural self much later, and with greater difficulty, than our
reception of truth in our rational self. Hence arises combat, which continues
for a considerable time, not ceasing until the vessels recipient of good in our
natural part have been softened by temptations, as before shown …; for truths
are nothing but vessels recipient of good …, which vessels are harder in
proportion as we are more fixedly confirmed in the things which have been
mentioned; and if we are to be regenerated, the more fixedly we have been
confirmed, the more grievous is the combat. (AC 3321:3)
Concepts
of nonduality can only enter the natural mind since they are devoid of
spiritual-rational content. (How this is will be shown in the Sections below.)
There they act by persuasive pressures that strive to oppose the rearrangement
of the external rational ideas into absolute dualities from the Writings. These
absolute dualities are at first only in our external rational mind as we read
the literal of the Writings. There is nothing spiritual in itself about our
memory-knowledges from the Writings (AC 9280, 8783). Yet these
memory-knowledges are necessary as vessels (or cognitive constructs) which can
be infilled through correspondence by the spiritual ideas from the angels that
are with us. They cannot inflow except into rational concepts in our mind
from the literal text of the Writings.
It will also be briefly stated how the Lord casts out lusts
of evil, which beset the internal man from birth, and how He bestows in their
place affections of good when a man as of himself removes evils as sins. It was
shown before that man has a natural mind, a spiritual mind and a celestial
mind; and that he is in the natural mind alone, as long as he is in the lusts
of evil and their delight; and that during this time the spiritual mind is closed.
But as soon as he, after self-examination, acknowledges evils to be sins
against God because they are contrary to Divine laws, and therefore desires to
desist from them, the Lord opens the spiritual mind, and enters into the
natural mind through affections for truth and good; and He also enters into the
rational, and from it disposes in order the things that are contrary to order
below it in the natural. (DP 147)
The
angels understand the Heavenly Doctrines spiritually (in their interior
rational mind), while we understand the Writings naturally (in our external
rational mind). Only if we have formed these external rational vessels can the
interior rational ideas inflow by correspondence. Hence it is that we cannot be
regenerated unless we fill our external rational mind with concepts and
reasonings from the Writings. For the
We don’t
want oppositional concepts or loyalties in our natural mind. Least of all do we
want them in our external rational which is the highest level of our natural
mind (AC 978, 4286; AE 355:14). That level must be filtered
and purified to make sure that only concepts of duality from the Writings are
there as vessels waiting to be infilled by spiritual ideas. This
filtering and purification process is not possible through censorship,
sectarianism, or dogmatism. It is only possible through rational analysis
and freedom of thought. Hence the importance of studying
the Writings so that we have available in our mind, its concepts or ideas, its reasoning
process, and all its related affections.
2. The Spiritual Begins With The Rational
Corporeal
spirituality, which may also be called spirituality of the intestines (AC 10030),
is the natural-spiritual level of the mind that identifies with the material
body since it is built up by the sensations from the body’s interaction with
the physical world. This is why their location is in the natural mind (DLW 257,
AE 577). The natural mind is below the spiritual-rational level where genuine
spirituality can exist, which is called spirituality of the chest (AC 10030).
The natural-spiritual mind and the rational-spiritual mind are created into
discrete degrees and cannot interact except by correspondences. (D. Wis. 2) Rational spirituality is formed only by the inner
sensory organs of the will and understanding, and these spiritual organs are
fed by the spiritual Sun and its world of events and modifications (DP.166).
Corporeal spirituality is formed only by the outer physical senses which are
fed by the material world through the body. The mind in the spiritual world
interacts with the body in the natural world only by correspondences because
the two are created into discrete degrees (DP 166; D. Wis. 2).
The
Writings define the spiritual as only that which is rational, while everything that is below
this level is not spiritual but natural, corporeal, and sensuous from the
natural world (AC 4667). The human begins with the spiritual- rational, a
discrete degree above the natural mind, which in itself is animal or sub-human
(AC 2196, 3570). Meditation, chanting, and initiations are not considered
spiritual activities for the
In the
The pleasures
that are in the bodily or outermost things of man have their origin in delights
that are successively more and more interior. The delights that are perceived
in those outermost or bodily things are relatively vile, for it is the nature
of all delight to become more vile in proportion as it progresses toward the
externals, and more happy in proportion as it advances toward the internals.
