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 3
Regeneration
Spiritual
Disciplines For Daily Life
Chapter 3
Additional
Regeneration Disciplines
Table of Contents
Access other Chapters and Volumes here:
Additional Regeneration Disciplines
2. Laundry
And Housecleaning Disciplines
3. Daily
Disciplines Of Studying The Writings
4.
Monitoring Whats In My Mind
5.
Monitoring Whats On My Face
6.
Monitoring What Are My Eyes Doing
8.
Conjugial Grooming Rituals.
9. The
Discipline Of Junk E-Mail
10. How To
Handle Junk Phone Calls
11. The
Spiritual Discipline Of Eating Half-Portions
12. Arrival
And Departure Rituals With The Wife
13. The
Spiritual Discipline Of Colon Cleansing
14.
Acknowledging The Lords Co-Presence
15. Talking
To The Lord Is To Apply The Letter To The Letter
16.
Rational Consciousness Of The Lord Now Conjoins
17.
Rational Consciousness From Applying The Letter To The Letter
18. So Far
As The Lord Is Present, So Far He Speaks With The Man
19.
Cleanliness And Health Disciplines
20. Not
Detachment, But Right Attachments
21.
Self-worth, Self-esteem, Self-efficacy
22. Remains
Are The Cornerstone of Self-worth
23.
Shunning The Rage-Depression Spin Cycle
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nonduality.html
Every
spiritual truth in the Writings
is a Divine Commandment
It is said in the Word, that everyone shall be judged
according to his works; for the end, or the love of his will, and the cause, or
the reason of his understanding, are together in the effects, which are the
works of his body; thus the quality of the whole man is in them. (ISB 7)
These are
briefer treatments of additional spiritual disciplines for helping to form the
Always do
your work as if TV cameras are all around, recording everything for all to see.
Its an issue of truth in advertising regarding the reputation you enjoy as
someone who has respect for others. Do not touch their food with your hand,
pretending you used a serving spoon. Do not give them a drink from a bottle you
drink from. Etc. Volunteer to take over certain things on a
permanent basis so that people depend on you for it. Examples:
q
Washing all dishes after meals.
q
Washing pots, utensils, counters,
etc. while someone is cooking or afterwards.
q
Preparing lunch bags for others.
This includes shopping for the ingredients.
q
Be responsible for maintaining and
adding items to the weekly grocery shopping list.
q
Go shopping with whoever does it for
the family and help find and carry things.
q
Volunteer to prepare meals and
insist on cleaning up after yourself.
q
Offer to mop the floor when needed
(extend the offer to vacuum the carpets).
q
Etc.
After several years of the discipline of washing the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen, I find amazing mistakes and ignorance about basic things in my willing and thinking. Recently Diane pointed out that I'm doing the last wipe of the pan with the sponge before putting it away. What about contamination by the sponge I denied that the sponge is contaminated by bacteria since I squeeze it dry under running water with each dish. After seeing that I'm continuing to disagree, she fetched the hydrogen peroxide bottle and I poured some on the sponge, just like we had seen it done on TV. It bubbled and frothed! The truth of the evidence convicted me! I apologized to her with a kiss and she walked off no doubt in conjugial victory. Since that hour I use a paper towel for the final wipe off and wash the sponge itself at the end of each use. How could I be so blind as to assume that the sponge itself needs no cleaning
2. Laundry And Housecleaning Disciplines
Doing it
Folding the
clothes the way she wants it and while they are still warm
Knowing
where they go in the drawers
3. Daily Disciplines
Of Studying
The Writings
Our ability
to cooperate in our regeneration requires that we study the Writings as often
as possible. I believe that daily study is necessary. Find different way of
doing this. For instance:
q
Read the volumes systematically so
that you get through each Work, one by one, from the first page to the last.
Keep a marker so you can start each time from where you left off. The point is
not how fast you can get through but whether you do it daily.
q
Keep a note book or cumulative
folder with your thoughts as you read, or when you're done, or at any time
you're inspired by an idea. Mark it with a reference to the Number in the Work
so you can go back to it when you want to.
q
Consult your notes and make summary
statements. Try representing the content in the form of lists, tables, and
diagrams. Use your school literacy to do an effective job.
q
Learn to use New Search, either on
your computer, or on the Web. Spend time searching the Writings by subject or
topic. Do it until you're skilled. Try to enjoy it or else, act like you do.
Use your skills to study and develop topics of interest.
q If you read articles and collateral works about the Writings, check the references to the passages are thy really relevant and do they actually support the claims being made
q
Acquire audio books of the Writings
(General Church Recording Library) and practice listening under appropriate
conditions. I found that its excellent for listening during my physical
workout, in waiting rooms, on airplanes, while driving, and especially when
going to sleep.
q
Enroll in group study and lessons
about the Writings.
4. Monitoring
Whats In My Mind
We do not
know accurately whets in our mind until we monitor ourselves by taking
systematic samples through self-witnessing. Some cumulative record of these
samples needs to be kept in some form--notepad, audio recorder, form sheets that
list items you can circle, etc. These records should specify how many minutes
you spend thinking and daydreaming about various subjects, and in what
way, e.g., with anger, with denigration, with compassion, with humor, etc.. Also, what are the topics you discuss with others. Also, how many minutes you spend
watching TV and movies, and what type of content it has. Also, how much
time you spend with your wife doing what specific activities and talking about
what specific topics. Also, how many times certain events occur: a fight with
her, a disagreement, having a good time together, how many you made her laugh,
how many times you kissed her, or praised her, and the like.
Obviously
this is not an easy or insignificant task in terms of involvement and effort.
One way to make it more manageable is to specialize in certain topics or
activities depending on what seems to impede your progress in conjugial union.
It may be helpful to share the data with your wife so that she can give you her
advice.
5. Monitoring
Whats On My Face
The
Writings reveal that the face is a mirror of our thoughts, feelings, and mood.
For example:
The face, with the ancients, signified internal things,
because internal things shine forth through the face; and in the most ancient
times men were such that the face was in perfect accord with the internals, so
that from a man's face everyone could see of what disposition or mind he was.
They considered it a monstrous thing to show one thing by the face and think
another. (AC 358)
The
disposition of the mind in the celestial or regenerated individual projects
itself by correspondence to the physical features of the body and face. While
we are regenerating in the physical body we struggle to hold in aversion our
inherited face which denotes the evils and falsities in our unregenerate
mind. It makes sense therefore that we watch our facial expressions so that we
can become conscious of what our inherited evils are (CL 202).
As I got
older (I'm now 63) my face wants more and more to settle into a few caricatures
of my uncles and cousins whom I haven't seen for decades. My wife was the first
to sound the alarm when she briefly met one of my uncles in his 50s and
afterward began noting that my face made certain expressions that were almost
identical to those of my uncle. As is normal for me to do, I dismissed her
idea. Of course there is a resemblance. I noted that myself, but I rejected the
notion that my expressions were a near copy to his. After all, I was modern,
educated, enculturated, and he was still somewhat from the old country in his
ideas and orientation. Nevertheless, as my wife kept up her conjugial anti-face
campaign, I started looking at my face at other times than the morning shaving
routine.
1. Look at
your face in the mirror. Completely relax it. This takes a little while. Tell
yourself what our Yoga always says in rest pose: Let go of all muscles that
create expression. Let your flesh fall off your bones. Observe your face at
rest. Monitor your reactions and thoughts. Repeat this exercise on different
days for awhile. It will give you a baseline familiarity for your facial
expressions.
2. At different times of the day, look for opportunities to see
your face. When you're in the bathroom, or other place where there are mirrors
around department stores, restaurants, restrooms. You can also carry a mirror,
of course, though the size limits the view to a portion of the face. Doing this will allow you to get to know what your face is doing.
Others see it clearly so we need to know what others can see. This is called
objectivity on oneself.
3. When you
have occasion to look at your uncles and cousins monitor their facial
expressions by being conscious of them rather than merely being reactive in
sudden memory (see Chapter 8 Section 1).
Get to know
their expressions so that you'll be able to recognize these expressions in your
face. You can have a similar focus when you see photographs or videos of them.
Explore the kind of emotions you experience as you recognize yourself in them
and them in you. At first I was sort of proud and reassured. It gave me a belongingness, and upon occasion I might even feel some
close connection and love for them. But this was followed by a feeling of
embarrassment when I became educated and enculturated and was inspired by the
feeling to put my origins behind me and to be the new modern man. I thought I
had put them away from me, until my wife started telling me that my face was
them.