For this reason, as before said, in proportion as the externals are stripped
off, or rolled away, the delights become more pleasant and happy, as may be
evident enough from man's delight in pleasures being vile while he lives in the
body, in comparison with his delight after the life of the body, when he comes
into the world of spirits; so vile indeed that good spirits utterly spurn the
delights of the body, nor would they return to them if all in the whole world
should be given them. (AC 996)
Correspondential
communication between the interior and the exterior occurs with the highest
level of the natural mind called the external rational mind (AC 978,
4286; AE 355:14). The ideas we have at this level are suitable “vessels” into
which the spiritual ideas can descend, but not descend directly but only in
correspondential interaction. The natural conscious understanding of what is
spiritual and celestial is achieved when we acquire external rational concepts
that are suitable for reacting correspondentially to spiritual-rational ideas
that we receive into our spiritual mind while reading the Writings and applying
its truths to life. This is how the spirituality of the
When man
becomes internal and is instructed about internal things, external ones are of
no account to him. He then knows what the holy is, namely, charity and the
faith therefrom. According to these are his external things then regarded, that
is to say, according to the amount of charity and faith in the Lord there is in
them. Since the coming of the Lord, therefore, man is not regarded in heaven
from external things, but from internal ones. And if anyone is regarded from
external things it is because he is in simplicity, and in his simplicity there
are innocence and charity, which are in his external things, that is, in his
external worship, from the Lord, without the man's knowledge. (AC 1003)
3. The Spiritual In The New Testament
The power
to be regenerated starts with consciously thinking about rational issues
and living according to them. At first, this rational is not yet a spiritual-rational
but something representing it in the natural mind. This natural-rational can be
infilled with a spiritual-natural such as the ideas found in the New Testament.
The Lord frequently brought up puzzling issues that encouraged the disciples to
be analytic and rational:
The
Before you can be saved you must born again (John 3:4)
The Father and I are one (John
The
Son of Man sows the good seed (Matthew
Who do people say the Son of Man is? (Matthew 16:13)
before
Abraham was born, I am! (John 8:58)
All that is in the Old Testament is about the Christ (Luke
24:27)
In the beginning was the Word (John 1:1)
John the Baptist is the Elijah who was to come. (Matthew
11:14)
Let the man who is without sin cast the first stone (John
8:7)
The kingdom of heaven is made of such as the children
(Matthew 18:3)
I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. (John
14:20)
What shall we say the
And many more…
The
rational is crucial to the
The Lord loves man, and from love wills that he may be happy
forever, and man cannot become happy except by a life according to His
commandments, because by means of these a man is regenerated and becomes
spiritual, and in this way can be raised into heaven. (AC 10578)
This is the
burning passionate spirituality of the human rational by which the individual
becomes fit for receiving Divine Rational things, which alone are
spiritual-rational. These are the holy things by which we are saved and by
which we have eternal life. But to nonduality these rational things of
salvation are taken as merely illusory attachments to nonexistent things such
as good and evil, God and self, prudent and foolish. Is it possible to transfer
any idea at all across two systems that are so opposed to each other? Perhaps only by remaining superficial or most general.
Chapter 1, Section 6
There is a
state of the
Nevertheless
these comparative interests and ideas can be harmful to the
Some months
ago I received an email from someone who came across my article on dualism
posted on the Web (see Note 1 at end). He wrote:
I got here by
accident. I am interested in Swedenborg. Van Dusen has taught me a lot. I think
I started with William James! At present, I am trying to understand more about
monism - reading "Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path" - and I
think you wrote that you think Swedenborg is a dualist. I want to believe that
Swedenborg would be a monist.
Why, I
wondered? Such is the subconscious attractiveness many Americans have for
nonduality and monism. This love for nonduality is the unconscious desire to
annihilate absolute duality in one’s mind and to become more mixed because this
appears more balanced and fair to the natural mind—which is the external
rational doing the thinking and which leads to corporeal spirituality when
applied to spiritual things:
With
those who conjoin the truths of the Word to the affection of the love of self,
the natural mind also is closed, and only the ultimate of this mind is opened,
which is called the sensual, which clings most closely to the body, and stands
forth nearest to the world. Thus does man's spirit become corporeal, and then
it can have no lot with the angels, who are spiritual. (AE 579)
Duality
demands humility—“I am not God and I never can be. I am God’s creation and I’m
next to nothing in comparison to God.” Or: “I am evil by nature but God is
good. I can be saved by God from my evil nature and I can be good from Him.” The
attractiveness of nonduality is the promise it gives of avoiding the suffering
of regeneration. With nonduality, people don’t have to face the idea that
heaven is only for the good, while hell is for the bad. They don’t have to be
responsible for sustaining the idea that salvation is tied to the Word of the
Lord and cannot be obtained from “strange fires.” (Lev. 10:1, AC 10244, 934)
Nonduality offers the more convenient idea of “Universe as Spirit” or “God as
Emptiness.” It is not as personal as the God of Abraham or the Son of God, thus
easier to relate to without having to change, and it
offers less demands on the self. The Writings reveal that in the afterlife,
there is no belief in God in those who in this life annihilated in themselves
the idea of God as Person. Without a belief in God as Person they cannot be
reformed, regenerated, or saved from hell.
How
important it is to have a right idea of God can be seen from the fact that the
idea of God forms the inmost element of thought in all who have any religion,
for all constituents of religion and all constituents of worship relate to God.
And because God is universally and specifically involved in all constituents of
religion and worship, therefore without a right idea of God no communication with
the heavens is possible. So it is that every nation in the
spiritual world is allotted its location in accordance with its idea of God as
a person; for in this idea and in no other lies an idea of the Lord.
(DLW 13)
Nonduality
introduces in the Western mind a certain peace or quietude that comes from the
idea that we need to be more detached. We don’t have to struggle so hard. We
don’t need to be so desperately always trying to be better or good. There is
the promise of a healthier consciousness, less competitive, less anxious, more self-confident, even to the point of unshakableness.
This introduces a lulling sense of relaxing the pace of our struggles and of
weakening the utmost determination to reform. Thus it runs contrary to the most
important task we have in this world--to cooperate with the Lord in our
regeneration, which must be effected through the long-term accumulation of all
those little struggles daily (BE 69, TCR 615, 577). The good news is that as we
advance in our regeneration, the Lord gives us more and more rest and peace.
This is felt from within and looks down upon the continuing struggles and
stress as something far and distant and ultimately so small. We do not wish for
detachment but pray for the Lord’s will to be done. This peace we have from the
Lord is peace indeed, whereas the lulling nonduality of some good mixed with
some evil, is not peace in our
Chapter 1, Section 7
The universal principle of faith must be in each thing and
in all things of it. … The universal principle of faith on man's part is that
he should believe in the Lord (TCR 2)
Every idea
or concept in the Writings contains the fundamental duality, which is here
called “the universal of faith.” In the same way every idea that derives from
nonduality has nonduality as its central core presupposition. Every single idea
of nonduality is therefore antagonistic to any idea from the Writings, which contains only spiritual-rational ideas. This is because the
ideas that derive from the Writings have dualism as their central core
presupposition. Dualist ideas are rational, spiritual, and celestial (AE 708).
Nondualist ideas are corporeal, sensuous, and natural. By mixing these two in
the
Duality and
nonduality can be compared to two different cognitive trees. The trunk is the
central idea or supposition and all the branch ideas take their root from the
trunk. Every concept therefore will have at its inmost, the core supposition it
springs from. In the system of thought called nonduality, the central core is
the eradication or dissolution of all duality. Any concept in nonduality that
is admitted into the
dvaita-advaita: (Sanskrit) "Dual-nondual; twoness-not twoness." Among the most important terms in the classification of Hindu
philosophies. Dvaita and advaita define two ends of a vast spectrum.