4. Search
the Writings and talk to the Lord about your face. There may be a difficult
conflict for you to overcome here on account of our inherent attachments to
family and race. There is a nonduality to fight and get out of the way of
regeneration. This is the corporeal idea expressed in popular logic as blood
is not water. Every institution in our society raises family loyalty to a
virtue and patriotic duty. And this is indeed commendable. But in the
First,
familial ties are for the most part not recognized in the afterlife (AC
3815[2]). Parents do not know their offspring and vice versa except at initial
stages of arrival when we are still in the external natural memories of our
life in the physical body. And this makes sense because everyone can know that
their thoughts, opinions, feelings, emotions are often not like those of their
parents and family. Hence conflict, disputes, and anger, which are quite
common. Since our interiors are therefore different and even opposed to our
family members we are not going to be with our families in the afterlife where
only those who are interiorly similar can be present to teach other (HH 193).
Second, the
Writings reveal that the hereditary line is totally mixed so that we inherit
and pass on innumerable evils that tie us to the hell societies in everything
we do all day long (CL 202). From our families hereditarily we only have the
infernal and the animal (AC 1438). Anything genuinely good must be acquired for
ourselves by rebirth and regeneration. You might be
vexed at this and naturally think in protest: But what about the good things I
have from inheritance Like my desire to be a perfectionist. My
compassion for people in need. My loyalty to religion
and patriotism. My muscular body build. Most of
us in our family have these things. Perhaps. But in
any case we need to remind ourselves that whatever good we receive from any
source is not from that source but from the Lord alone. Therefore we ought not
to attribute spiritual value to what we inherit in the unregenerate natural
mind.
These two
important points allow us to free ourselves from the bondage of the family
face, to the extent that we take them to heart. This means monitoring when we
are prejudiced on some issue and automatically favor our family or our race. We
must systematically undo these harmful connections in our mind. They are
harmful because they impede our regeneration. The target goal in our
regeneration is to leave all that is in our mind from natural sources, and
replace it with things from spiritual sources only. Then our external mind,
still natural, will be in the Lords order and obedient to spiritual
affections.
When our
mind reflects our spiritual affections, our face is no longer similar to our
inherited family face. It is a new face to go with the reborn
character. This new face is celestial and is similar to the faces of the angels
in the heavenly society in which you live (AC 4797; HH 47).
Remember
that your face-control program is going to be successful to the extent that you
let your wife give you feedback at any time she is moved to do so, and then
only to the extent that you take her feedback to heart and do not dismiss it as
exaggeration or imagination. This I have been guilty of for years.
The face is
an external vessel for representing the minds life and spiritual orientation.
It stands to reason that building a new face for yourself ought to go together
with building your reborn character. Further, as the
face solidifies with age into family caricatures, the new spiritual affections
we are trying to foster have nowhere to settle, and like Noah's dove must
return to the
Similar
things as were said concerning the face need to be applied to the way we laugh,
the way our voice sounds by which it is recognized by others, and the style of
body activity--gestures, posture, sitting position, and moving.
6. Monitoring
What Are My Eyes Doing
Everyone
knows the old adage that the eyes are the window to the soul. It is preserved
in our linguistic socialization so every individual is cultured into that idea.
In our unregenerate state we do not know what kind of a window this is. We
imagine that its like partition between two places, one called the soul and
the other called the eyes. We realize that eyes are out there in the open while
soul is in there, hidden from observation. Yet somehow by looking at the eyes,
we imagine, one can see into the soul. These are natural ways of thinking about
it.
But when we
gain in understanding of the dualities in the Writings we realize that there
must be a correspondential relation between the soul which is in the spiritual
world and the eyes which are in the natural world. The eyes react by
correspondence to what is going on in the soul. This is why we can say
rationally that the eyes reveal to outside observation what type of willing and
thinking is going on in the mind. Have you ever tried to look at someone in the
eye and see what they are willing and thinking My own observation has been
that this approach yields almost no results. I cannot know what another is
willing, intending, thinking, or reasoning no matter how much I stare in their
eyes. The closest where I do have some success is babies and infants.
So there
must be another way of understanding the statement that the eyes are the
windows to the soul. The solution lies in thinking about our own soul and
our own eyes rather than another's. Yes, our own willing and thinking is
very obscure to us, we hardly know a very tiny fraction of one percent of it.
This is not very much. For instance, if we think two thoughts per second, say,
and are awake for sixteen hours, we've had about xx thoughts on that one day.
How many of them do we know what they were Very few. And fewer for yesterday, and how much the year before, and the
decade before You can see that we get to know a tiny fraction of one
percent even when we have an introspective personality. So we must conclude
that our willing and thinking is largely unknown to us. This is why it is
referred to as the unconscious or the subconscious (xx).
Now back to
our eyes. Its a feasible task to monitor our eye movements for brief periods.
We can do this more easily than we can witness our willing and thinking. Now
the old adage applies perfectly: monitoring what my eyes are
doing reveal to me what I'm willing and thinking.
I have
found this to be an informative discipline in some specific situations. I have
gained more specific knowledge of my unruly affections and imaginations. When I
drive my eyes used to constantly rove around to pick up things of interest--what
other drivers are doing, what they look like, what expressions they have, what
they are doing with their hands. When a car passes me I had to look to see who
is doing this to me. When I passed a car that was moving slower than traffic, I
had to look at the driver to see who is this person
doing such an annoying thing. As I used to walk to my office from the parking
lot, my eyes roamed around at will. Whatever I had an
affection for, the eyes were obedient in delivering it to my attention
and focus. Passers by: I would look at their body parts, their clothes, the
condition of the clothes, the folds on the clothes, the shape of the fingers,
the kind of shoes they wore--everything that I felt a delight in.
In
restaurants my eyes would focus and stare at how people put food in their
mouth. It seems that I had an endless collection of affections that were
satisfied through control of the eyes. My wife would have to remind me from
time to time as we were sitting at table: Honey, you're staring. I was embarrassed,
but only for a moment. Mostly I was fascinated by the difficulty I had in
controlling my eye movements. I asked how she accomplished it and she answered
that she had to train herself to accept the idea that it was rude and an
invasion of privacy. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. I'm still
working on the problem, at age 63.
When I was
in my adolescence there was a song popularized by Dean Martin that had a
refrain: Standing on the corner, watchin all the gals go bye etc. This was a
delightful idea to me. I used to pick dark sun glasses to wear so that I can
willfully look at whatever I pleased without being detected. Instead of shame,
I felt power. I was my own god. I was alone in my mind. I was the ruler in that
domain. I did what I pleased. Then in my early forties I began to read the New
Testament as a book of God. And I was amazed to read in there that what I did
in my mind was no different from committing adultery with the body. Until then
my colleagues in psychology encouraged their clients in adulterous fantasies
which they claimed are beneficial for a healthier or zestier sex life for
married partners who did not cheat on each other. But mental pornography and
fantasy adultery was not considered cheating. But now, since the Lord commanded
it, I knew I had to reform. And then I discovered how difficult it was to keep
my eyes from being taken over by illicit affections.
The mere conclusion in the mind, that adultery is not sin,
renders a man an adulterer; - [shown] from those things which have been said on
this subject in The Doctrine of Life. Every conclusion in the mind constitutes
endeavor in the body, which is the essential act.
I told
adulterers, that, in heaven, there is perpetual potency; and they said, if they had known this in the world, they would never have
committed whoredom, so that they might come into heaven. But I said, that, in
heaven, it is permitted to love only the married partner, in hell to commit
whoredom at pleasure; [and I asked] whether, in this case, they would wish to
be in hell, or in heaven; but I was unable to extort a reply from them.
(SE 6110)
I continue
my struggles by which I can corroborate the statement that my eyes are a window
to my affections. I discovered thereby many disorderly and evil areas in my
mind. Besides scortations, as mentioned above, I became aware how critical my
thoughts are, moment by moment, as I'm in the company of others. For instance,
as I sit in the doctors waiting room, my eyes detect something about somebody
and my affections respond with criticism, ridicule, envy, superiority,
arrogance, lack of compassion. The eyes are responding to the affections, and
these come to my awareness through the thoughts they produce. Now I assess
those thoughts and I find them disorderly in various ways, depending on the
unregenerate affection.
By keeping
a record of your eye movements and the affections and thoughts that accompany
them, you are creating a map which is the spiritual geography of your mental
landscapes. Now you are armed to be effective in your regeneration disciplines.
So far as anyone indulges in the lusts of the flesh. He is a beast and a wild animal; but so far as he takes delight in the
desires of the spirit he is a human being and an angel (TCR 328)
7. Holding In Your Stomach
It may seem
far fetched to discuss this familiar phrase as a spiritual discipline. But
recall that EVERY natural event or act comes into existence by means of the
spiritual event or act that corresponds to it. A stone cannot fall, an atom
cannot whirl, an earthquake cannot happen without the
spiritual cause within it, to which the natural event corresponds. Similarly,
you could not raise your hand to the mouth, could not swallow or digest
something, could not put on your pants, were it not for the spiritual event to
which these little actions correspond. Think of this amazing scientific fact!
Every movement of your tongue, eyes, and fingers which are active every second,
are nothing but natural effects of a spiritual cause that is within them as
cause is within the effect, or, as cause is prior to the effect, since what is
prior in successive order is within in simultaneous order (xx).
So then,
now consider, the familiar thought of holding in my
stomach. The act of holding in the stomach requires a spiritual cause. For
instance, when I was in my college student years in my early 20s the
self-regulatory thought of hold in your stomach was motivated by corporeal
vanity. I saw in my mind images of body-building models from magazines and movies.
I was too naive to realize the role of editing in movies and photographs, and
compared my stomach, thighs, and biceps to theirs, coming far short to what I
thought would be attractive to the girls who then would find me irresistible
attractive, come up to me saying, O can I touch your firm stomach. How insane
the unregenerate man appears from hindsight!
In my 30s
and 40s my motive for holding in the stomach had risen from corporeal to
sensuous. It felt better when I had strong abdominal muscles. Also, my clothes
had a better fit. And I could lift things or stand erect without feeling
exhausted or hurt afterwards. In my 50s and beyond my motive became
natural-rational. I saw a bulging stomach as the sign of a spiritually insane
lifestyle. In our youth we hold in the stomach out of self-love and the desire
to be admired and found physically attractive. When we get married and grow
middle-aged, men no longer care about their physical attractiveness as much as
other things and let themselves go. This means they let their stomach bulge,
an act of letting go of physical discipline, thus of a healthy lifestyle. Our
stomach is therefore a sign post, a signal of our spiritual life.
The stomach
reflects and represents the order or disorder in our natural mind. Such as is
the willing or thinking we do every day, such is the stomach from without and
within.
The stomach
represents our natural mind. From without it represents our lower
mind--corporeal and sensuous. From within, the stomach represents our higher
mind--the
natural-rational mind.
The world of spirits, which is in the midst between heaven
and hell, and into which every man first comes after death, and is there
prepared, corresponds to the stomach, in which all the things put in are
prepared either to become blood and flesh, or to become excrement and urine,
the latter having a correspondence with hell, but the former with heaven. (AR
204)
The
expression holding in the stomach refers to the outside of the stomach, hence
the lower mind. To hold in the lower mind means to control it, to manage it,
to compel and coerce it to obey the higher rational mind. The expression to
let it all hang out means the opposite of to hold in your stomach. One voice
is from hell, the other from heaven. Those in the hells who are connected to
our natural mind congregate at our stomach and act into it. The passage above indicates
that the stomach is a correspondence for the spiritual world, and especially
the portion of it where we first arrive, a few hours after the time to the
physical body has been broken by the Lord.
The passage
also points out the parallelism between the body's duality of to become blood
and flesh vs. to become excrement and urine. The expression to become
blood and flesh signifies to be regenerated for life in heaven. The expression
to become excrement and urine, signifies to remain unregenerate, such as one
was born, that is infernal. To put things in our stomach therefore represents
to acquire ideas and experiences in daily life. As the
popular saying goes, Garbage in, garbage out. A protruding stomach cannot
be held in despite determined effort. The spiritual cause of the protruding
stomach is the state of disorder of our natural mind. It is filled with
nondualities that allow and permit the protruding stomach. For example, men of renown
in society are admired for their accomplishments equally whether they have a protruding
stomach or not.
This shows
the operation of the human level of thinking which is in the lower or external
mind. Here, the spiritual does not exist. Not even the moral, since moral
thinking and concerns about God and the afterlife, are rational concerns. These
concerns operate only in the higher self, or higher portions of the natural
mind called the natural-rational mind.
The relationship
between our afterlife and holding the stomach in,
becomes obvious when we consider the correspondences just discussed. In order
for stomach-control, outward and inward, to become a regeneration discipline we
must apply the Spiritual Doctrine we extract from the Letter of the Writings to
it (see Volume 2). Stomach-control must first be acknowledged as an image of
our regeneration. What it takes to control the stomach is the very thing that
is needed for regeneration, namely, the application of the Letter of the
Writings to our willing and thinking all day long.
To control
the outward appearance of our stomach we need to undergo reformation, and to
control the inward content and operation of the stomach we need to undergo
regeneration. The outward control of the stomach represents the control of the
outward mind, which is called the organ of understanding (xx). As described in
Volume 1, reformation is the activity of rearranging everything in our mind
from nonduality to duality, using the Writings exclusively as the defining
meanings. This application of the Writings to our beliefs and reasonings
creates a new natural mind that is like the stomach Adam and Eve had in their
pristine earthly paradise, prior to their disobedience. This is not a
protruding stomach but an aesthetically pleasing one, shaped to maintain the
ideal human appearance and anatomy.
the human
body is a perfection of rational creation. The Lords infinite wisdom designed
the human body and the Lords infinite power keeps its created form, as
evidenced by Swedenborg's observations as to the beauty and perfection of the
appearance of angels. Angels have a spirit-body that is the ideal for the
perfect physical body on earth. An angels stomach does not produce any waste!
The gross eliminations of the physical body are not a necessary part of life
that has been tied to the physical body by creation. If the human race were to
return to regeneration, and have offspring as regenerated parents, the
generations of the future will be celestial minds, and they have an ideal physical
body ideal and perfect in appearance outwardly, and in operation inwardly. Thus
there ought to be now waste, and the environment will
offer no substances for producing waste, as it does now.
What we put into our stomach is a
spiritual decision that has consequences to eternity for our personal fate.
Is this not a scary thought, given the lifestyle of our culture today
Controlling
what we eat and holding the stomach in successfully, are very important
regeneration disciplines for the formation of the
The method
of self-witnessing is essential for success given that everything in our lower
self, as aided by the forces of the hells, oppose our attempt to gain control
over the outward appearance and inward content of our stomach. The stomach
belongs to heredity. Initially. And our task is to wrest
it from this infernal enrooting. We can win only with the help of the angels
that the Lord sends to rescue us and deliver us from this hereditary and
cultural entrapment. But angels can only
enter and empower rational loves.
Therefore
we must first acquire rational loves through reformation. This is represented
by controlling the outward appearance of the stomach. We do sit ups. We buy
exercise machines. We run. We dance in aerobic groups or to a video of it.
These are the sensuous attempts from the sensuous mind that is above the corporeal
mind but below the rational mind (see the anatomy diagrams of the mind in
Volume 2). The corporeal mind doesn't wish to control the appearance of the
stomach by means of exercise to build abdominal muscle and by means of burning
calories to trim the stomach from its unsightly and deadly glob of fat,
accumulated by eating excessively of dead animals and sugar products. Instead,
it makes more sense to the corporeal level of thinking to take drugs, to have
liposuction, or the surgical removal of portions stomach or the stapling
together of its parts. The corporeal mind is averse to discipline, while the
sensuous mind loves discipline.
Rational
loves are above the sensuous. All spiritual ideas begin in the rational mind.
Ideas have love within them and in fact, are nothing but the outward from of
love (xx). Rational loves are ideas within which angels can enter and empower
us to control the natural mind. Every sentence and expression in the Letter of
the Writings, is a rational idea. They are natural-rational
correspondences for spiritual ideas. The angels that empower us to control the
stomach depend on finding an entry point into our mind, and this entry point is
constructed out of natural-rational ideas WHEN WE CONSIDER THEM
CORRESPONDENCES.
This I consider to be most important
and critical, as you can see by my capitalizing the idea!
This
subject is discussed in detail in Volume 2. Here we only need to make the
connection to stomach control as regeneration discipline.
Why is it so crucial that we consider stomach control a correspondence for a spiritual event or idea
First, this
is the condition for a discipline to be a regeneration discipline rather than a
natural or moral discipline. The spiritual can only be understood in rational
ideas, and rational ideas are laid down in the natural-rational level of
understanding. Our understanding of the spiritual cause of any natural event
depends on understanding rational correspondences (xx). There is no other way
the Lord has provided. We cannot climb up to the moon on an airplane, balloon,
or upward moving air current. We cannot have a spiritual understanding of spiritual
topics except by understanding correspondences. So the first step in creating a
regeneration discipline out of holding in the stomach,
is to see it as a correspondence.
I have
discussed above what the stomach corresponds to, and what holding in corresponds
to, both in terms of control of external appearance and inward content or
operation.
For decades
now I have exerted stomach control as a regeneration discipline. As the years
pile up I have a deeper rational understanding of my struggle and victories. To
be effective, I need to think about the correspondence of what I am doing in my
willing and thinking around the stomach. For example, when I clean up the kitchen
after serving a meal, my wife sometimes has one or two bites left on her plate.