--dvaita: The doctrine of duality, according to which reality
is ultimately composed of two irreducible principles, entities, truths, etc.
God and soul, for example, are seen as eternally separate.
--dualistic: Of or relating to duality, concepts, writings, theories which
treat dualities (good-and-evil, high-and-low, them-and-us) as fixed, rather
than transcendable.
--advaita: The doctrine of nonduality or monism, that
reality is ultimately composed of one whole principle, substance or God, with
no independent parts. In essence, all is God.
Hinduism's Online Lexicon.
(
/www.himalayanacademy.com/books/dws/lexicon/d.html
(Accessed April 2002)
"Advaita" means "not two," nondual. This
is the nature of Reality: it is indivisible. The Self is One.
God is One. The Self and God are one and the same.
This is Nonduality; this is Advaita.
(Society of Abidance in Truth (SAT) (Maharishi
). Found on the Web at www.satramana.org/sswhoare.htm
Accessed April 2002)
I will
present examples from
Second:
Good and the truth of good can be introduced by the Lord into man's interiors
only so far as the evil and the falsity of evil there have been removed. This
is a necessary consequence of what has gone before; for as evil and good cannot
exist together good cannot be introduced before evil has been removed. The term
man's interiors is used, and by these is meant the
internal of thought; and in these, which are now being considered, either the
Lord or the devil must be present.
The
Lord is there after reformation, but the devil is there before it; therefore,
so far as man suffers himself to be reformed the devil is cast out; but so far
as he does not suffer himself to be reformed the devil remains. Everyone may
see that the Lord cannot enter so long as the devil is there; and he is there
so long as man keeps the door closed, where man acts together with the Lord.
(DP 232:3)
The
Writings teach that in the age of the Second Coming, the only way to salvation
is by instruction from the Writings, either in this world or in the afterlife
(TCR 108, DLW 429; AC 1775). Entrance to the New Heavens cannot occur without
acknowledgement and love of the Divine Human (Coronis 1; TCR 2; 121). This is
the beginning and end for the
All good
and truth is from the Lord and remains the Lord’s even when it is in us (DLW
113). This good and truth is Divine and remains absolutely distinct and
separate from anything in us. Because the
Divine is in us we must not conclude that therefore we are Divine! The good
and truth in us from the Divine is accommodated to each individual, and our
use of it for choices is appropriated to us by the Lord. The good and truth
is never ours and we can never become part of it (AC 9338). A permissive and
uncritical attitude for nonduality can insinuate the thought that we are this
good and truth that is in us. And this false notion further insinuates the idea
that we are god. The entire intellectual thrust of nonduality is to have people
accept this identity between self and God. Once this idea gains a foothold in
our
The
following chapters will show how nonduality creates opposition or impediments
to our regeneration, hence salvation.
Note 1
A directory
of all my publications, with full text access to most of them, is available on
the Web at
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/leonpublish.html
Leon James.
“Substantive Dualism: Swedenborg's Integration of Biological Theology and
Rational Psychology”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/dualism.html
Leon James.
“Scientific Dualism.”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/dualism.html
Leon
James. “Religious Psychology or Theistic Science: A Guide to Spiritual
Self-examination”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/man/religious.html
Leon
James. “Swedenborg Glossary of Theistic Science”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss.html
Leon James.
“Do the Writings Contain Scientific Revelations?” New Church Life , July 1995,
115(7), 325-330.
Also
available on the Web at
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/nfile2.htm
Leon James.
“Dualist Science and the Writings of Swedenborg” New Church Life , June 1995,
115(6), 264-270.
Leon James.
“Overcoming Objections to Swedenborg's Writings Through
the Development of Scientific Dualism” New Philosophy 2001 v.CIV n.3
& 4 pp. 153-217. Available online at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/np98.html
Leon James.
“The Fourteen Scientific Fallacies in AC5084: Implications for Science
Education.” New Philosophy, July-December, 1996, XCIX(3
& 4), 439-450
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/fallacies.html
Examples
of promoting dualism in science in
Gregory L.