In the early years I thought this was ridiculous. Why not just finish it off.
This Garbage in, garbage out philosophy I had from inheritance and
upbringing. Now as I think of correspondences, I admire her rational stance. It
is like that of angels who eat the most delicious foods instantiated by the
Lord on their tables--never to full stomach, which they consider a gross involvement
of the mind and not at all compatible with the celestial state (xx).
After I
stopped denigrating her for her celestial behavior, I still continued to
practice the Garbage in, garbage out philosophy of eating, and popping the
bites into my mouth before holding the dish under the running water. I'm aware
of the shamefulness or spiritual opprobrium of this habit, as shown by the fact
that I sometimes turn around as I'm about to do it, to make sure no one is
watching me. I hate the thought of my looking that way, stuffing my mouth with
wet hands, eyes darting like a vulture in the air to see the next bite I can
pop, or like a dog of the prairies sniffing the air for carcass. Sure enough,
I'm 10 lbs. overweight. Right now as I type this, my mind is searching with the
ceaseless search for food, for snacks, for something to place in my stomach. My
stomach is trying to gain control over my mind even as my rational tries to
gain control over it. It s a battle for the soul, that is, for my fate in
heaven or in eternal hell.
One of the
rational strategies I use to control my stomach is the discipline of
half-portions, discussed elsewhere in this Section. Another involves
substituting a healthy low-calorie snack for chocolate, ice cream, cake,
cheese, or leftover chicken and pizza. I like fruits and nuts as worthwhile and
satisfying substitutes. I learned from my wife to stop buying larger and larger
sizes in pants and underpants. Let the discomfort of their tightness be a
constant reminder and motivator to stop stuffing my stomach.
The most important
strategy I discovered is superior to all the diet programs in this country,
whose populations spends many billions a year on controlling the stomach and
without any lasting success. What I
discovered is this rational truth: To control my stomach I must value being
hungry.
A very
obvious scientific and practical principle, but not followed. Instead the
opposite principle is followed, namely, how not to feel hungry.
Feeling hungry is aversive, unpleasant. From inheritance and upbringing I have developed a panic button which gets pushed at the first sign of feeling hungry. I start looking around thinking I could eat something. Its animal. So I had to undergo reformation regarding the feeling of being hungry. From it being an aversive experience, I had to engineer feeling it as a good pleasant experience. When I feel hungry I reinforce my lower self by saying, Good. I'm losing weight right now. Thank you Lord.
And so my
struggle continues. Stomach control is the very symbol of my regeneration. My
willing and thinking in relation to my stomach control struggles, seeks to be rational
and spiritual by thinking of its correspondences in as much detail as possible.
Sometimes you'll need to keep a record of what you put in your mouth in the
course of the day. Also, what your emotions and thoughts are
prior to eating something, during eating, and afterwards.
Monitoring
what our mouth is doing while eating is a very important aspect of holding in
the stomach as a regeneration discipline. My wife eats slowly compared to me.
My plate is cleaned off as she gets through half of it. Therefore what she does
with her mouth and mine while eating are very different. The Doctrine of the
Wife requires me to love to act form the wife more than from self (see Section
1). Its not compatible with my Doctrine to love mouth activities that are
contrary to her loves. Will I be able to share a table with her in her heavenly
mansion Not if I love to do with my mouth one thing and she is aversive to it,
or loves another thing. For instance, I love to swallow a larger bite than she
does. My observation of this has revealed that I have a
unregenerate corporeal affection for greater pressure on the walls of the
throat and the back of the mouth cavity while swallowing. She has learned to
give that up as not comely and heavenly.
Many such
details in our daily corporeal routines need to be monitored, identified,
analyzed, deconstructed, judged, inhibited, and at last, detested.
Look for
opportunities to hang around while your wife gets dressed. Its an awesome
ritual that is fascinating to observe with respect and friendship. It allows
intimacy and discussion on clothes, etc. This is on her mind, so it should be on
yours too, don't you think, in view of all that has been said about sweetheart
rituals (see Chapter 9 Section 7). Then if you're
there, doing nothing, just hanging around her, she will say to you Zip me.
That's your victory, savor it, for she has elected you
to intimate friendship, so precious from a conjugial wife.
The same applies when she gets undressed. Hang around, be pleasant and light, don't introduce topics--let her choose all the topics when you hang around her. But be animated and interested in your responses. Your victory will come when she says: Unzip me. What a privilege! If this seems a bit exaggerated, you don't have to trust that opinion. Perhaps it seems strange because unfamiliar, or perhaps some prejudiced assumption wants to nix the idea. Do not be deterred, but valiantly let your rational loves dictate what your sensorimotor behavior will be. Compel your lower yourself to obey since it has no vision of a rational reality such as is described in the Word of the Second Coming. What does this lower self know about conjugial love except as something to be ridiculed or feared
9. The Discipline
Of Junk
E-Mail
Most people
I know use email. The volume of increase in exchanging messages is astonishing.
Tens of millions of people send out billions of messages to teach other daily.
Business minds are finding all sorts of ways to use this steady exchange
traffic so that their many email messages enter your mailbox daily and hourly.
Now its up to you what your move is. Some are good moves, some are not.
One is to
read everything, then decide to answer, delete, or
save in a folder. The second is to look at the Subject line and delete without
looking at the messages whatever seems like junk mail, as these unsolicited
and illegal messages are called. This choice is better, while the first
contains risks you need to be aware of.
One type of
risk is a colossal waste of time. Another is that you fill your external mind
with scortatory images which many of the messages contain. Your rational mind
is then going to have to fight against and eliminate these scortatory images.
To do so is a Divine Commandment and is a necessary part of our required
regeneration (AE 734). This is because every scortatory image is from hell and
if we delight in it in any way, we are tied to that infernal society where the
scortatory delight issues from in endless billows into the natural mind, and
pollutes it. This makes it much harder to regenerate, and from a light burden it becomes heavy to bear (Matt.
Another
risk is to expose yourself to all sorts of business
deals and investments that you then have to figure out what to do about. This
is relevant to those who are active on the Internet in various ways. In my case
I have an active presence being the author of a book on Road Rage which
frequently puts me and my wife (the co-author) in news articles whenever the
topic is discussed around the country and the world (see Note 17 at end). I'm
known on the Web as DrDriving and receive dozens of email daily. I have to sift
through what is a request for advice (Dear DrDriving), what is junk mail, and
what are business propositions. I've become skilled in not reading more than
what I need for each message.
Here is one
example of an email I received this morning:
Subject: Please Reply (Help)
Pleading for your help!!
Dear Dr. Leon James,
Following the sudden death of my husband General Damu Taraba
the late former head of state of
My finger
hits the delete button at the word August. The total amount of time the
message was on the screen was about two seconds. As the screen changes I catch in
the corner the words 300 million dollars. When I first got this kind of
letter I read most of it, but subsequently, I delete all others like it as
quickly as I identify them. Pretty soon one gets to recognize the various types
of junk mail, especially if you monitor the process analytically. You can
simply assume that every junk email or spam message is about getting money
from you. This is the bottom line purpose of all spam. Millions respond to
spam, which is what keeps them coming. Its a business balance sheet issue.
Therefore we need to develop a spiritual discipline to keep in check the normal
and cultural attraction we feel towards an offer which seems will bring us
financial benefit.
Here is
just a sample of the spam I got today that I automatically delete after reading
the Subject Line or part of it. It takes me less than one minute to process 40
or 50 messages in this way:
Don't get caught by rising interest rates.
Growth Stock of the Week: (OTC BB:GTWY)À
Returned mail: User unknownÀ
For Parents who buy School Uniforms for their kids
Give me a call
Looking for some CHEAP videos
Rebuild your credit with Gold
LOSE WEIGHT NATURALLY!
No Spam! No Pop-ups! With a FREE NowBox.
Leon James / Status: Winner
Leon, New Human Growth Hormone Releaser, as seen on NBC, C
Perfect Golf Gift for Dad
Joke Email - The Morning After the Night Before..
Unbelievable Prices On Cell Phones
And Accessories
Reply Requested {thisisjustfor4u!}
Leon, Your Credit has been Approved!
$150 Free!! Play Now!
Attract The Opposite Sex Instantly!
URGENT
ASSISTANCE NEEDED
Look, my
beautiful girl friend
Your Disney
Vacation Awaits!
Viagra
Delivered
See The
Sexiest, Naked Celebs Here !!
Your Free
Amateur Videos
Something
different!!!