Baker, Religion and Science: From Swedenborg to Chaotic Dynamics (New
York: The Solomon Press, 1992)
Linda
Simonetti Odhner, The Bread of Life With Honey From
the Rock: A Chaste Union of religion and science New Church Life March
1989, pp. 117-122
Leon James,
Swedenborg's Religious Psychology: The Marriage of Good and Truth as Mental
Health Studia Swedenborgiana December 1993, Vol.8, No-3, pp. 13-42
Ian
Thompson, Foundations of the Theory of Spirit, Mind and Nature from Theism www.TheisticScience.org
Note 2
W. F.
Pendleton Topics From the Writings (Academy,
1928)
Note 3
Leon James.
“My Pre-Swedenborgian Discoveries and Inventions (1960-1980)”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/dhl3.html
Note 4
Mark
Carlson. “Evolution, the Limbus, and Hereditary Evil (Part 2)”
New Church Life June 1990, pp.259-275.
Note 5
Barry C.
Halterman. “Swedenborg's Influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1883)”
www.swedenborg.ca/swedenborg/r_w_emerson.html
Jane K. Williams-Hogan.
Swedenborg: A Biography Available
online here:
www.glencairnmuseum.org/jkwh.html
Leon James
“Swedenborg Revolution in the Social Sciences”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499s98/shintani/logos.html
Leon James
“Spiritual Psychology”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/spirpsy.html
Note 6
Wilson
Van Dusen, The Distinctiveness of the Church of the
New Jerusalem New Church Life March 1994, 112-114.
Peter Rhodes, Gurdijeff’s and Swedenborg General Church
Sound Recording Library, Bryn Athyn, 1976.
Leonard Fox,
Gurdijeff’s: Guide to Heaven or Hell? New Church Life June 1993; (see
also his reply in the October 1993 issue.)
Note 7
Leon James
“Moses, Paul, and Swedenborg, or Ritual, Faith, and Theistic Science: The Three
Phases of Religious Behavior”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/moses.html
Leon James
“Religious Behaviorism”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/relbehaviorism.html
Note 8
Leon James
“De Hemelsche Leer--Part 1--Degrees of Consciousness”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/dhl.html
Leon James
“Spiritual Geography--Graphic Maps of Consciousness for Regeneration”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/geography.html
Note 9
Leon James
“Overcoming Objections to Swedenborg's Writings Through
the Development of Scientific Dualism” New Philosophy 2001 v.CIV n.3
& 4 pp. 153-217. Available online
here:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/np98.html
Note 10
Dr. James’
Student Reports on Swedenborg are listed in this directory:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/swedenborg.html
Note 11
Leon
James, “Genes of Consciousness: Spiritual Genetics for Regeneration”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/harmonizing4.htm
Note 12
Ian
Thompson, Foundations of Theistic Science The Theory
of Spirit, Mind and Nature from Theism (containing several articles)
Note 13
Leon
James, “Vertical Community”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/vertical.html
Note 14
Leon
James, “The Will and the Understanding or The
Affective and the Cognitive or Good and Faith or Heart and Lungs or Internal
and External Mind”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/wu.html
Note 15
Leon
James, “Affective and Cognitive Resistance to a More Healthy
Lifestyle
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/health1.html
Note 16
Leon
James, “Notes on the Doctrine of the Wife:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/dow1.html
Note 17
See our
Web site at www.DrDriving.org
List of Media
Interviews with Leon James and Diane Nahl
Articles
on Driving Psychology by Leon James and Diane Nahl
Leon James and Diane Nahl. Road Rage and Aggressive
Driving: Steering Clear of Highway Warfare (Prometheus Books:
Leon James and Diane Nahl. Heaven
on Wheels: Principles of Christian Driving Psychology www.aloha.net/~dyc/articles/christ.htm
Leon
James. “Drivers Behaving Badly: DBB Ratings”
www.aloha.net/~dyc/articles/dbb.htm
Note 18
Hatfield, E., & Rapson, R. (1996). Love and sex: Cross-cultural
perspectives.
Hatfield, E., Cacioppo, J., & Rapson, R. L. (1994). Emotional
contagion.
Note 19
Leon James
“The Universal Modes of Enactment in Human Experience: A Self-Witnessing
Account of the Discovery of Sudden Memory and My Interpretation of Its Significance
for the Human Race”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/man/enactment.html
Leon James
“Autobiography: Sudden Memory as the Integrating Mechanism on the Daily Round”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/ethnos/es0.html
Leon
James “Objective Autobiography: Sudden Memory”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/pederson/TOC.html
Leon James
“Radicalist Empiricism. The Universal Modes of Enactment in
Human Experience. A Self-Witnessing Account of the Discovery of Sudden
Memory and My Interpretation of Its Significance for the Human Race”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/man/enactment.html
Leon James
“The Hexagram of Sudden Memory “
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/updates/lee/section8.1.2.html
Leon James
“Discoveries and Inventions--Sudden Memory”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/discoveries.html
Leon James
“The Hexagram of Sudden Memory” (excerpts)
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/qqlj2.html
Leon James
“Pre-Swedenborgian Discoveries and Inventions (1960-1980)”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/dhl3.html
Leon James
and Diane Nahl “Workbook for the Study of Social Psychology”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/updates/lee/Section8.1.5.html
Leon James
“The Analysis of Transactional Engineering Competence” www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/tec.html
Leon James
“Community Archives in Social Psychology”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/updates/lee/Section5.2.3.html
Leon James
“Understanding Discourse: From Ethnosemantics to Transactional Engineering”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/pederson/discourse.html
Leon James
“Genetic Culture: Primacy of the Affective over the Cognitive”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/already.html
Leon James
“Lectures in Social Psychology (directory of chapters)”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/updates/lee/
Leon James
“Lecture Notes on The Psychology of Knowledge: The
Discovery of Sudden Memory“
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/pun/knowledge2.html
Note 20
Leon
James “The Method of Self-Witnessing”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/self-witnessing.html
Leon
James “Religious Psychology or Theistic Science: A Guide to Spiritual
Self-examination”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/man/religious.html
Leon
James “Self-witnessing our emotions in daily life”
www.aloha.net/~dyc/articles/red-blue.htm
Leon
James “General Instructions for Your Research Project: The Four
Options--Customizing My Daily Emotional Spin Cycle”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy16/g16reports-instructions.html
Leon
James “Temptations entry in the Swedenborg Glossary” www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/temptations.html
Leon
James “Self-Witnessing the Threefold Self”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/409as97/atakahas/499/atakahashome.html
Note 21
Rev. Ray
Silverman teaches at the
Note 22
Harrie
G.D. Groeneveld “The Second Coming of the Lord in the Doctrine of the Church” De Hemelsche Leer, First Fascicle,
38-43, 1930 (quoted above in Chapter 7 Section 8) Available online at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/thompson/mscan1.html
See also its reprint version in the restart issues of De Hemelse Leer, April 2002 issue, Dr. Rutger Perizonius, Editor
(Van der Heimstraat 5, 2582 RX, The Hague)
Rev.
Ernst Pfeiffer “Elucidation of Mr. Groeneveld's Address” De Hemelsche Leer, First Fascicle, p.82-95; 127-131, 1930 (quoted
above in Chapter 7 Section 8) Available online at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/thompson/mscan2.html
See also its reprint version in the restart issues of De Hemelse Leer, April 2002 issue, Dr. Rutger Perizonius, Editor
(Van der Heimstraat 5, 2582 RX, The Hague)
Rev. Theodore Pitcairn, “The second Education” De Hemelsche Leer, Third Fascicle, p.22. 1935 (quoted above in Chapter 7
Section 8; Chapter 8 Section 3) (Available online at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/thompson/mscan8.html
)
Note 23
The
following
Rev.
Donald L. Rose, Sermon titled “The Colt Loosed For the
Lord’s Service”
Rev.
Erik E. Sandstrom, The New Age and the New Church (Part Two). New Church
Life, June 2002, 251-260 (quoted above in the Introduction to Volume 1;
Introduction to Chapter 2; Chapter 4 Section 6; Chapter 6 Section 3; Chapter 7
Section 2)
Rev.