There are
several steps to take in order to turn email behavior into a spiritual
discipline. First, you need to work out in your mind in what way this is a
religious issue. This is the first step for all spiritual disciplines discussed
in Volume 2. The nonduality view is that Its theoretically possible that at
least one or more of these offers could be genuine or would be worth taking
up. This belief is what I would call the con which was portrayed in the
movie The Sting (xx). This belief is what keeps spam going. So lets
leave spamming to the industry, and let us make a rational decision in freedom,
that we are not going to ever respond to anything when it comes to you in that
modality or arena. This is a behavior rule that protects us from invasion and
trouble.
But there
are other aspects to email use that can be placed under discipline. People are
relying on email communication more and more so that it enlarges the scope of
our daily self-witnessing opportunities (see Note 20 at end). When I compose an
email message I remind myself to keep in mind the highest use in the
exchange--which is to love my neighbor. This means first and foremost that I am
to avoid doing evil to the neighbor. Nothing I write should give offense or
express any negative emotions or intentions. If I decide it is incumbent upon
to answer a message I remind myself to do it fully. What is it that the
neighbor wants to know. I must give that information or point to where the
information can be taken from. When I have to write
email about a service problem (e.g., tracking an order on Web shopping) I must
suppress the desire to complain or use any strong language that merely shows
how a person feels and doesn't contribute anything practical to the exchange. Email
venting is to do harm to the neighbor.
I also
remind myself that I have to present enough information, not too much, not too
little. It often helps to answer various pieces of an issue separately marked
by blank lines or a separator line (I like to use all +++++ as it reminds me of
the cross, and the Lord). It also helps to copy and paste selected pieces that
speak to the relevant portion. I resist the easier way of merely pasting or
retaining the entire message at the bottom. I do this also, but then in
addition, I select and paste just the relevant portions in the reply, as I
address them. When you choose the Include Reply it pastes the entire message
up front. You can then delete the portions as you go along, making sure you
answer all points.
10. How To Handle Junk Phone Calls
I have a
firm policy with telephone calls. I quickly establish the purpose of the call
(Who do you want to talk to Can I take a message What is this about). I do
not respond to Hi, how are you today I get to the point within seconds: I'm
very sorry, but we do not accept telephone solicitations. Please send it to us
in the mail. The salesperson at the other hand sometimes accepts this,
sometimes attacks from another angle: We are not selling anything. We just want
you to know that you can upgrade At this point I know I need to be very
categorical in order to be effective: I'm sorry to interrupt you. But we do
not accept telephone solicitations. Please send it to us in the mail. With
some salespeople even this second insistent repetition does not get them to
quit. My limit is one more time, and then I hang up.
I have the
occasion to monitor myself with these phone calls several times every week. My
wife said after one of these calls that I sounded pretty mean. I was taken
aback (as normal for me). My first reaction to her observation: I was not
impolite. These people are sharks. They just put on the nice person act for a
few seconds, and if they perceive they wont get to me, they become nasty and
even say profanities as they hang up on me. So I've got to be pretty forceful
and unequivocal, don't you think I felt myself justified in not loving my
neighbor. Was this a case of me not loving my neighbor I reflected and
consulted the Lords Word. I asked the Lord: Lord enlighten
me about this. And the answer that came to me was that I consult the Lords
Word for only there will He speak to me about answers.
I read
passages in the Writings about loving the neighbor and how to do that (see
Chapter 6 Section 7). I then clearly saw that my wife was wise in her
observation. She was telling me not to be mean. She perceived I was, and she
knew from her wisdom that this is an infernal act. She intelligently figured it
out that I can achieve my goal of effective junk call management by being nice
rather than mean. Being mean was not part of the effectiveness. So now I saw
her real message: Get rid of any behavior that is mean
to people. I saw that this was the religious motive. I saw that this is what
the Lord said to Peter who had asked Him how many times one should forgive the
neighbor:
Then
Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother
when he sins against me Up to seven times"
Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
(Matt. 18:21-22)
From this comes
the signification of the number "seventy" which comprises seven ages;
for an age, in the Word, is ten years. When anything most holy or sacred was to
be expressed, it was said "seventy-sevenfold" as when the Lord said
that a man should forgive his brother not until seven times, but until seventy
times seven (Matt. 18:22), by which is meant that they should forgive as many
times as he sins, so that the forgiving should be without end, or should be
eternal, which is holy. (AC 433)
And so:
When I'm being not nice to junk phone calls I'm being mean. And this is
infernal. And it cannot be justified by their behavior or intent, as clearly
said in the passage above. Therefore I have no other choice but to be nice even
as I continue to be effective. Now I have the religious motive and the
discipline is spiritual. I continue to struggle. Further, I extend the practice
to other areas, like phone calls by students who should be emailing or asking
in class. I can see that whatever I'm thinking about the foolishness of
others, there is no justification for not loving the neighbor. I cannot allow
them to control my religious duty. The love for ones neighbor cannot be lifted
or suspended, but it needs to be accommodated to each situation rather than
give everyone the same treatment (see Chapter 6 Section 7). No one deserves
insults or rudeness, and so I must find ways of being nice but firm. Even in
the worst case scenario when I have to hang up on the caller, there is no need
for me to feel anger or annoyance, or to do it by adding a verbal insult.
Sorry I must hang up now. is adequate enough.
There are
many opportunities through an average day to keep relearning this lesson. For
years I carried a tape recorder in the car and spoke my thoughts aloud behind
the wheel (see Note 17 at end). I was quite amazed at how I sounded on the tape
when I played it back--blasphemous, insulting, critical, denigrating,
fault-finding, prejudiced, irrational, emotionally
unintelligent. I knew I had to change and wowed to become a reformed driver. I
first used secular methods of self-modification from my field of social
psychology. My success was limited. I reduced overt expressions most of the
time since I became convinced I was flirting with dangerous situations. One
never knows what the other driver is going to do if you enrage him. More than
one thousand drivers are seriously injured every year in road rage violence in
the
What gives
me the right to denigrate my neighbor The Lord commands that we forgive as
often as the neighbor sins against us (see Chapter 6 Section 7). This means
that I'm hating the Lord when I'm hating the other
driver. And I wont pretend that these things are anything but hating: I'm
only retaliating when provoked ,I'm only defending
my rights , I'm only thinking it so I can feel better , Its just the way
it is in traffic, a hell hole etc. If I lapse in any one instance, I must
repent and resolve to avoid it. But I must not allow it as an exception. Not
one such affection against the neighbor can be kept if one steps through the
heavenly gate. So I must keep struggling. Striving to be a reformed driver is
to remain a religious discipline with me.
11. The Spiritual
Discipline Of Eating
Half-Portions
A Christian email correspondent who was reading the Writings (somewhat) asked me what sins he can keep and still go to heaven. My answer was none. Take for example the question: Can I go to heaven if I'm overweight
My thoughts
led me to this: It must depend on the motive or purpose. Every
affection that is not from heaven, without a single exception, cannot
enter heaven which is protected by the substances involved.
To no one who
enters the spiritual world is it denied to ascend to heaven; but when one who
is in the delight of hell enters heaven his heart palpitates, his breathing is
labored, his life begins to fail, he is in anguish, distress and torment, and
he writhes like a serpent placed close to a fire. This is so because opposites
act against each other. (DP 324)
Every affection is either from heaven or from hell (TCR 115; AC 904). The infernal
affection cannot enter into the sphere of heaven any more than a small brick
can enter into a larger brick and occupy the same space with it. The spiritual
coils of fiber that make up an affection are either turned one way called the
heavenly way, or turned in the opposite way, called the infernal way. Ask
yourself: is being overweight from heaven or from hell It is from hell because
it is disorderly, hurtful, and opposed to a heavenly personality.
Clearly
then we cannot enter heaven if we are overweight when we retain an affection
for being overweight.
It is said in
the church that no one can fulfill the law, and the less so since anyone who
sins against one commandment of the Decalogue sins against them all. But this conventional maxim is not as it
sounds; for it is to be understood in this way, that anyone who purposefully or
deliberately acts against one commandment acts against the rest, since to act
purposefully or deliberately is to deny altogether that the action is a sin,
and anyone who denies the existence of sin regards it as nothing if he acts
against the rest of the commandments. (CL 528)
Look at
yourself in the mirror and look at the numbers on the scale and compare them to
what they should be for a man your build. The excess in pounds is called being
overweight. Consider that what you know about being overweigh, that it is
unhealthy and makes you sick and less able to function effectively. The Lord
commands us to be prudent (Matt.
I was
overweight since my days in college. I went through several weight-loss /
weight-gain cycles. But I was able to break this cultural pattern when I made
it into a religious discipline. I first acknowledged that infernal affections
will keep me from heaven, even one infernal affection,
as long as I consciously went along with it without constantly fighting it.