Mark Carlson. “Evolution, the Limbus, and Hereditary Evil
(Part 2)” New Church Life June 1990, pp.259-275. (quoted above in Chapter 3 Section 7).
Rev. Dr.
Ray Silverman’s review of Henry James, Sr. in Arcana 1996 v.2 n.4 p.56 (quoted
above in Chapter 4 Section 2 and Section 3)
Rev.
Grant R. Schnarr “Swedenborg And The Near Death
Experience” on the Web at
www.newchurch.org/faq/indepthfaq/swedenbNearDeathExperience.html Accessed June
2002 (quoted above in Chapter 4 Section 5)
Rev.
Douglas M. Taylor “Self-Esteem” New Church Life March 2002 v.CXXII No.3
pp. 99-105 (quoted above in Chapter 6 Section 7)
Rev.
Edward S. Hyatt, Sermons on the Word. Swedenborg Genootschap, 1935 (quoted
above in Chapter 7 Section 8)
Rev.
Hugo Lj. Odhner, “The Transition from Human to Divine Philosophy” Written in
1921. Published in The
New Philosophy 1974; 77:43-71. Available online at: http://www.newchurchissues.org/SR/hlo74.htm
)
(quoted in Chapter 7 Section 8)
Rev. Theodore Pitcairn, “The second Education” De Hemelsche Leer, Third Fascicle, p.22. 1935 (quoted above in Chapter 7
Section 8; Chapter 8 Section 3) (Available online at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/thompson/mscan8.html
)
The Letters and Memorials of Emanuel Swedenborg. Translated and Edited by Rev.
Alfred Acton (
Rev.
Geoffrey H. Howard titled "The Transformation of a Man into a Husband and
a Woman into a Wife through Marriage" appeared in New Church Life,
June 2001 issue, pages 243-248. (quoted above in Chapter
9 Section 1)
Rev.
Ernst Pfeiffer “Elucidation of Mr. Groeneveld's Address” De Hemelsche Leer, First Fascicle, p.82-95; 127-131, 1930 (quoted
above in Chapter 7 Section 8)
I wish
to thank Dr. Ian Thompson for his invaluable editorial assistance with several
drafts and for supplying many of the citations to the Writings (see Note 12 above ). I also wish to thank Rev./Dr.
Ray Silverman who spent much appreciated effort reading and critiquing an
earlier draft (see Note 21 above). Rev. Robert Junge made critical comments on
several key issues that greatly improved my discussion of them. I am very
grateful for their contribution. Their astute observations helped me to avoid
critical errors and to strengthen the presentation in numerous places.
The author, Dr. Leon James,
is Professor of Psychology at the
A directory of articles and books by Leon James,
with full text access is available here: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/leonarticles.html
For comments and questions, I welcome your
email: leon@hawaii.edu
The Web address of the latest version of this
document is:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nonduality.html
|
AC |
Arcana Coelestia |
|
AE |
Apocalypse Explained |
|
AR |
Apocalypse Revealed |
|
BE |
Brief Exposition |
|
CL |
Conjugial Love |
|
|
Coronis |
|
DE VERBO |
De Verbo |
|
DLW |
Divine Love and Wisdom |
|
DP |
Divine |
|
D. WIS. |
Divine Wisdom |
|
EU |
Earths in the Universe |
|
FAITH |
Doctrine of Faith |
|
HH |
Heaven and Hell |
|
INV |
Invitation to the New
Church |
|
LETT |
Letters |
|
LIFE |
Doctrine of Life |
|
LJ |
Last Judgment |
|
LJP |
Last Judgment (Posthumous) |
|
LORD |
Doctrine of the Lord |
|
NJHD |
New Jerusalem and Its
Heavenly Doctrine |
|
SE |
Spiritual Experiences |
|
SPECIMEN |
Specimen and Sketch |
|
TCR |
True Christian Religion |
|
TCR
Additions |
True Christian Religion
(Additions) |
|
WH |
White Horse |
|
9Q |
Nine Questions |
The Web
site includes a search engine and a key to the Bible. It also carries many
articles on Swedenborg and the
http://www.theheavenlydoctrines.org