This one infernal affection will cling to my spiritual mind at the entrance of
heaven, and keep me from entering into its sphere. Then I got scared. So I was
going to get myself with the range of the a medically
recommended weight for my built. I lost the weight and from a 200-lb.
overweight man with slacks size 42 I went to a 160-lb. man wearing size 32. And
I've kept this shape for the past ten years without any relapse.
I use two
techniques that work. First, to never give up managing and
feeling fully responsible for my weight. This I maintain as a Divine
Commandment for the Lord commands us to be prudent in all things (xx), and to
be overweight is not prudent. Second, to eat half portions.
This is the
simplest of all diets since you don't have to change what you eat if you're
already eating healthy, as I was. My problem was that I was feasting every
day and eating more frequently than was necessary. So merely by compelling
myself to eat half the normal plate, I started losing weight steadily. At home, its a matter of serving half a portion and not having seconds or things on the
side during preparation (I'm the cook and clean up man). In restaurants, my
wife and I learned to stop after one-third of the plate, then
request it to be packed. This is a great boon to a short-order cook like me as
it gives us two more fine meals on the next two dinners at home, with my job
being merely to add some fresh steamed vegetables.
Portion
control is to be exercised in all things we place in our mouth. We love ice
cream and double-double chocolate cakes and brownies. Portion control means two
bites freely enjoyed, and then we must ask ourselves whether its time to quit.
The essence of control is to avoid going overboard, since the corporeal self
wants to keep going. It feels like tearing yourself
away and it is painful. But the rational mind looking down marvels and laughs
at this corporeal slavery. Thus control is retained in the mind and our
regeneration proceeds unimpeded.
Once in a
while we lapse or slide back and either alone, or in company, we break all the
rules and eat all that we feel like, giving in to the delicious slavery. After
that its crucial that you compensate on the next day or two and eat less than
the usual half-portion. This keeps your weight down and teaches your corporeal
self that you're in control after all. Compensatory eating combined with
half-portions is an effective program of permanent weight control.
But this is
not all. I had to follow a self-witnessing discipline to monitor not just how
much I ate but how I ate. All sorts of infernal affections are associated with
overeating. I observed such things about myself. For instance, I would eat as I
walk, which is dangerous because food particles can get stuck in your trachea.
So I had to control that. I would put food in my mouth before I swallowed what
was there, increasing the rate of eating. And especially, I noted as I was
trying to resist the habit, the sensation I received from swallowing a large
amount going down the gullet was more delightful than small bites. This
attachment is infernal because corporeal without obedience to the rational. I
had to learn to eat like my wife who had taught herself these things while a
young woman. She will not eat that last bite on the plate if she judges she had
had enough, whereas I want to throw it in my mouth instead of the garbage. I
feel a sense of regret letting go of it. Its a delight I will not have, says my
unruly corporeal self.
Eating
slowly and chewing well must be combined with eating half-portions and
compensating for each occasion of excess. The appetite control in food behavior
becomes a religious discipline that puts us well ahead in our regeneration.
12. Arrival
And Departure
Rituals With The Wife
Remember
what it felt like to see your girl when you were in love and dating her That
should be the baseline level for how we must treat our wife if we are going to
make progress in conjugial union. If you are home and your wife arrives, be
prepared for this momentous event. For a few minutes prior to her arrival walk around
the house and arrange things into proper order, the order she picks when she is
at home. Every room should be orderly and clean. Be sure this includes
yourself--shave, wash your body, clean your mouth, put on clean clothes. If
others are also in the house, prepare them for the arrival in a similar way.
Then wait. Look for her to arrive. When you hear the car or see her walk closer
or she opens the door, be there. Do not be engaged in some activity so that you
have to interrupt it and then turn your attention to her. Jump up and greet her
at the door.
Do not
block her way at the door by standing there. Do not hug her before she is ready
for it. Observe carefully what her usual routine is when she arrives. Do not
make comments about her being late or about her not calling or about her being
away for so long. Do not inundate her with house topics, messages, or
schedules. Understand that she needs to transition.
A wife is a
complex human thing. When she leaves the house she has to set her entire
existence and inner readinesses to a different level or measure. A wife outside
the house has to protect herself from strangers and strange events and topics.
When she arrives home it takes a little while to undo, unwind, and soften up.
She has to make herself vulnerable again and available to her husband and
children. This takes a little time. She does the unwinding by going through her
normal arrival rituals. Do not interfere with them. Part of this unwinding
ritual is to have you around without your active input. She doesn't want you to
walk away and go do your thing. She wants you to accompany her with a
cooperative, helpful, and pleasant disposition.
She goes
from room to room, inspecting and doing. She asks a few questions, make the answers informative but brief. Details,
later. She makes some comments: Why didn't you
do this or that. Never get defensive or offensive. Let her say it. Give her
leeway. Smile a lot and nod your head. Keep explanations at a minimum. Act like
she is your sweetheart and you're so happy again. Help her with her clothes, if
she asks, otherwise just stand or sit there, and admire.
Slowly but
steadily your wife reconnects herself to the house sphere, to you, and to her
children and pets. The arrival ritual is then over.
Now the departure ritual. When she leaves the house and you stay home, arrange your
activities so that you are on call as she starts to prepare. Do not ask her
when she is leaving. Do not ask her are you going to do this or that, are you
going to take this or that with you. You can help her by doing these things in
a subtle way. Only intervene when there is something obviously wrong or she
miscalculated or forgot. Do not let her fall into mistakes or mishaps. Save her
by monitoring in the background and noticing.
Be with her
as she gets dressed, but do not be in her way. She likes to consult you about
her clothes. Be helpful, sincere, knowledgeable. When
she is ready to leave the house, be there. Hold the door open for her. Kiss
her, bless her, and tell her you'll miss her and will be waiting eagerly for
her return. As she walks away or as the car drives away, wave at her. As she
disappears in the distance or around the corner, bend your body out of shape so
you can catch one last glimpse of your beloved.
As you walk
back inside, you will feel good, complete, right, happy.
This is what she gives you for what you give her.
13. The Spiritual
Discipline Of
People who have
been both cruel and adulterous like nothing more in the next life than filth
and excrement. To them the stink of these is most sweet and pleasant, and they
prefer such odors to all other delights. The reason why lies in their
correspondence. Those hells lie partly beneath the buttocks, partly beneath the
right foot, and partly in a frontal direction, deep down. These are the hells
to which the path through the rectum leads. Once a certain spirit was brought
there, from where he spoke to me. He said there was nothing else in sight but
latrines. Those there talked to him and led him to various other latrines,
which were very numerous there. (AC 5394)
The
discipline of oral hygiene and flossing was discussed in several sections in
this chapter. The discipline of enemas is even more prone to our resistance,
given our cultural training. Yet the practice of medicine is based on regular
and repeated assessment of body fluids and excretions. Part of my yearly annual
involves giving them urine, blood, and stool lab samples. Enemas are a limited
part of the practice of modern medicine. They are used prior to certain
procedures such as colorectal inspections, childbirth, certain types of
cancers, and some others. But they are not on the recommended list of home
hygiene. All sorts of legends and superstitions adhere to it, like the idea
that your intestines will get used to it and stop working on their own. Another
is that it depletes the good bacteria culture in the colon, leaving yourself open for infections. Also, that it is painful,
gross, embarrassing, etc.
I have been
practicing the discipline of a weekly enema for many years. It is a religious
discipline because I connect it to my hygiene duty. I must keep my body clean,
my mouth clean, and my colon clean. They stem from the same motive of the
prudent servant who takes care of the body's health. I have spoken many times
about it to an expert in the field: a colonic therapist whose services I have
used every six month for the past 30 years. A colonic introduces water into the
upper regions of the colon and intestines and requires a machine set up and operator.
An enema is self-administered using an enema bag sold at drug stores. It takes
about 45 minutes to complete an enema from beginning to end.
After the
water is introduced by gravity flow, it is let go on the toilet. Out it comes
along with much fecal material. It is advisable to flush repeatedly so that you
minimize spreading the offensive odor through the air to the rest of the house.
But before you flush, you should stand up and inspect briefly what is in
the bowl. Notice the sickly smell, the awful color of the water, the twisted
gaseous ugly excrements, and the quantity. This only need take a few seconds, then you quickly flush it away. But the inspection leaves a
profound effect of disbelief and disgust. And in my case I find it helpful to
remind myself as I sit back down for more of it: O how gross! This came out of
me! This is in me every day! This is what's in people and they refuse to take
enemas! This is what makes me sick! This stays in my body and oozes out poisons
that are then absorbed back into the blood stream: O how gross! This represents
the hells! The evil spirits love this stuff! (see AC
2755).And so on. The purpose of this thinking is to reinforce the religious
issues involved.
Enemas reduce offensive flatulence, besides relieving bloating, and eliminating poisons. Passing gas is something many couples get used to doing with each other. Also, roommates, locker room buddies, and surreptitious releases that befoul the air of the room. Who did this We hide our cowardice, saying nothing, looking innocent. What right do we have to offend the smell and quietude of others around us Where is the love of neighbor if we allow ourselves to pass offensive gas and even, make a joke of it. Its human to fart! The point is: enemas take care of the degraded festering putrid materials in the intestines. The Writings say that offensive body odors is a legitimate cause of separation in marriage! (CL 253) How sexy can it be for your sweetheart if in her mind she is thinking, Is he going to fart on me again
The discipline of enemas are best practiced as a couple. The two
look out for one another, making sure one of them isn't skipping it, which is
so easy to do, given the built in cultural resistance and negative connotation.
But in addition there may be spiritual reasons that go deeper into the causes
of an anti-enema society. I understand that in some European countries and in
Incredibly
to me, physicians tell patients they're not constipated if they move their
bowels once every two days. But to convince yourself
take an enema every day for a week and you will see no abatement in the
foulness that comes out day after day. My high colonic practitioner tells me
that its not uncommon for him to see during a colonic irrigation treatment,
feces come out that have impacted and been in the colon for several years. The
longer they were there, the more black they turned. In colonic irrigation a
double tube is inserted into the rectum, with clean water going in one and the
resultant wash coming out in the other. This goes through a glass tube allows
observation of what passes out.
Who exactly
constitute the province of the Intestines in the Grand Man will become clear to
some extent from those who correlate with the stomach. For the intestines are a
continuation of the stomach, and the functions performed by the stomach
increase in them and are intensified right through to the end of the intestines
- to the colon and rectum. The spirits in the latter are therefore close to the
hells which are called the excrementitious ones. In the region of the stomach
and intestines are those on the lower earth. Because these have brought with
them from the world forms of uncleanness clinging to their thoughts and
affections, they are therefore detained for a while in that region until such
forms of uncleanness have been wiped away, that is, cast away to the side. Once
these have been cast away to the side those people can be raised up to heaven.
People on the lower earth are not yet in the Grand Man, for
they are like food which has been sent down into the stomach but which, until
it has been purged, is not introduced into the bloodstream and so into the
body. People contaminated with even worse earthly defilements are below those
in the region of the intestines; but the actual excrement passed by the
intestines corresponds to the hells called the excrementitious hells. (AC 5392)
It is
obvious from this that the
Those who in
the life of the body have made mere pleasures their end and aim, loving merely to
indulge their natural propensities, and to live in luxury and festivity, caring
only for themselves and the world, without any regard to things Divine, and who
are devoid of faith and charity, are after death first introduced into a life
similar to that which they had in the world. There is a place in front toward
the left, at a considerable depth, where all is pleasure, sports, dancing,
feasting, and chatting together. Hither such spirits are conveyed, and then
they know no otherwise than that they are still in the world. After a short
time however the scene is changed, and then they are carried down to a hell
beneath the buttocks which is merely excrementitious; for in the other life
such exclusively corporeal pleasure is turned into what is excrementitious. I
have seen them there carrying dung and bemoaning their lot. (AC 943)
Note
well: I'm not saying that
It says
here, and elsewhere, that those people turn into excrementitious spirits who
have made mere pleasures their end and aim, loving merely to indulge their
natural propensities, and to live in luxury and festivity. The issue I'm
raising is whether or not a person is of this sort who cares not about cleaning
the colon. In other words, is there a relation between:
loving merely to indulge their
natural propensities, and to live in luxury and festivity (AC 943)
and
being a person who cares not about
cleaning the colon (Leon James)
It stands
to reason that there is a relationship here. There is a rational connection
between lifestyle and the state of our intestines and colon: What we eat; how
much; how often; how well we chew; whether we are overweight; whether we are
physically active enough; what our toilet training was like and what
impressions it left on us; and other such things that are related to how our
colon is functioning. The
"WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ MAY SAVE YOUR LIFE"
Would you like to feel healthier, have more energy, be more regular and less constipated without using a single
drug, laxative, vitamin or protein drink Let me explain how you can accomplish
this.
The source of many of today's commonplace health problems
are being traced to the colon, also known as the large intestine (diagram). Our
high fat, low fiber diets of hard to digest foods are clogging the very canal that
was designed to eliminate them. The longer this waste stays in the body the
more toxic and encrusted it becomes. Our bodies are being poisoned because the
moisture that is absorbed from the colon has to pass through this toxic waste
that has attached itself to the lining of the colon. This toxified moisture is
then distributed throughout the body poisoning our vital organs and
deteriorating the body's own immune system. The resulting toxemia can become a
chronic condition but for most of us it means constipation, sinus problems,
allergies, chronic fatigue syndrome, arthritis, migraine headaches, immune
related illnesses, colds, flu, etc. Also the risk of colon cancer seems to be
increasing everyday with no known cause or cure. Doesn't it make sense that meat
and other waste that has been trapped inside your colon for years could become
so rotten, putrid, and toxic that it begins to slowly poison your organs and
your entire body, possibly even causing colon cancer. Wouldn't you rather be
proactive and safe now rather than reactive and sorry later Other
symptoms.
Now there is a
way to thoroughly cleanse the colon of this waste that has been collecting
there for years and what's even more exciting is that you can do this in the
privacy of your own home by using my Home Colonics Kit. The safest and easiest
method of colonics is the gravity flow method.
(A Safe Gentle Irrigation and
Cleansing of the
I don't
sell these devices and I have not used them myself. I use the old fashioned
enema bag (water bottle), a method I learned form my mother as a child. But
whatever you decide to use, remember that you're doing it for religious or
spiritual reasons, as well as heath reasons.
14. Acknowledging
The Lords Co-Presence
Prayer, regarded in itself,
is speech with God (AC 2535)
Whenever I was
praying our Lord's prayer, morning and evening, almost every time I was raised
up, in different ways, into the very inward realm, and in fact [this raising
up,] together with the change, was so perceptible that nothing could have been
more so. (SE 258)
A mental
discipline that is indigenous to Christians is the practice of talking to the
Lord and acknowledging the Lords presence before us even as we go about doing
our daily tasks. Many people automatically and somewhat unconsciously say O
God many times in the course of a day. But this is not a discipline but a
cultural habit. Having been raised in an Orthodox Jewish family I found it
relatively easy to say my morning/afternoon/evening prayers, as well as saying a
different prescribed blessing (Brocho) for particular activities such as washing hands,
eating particular foods, using the bathroom, hearing the thunder, noticing a
rainbow, putting on new clothes, kissing any doorpost that had a mezuzah case
nailed to it, and many more in the hundreds.
This
discipline was relatively easy because it was inculcated in us as an invariant
routine so that it ran itself off without much thought accompanying it. I did
not even have to interrupt my thoughts and secular concerns even as I was
reciting the prescribed prayer. Of course I realize now, being a regenerating
New Church mind, that this type of prayer keeps the person at a safe distance
from God, so that prayer and religion don't influence the inherited loves and
delights, which are infernal.
These
devotional activities are carried out in Hebrew (called Holy Language), a
language mostly incomprehensible to the majority of Jews of all denominations
(who are Yiddish speakers besides the countries vernacular where they live). I
was taught to read Hebrew prayers phonetically and very fast, with a sing song
chant, but the emphasis on comprehension of the sentences was not so much
emphasized or even required (The Holy Name knows what you're saying). These
ritualized vocalizations were accompanied by the requisite body-shaking called
in Yiddish shockle (=shaking). The shaking was an aid to concentration. It
was taught that if you concentrated all the way you come before the Almighty.
There were
saints in every generation, known for their great concentration ability. One
sign of concentration is that if someone calls your name while you're shaking,
and bowing, and yelping, or crying out to the Almighty, you're so much into the
praying, that the physical world disappears and you cant hear your name being
called. and other such things are taught to young
boys, as I was.
But after I
abandoned this lifestyle as an adult and came to see myself as a Christian
person, it took many years to teach myself the discipline of consciously
acknowledging the Lords co-Presence minute by minute while I was awake. And if
not minute by minute, I thought I did well if I could remember Him at least
once an hour. Even this I could not do. Hours would go by and I was absorbed in
my day, then suddenly, the consternating thought: I've forgotten about You,
Lord! You were present all these hours and minutes and seconds, making things
happen all around me, connecting my days, and foreseeing my future, which You desire to be life in heaven. My forgetting Your
Co-Presence, Lord, is sheer insanity! It is insane to suppose that things
happen by chance or by human planning. The moment an angel thinks this, he
feels himself cast out of heaven (xx). We are told that as angels we have the
Lord constantly before us, no matter which way we turn (xx).
This mental
discipline only started in earnest several years after I started reading the
Writings when I became imbued with the fear and regret that I was not
sufficiently loving the Lord and acknowledging that He is ceaselessly present
as a Divine Guide and Therapist overseeing the sequence of my thoughts, bending
them this way and that, hiding things from my awareness until I'm ready to deal
with them, and bringing me into contact with this or that spiritual society to
excite this or that emotion in me.
Failing to continually acknowledge
His co-participation and co-presence is thus being like a sleep walker who
lives in non-reality and does not see or talk to the people around.
To
acknowledge the Lords Co-Presence in a practical way, rather than merely
theoretical way, we need to act it out in our willing and thinking. As
mentioned, praying or talking to the Lord is a way of actualizing or acting out
our theoretical acknowledgment of His Omnipresence. An additional way is to ask
Him a question when we are wondering about something were trying to figure out
and cant quite see the precise answer. Its useful to remember that talking to
the Lord is not like talking to another human being. The Lord knows what we are
going to say prior to us knowing it. This is because He is the regulator of all
that a human being says since saying something is an event and He manages all
events by His Omnipresence. Asking the Lord a question can be done with the
innocence of childhood (xx) or with the innocence of wisdom (xx). Children in
all innocence talk to the Lord as they talk to an adult or powerful person.
When we are regenerating as adults we are called wise because we are
committed to act from the Letter of the Writings, which we have taken up as
Doctrine in our understanding and thinking.
To talk to
the Lord from the innocence of wisdom is to ask Him a practical question to
which we desire the answer, right at that moment in the sequence of our
activity, or of our willing and thinking.
This mental
act acknowledges the Lords Co-Presence in an actual way. It is a practical
thing to do to ask a partner a question when something comes up in their
teamwork. Do you have their number or What time did he say he's going to
call To ask the Lord like a wise man would, we want to avoid asking Him a
type of question for which He has a stated policy not to answer. This makes
sense. Its childish, not wise, to ask the Lord anything at all. The wise man
honors the Lord with happy obedience to His stated policies, otherwise known as
the Divine Commandments in the Letter of the Writings.
Everything
we understand from the Letter is a Divine Commandment when we act the wise man.
With
regards to asking the Lord questions, we must figure it out with what we
already know. I would suggest that we think about the distinction the Lord wants
us to learn between sensuous and rational consciousness (see the discussion in
Chapter xx Section xx). For instance, the difference between His First and
Second Coming is the difference between knowing Him through our sensuous mind
and knowing Him through our rational mind. The rational is a discrete degree
above the sensuous and therefore is a far higher and deeper way of knowing Him.
The New Heavens the Lord created in His Second Coming were created out of the
interior-rational truths contained in the Writings.
The
Doctrine of the Lord is in our natural-rational mind from our understanding of
the Letter of the Writings. The details of this Divine Doctrine in our mind are
the cognitive vessels at the natural-rational level of thinking about the Lord.
Within these natural-rational vessels, the Lord inflows with
spiritual and celestial correspondences in the interior-natural mind, which is
located within the natural-rational mind. In this way, the Divine
Doctrine in our natural-rational mind becomes animated and alive by means of
the spiritual-rational within the interior-natural (or spiritual-natural) mind.
This is the conscious level of thinking about the Lord when we are in the state
called wise by the Lord.
What kind
of question would we ask What do we dare to do Isn't it easier just to prostrate
ourselves before the King of the universe and not pretend we have questions and
answers to figure things out about His creation The point is that the Lord wants us to ask
Him questions--the right kind of questions.
One obvious
type of question to avoid asking is something that gives us information that
human beings give each other in the course of their interactions. A wise man
would not speak to the Lord saying, Lord, what time is it or, Lord, what
that mans telephone number or, Whats the least congested way I can get
there or, Should I buy this car or that car. These are not questions
related to our rational consciousness of the Lord. Remember that the purpose
the Lord wants us to ask Him appropriate questions is for our sake, namely that
we might gain a more interior understanding of the Lord. This is what He longs
for and for which He has created us, namely, an interior-rational consciousness
of Him. This is the way the highest angels in the Third Heaven know Him. This
is the way He makes Himself known to us in the spiritual sense within the
literal of the Writings. The Literal sentences of the Writings are mere
correspondences of Him. He enlightens us to the actuality of Him by means of
giving us perception of Himself within the literal correspondences of Him in
the Letter.
15. Talking To The Lord Is To Apply The Letter To The Letter
The Lord speaks with every man, for whatever a man wills and
thinks that is good and true, is from the Lord.
There are with every man at least two evil spirits and two
angels. The evil spirits excite his evils, and the angels inspire things that
are good and true. Every good and true thing inspired by the angels is of the
Lord; thus the Lord is continually speaking with man, but quite differently
with one man than with another.
With those who suffer themselves to be led away by evil
spirits, the Lord speaks as if absent, or from afar, so that it can scarcely be
said that He is speaking; but with those who are being led by the Lord, He
speaks as more nearly present; which may be sufficiently evident from the fact
that no one can ever think anything good and true except from the Lord.
(...)
[3] The presence of the Lord is first possible with a man
when he loves the neighbor. The Lord is in love; and so far as a man is in
love, so far the Lord is present; and so far as the Lord is present, so far He
speaks with the man. (AC 904)
Since the Word was written the Lord speaks with men by means
of it (HH 305)
The Lord speaks with the man of the church in no other way
than through the Word, for He then enlightens man so that he may see truth, and
also gives him perception to perceive that it is so (AC 10290)
The Lord
speaks with the
Therefore
the Lord has provided that His conjunction with the human race shall be through
correspondences. In the Word the Lord speaks by pure correspondences. In the
Word of the Writings the Lord speaks in rational correspondences. This is an evolutionary
step beyond the Word of the New Testament where He speaks to the human race in
sensuous correspondences. And this was an evolutionary step beyond the Old
Testament where the Lord speaks to the human race in corporeal correspondences.
The consciousness of the human race was therefore raised by means of the level
of correspondences by which the Lord gives His Divine Truths. This is the only
source the human race for understanding rationally the science of reality. This
theistic science has now been given to the human race through the Writings. The
mystery of religion and Divinity has evaporated, has been dispelled. Mystery was
but a spell cast upon the race by its worst elements, those led by the human
ego elevated to the level of a god to itself.
After many generations of suffering
under the delusions of mystery, superstition, and magic, the human race has
been freed of all mystery by the rational scientific revelations in the
Writings.
The Lord
can now speak with the race through rational correspondences.
This is an
immense step forward in human evolution, incalculable in its awesome and
dramatic consequences.
Rational
correspondences constitute the content of our natural-rational mind. This is
the highest portion of the natural mind. The culmination of human achievement
in science and art is the work of the natural-rational mind. And its power is
so great that the endless future wont be too daunting for its understanding.
This is the level of human thinking and reasoning by means of rational
correspondences of reality or the Lord.
A man can
declare himself an atheist. He points to his secular humanistic and scientific
achievements and claims them for himself: My own intelligence has accomplished
this. My own intellectual struggle and victory over ignorance. He may be awarded a special prize of recognition by this or
that segment of society. And yet the reality behind this appearance is that the
man is insane when he thinks within himself (xx). He acts, thinks, and talks
sane when he is with others, but inwardly he maintains a parallel life of
insane thinking and imagined acts which he carefully hides and cannot be detected.
But when this man arrives in the afterlife, he can no longer hide anything that
he harbors within his will (xx). The insanity then bursts forth from him and he
has to be restrained in a hell with others who have a similar insanity (xx).
How can a man who is insane within himself be so intelligent as to win prizes of achievement for his original work
The answer
is that neither the achievements of the sane man within, nor the achievements
of the insane man within, are attributable to the mans intelligence and
intellectual effort.
The Lord
maintains everything in its perfect order by means of correspondences in a long
chain of causation from the spiritual Sun to the ultimates in the natural world
(xx). Hence the expression in the Word of From Firsts to
Lasts (xx). The Lord leads society, leads knowledge, leads performance,
and therefore determines achievement. Only the Lord is the actual power and
wisdom behind these events in the ultimates. But the Lord grants the
appearances of self-leading for the sake of the human race, that each
individual might feel self-mastery, self-efficacy, self-confidence,
self-determination, for without these no one would feel free, and without
feeling free nothing of love can be appropriated to self, hence no cumulative life
is possible, no human life.
The
achievements of science and art are therefore the details in the biography of a
society than the Lord brings out. The moments of reality are put together and
held together by the Lord through the chain of correspondences from Firsts to
Lasts. Nothing
whatsoever in the successes and achievements of science and art can be
attributed to the self-intelligence of those involved. You can see
therefore that the man who has insane thoughts and feelings within that he
hides from without, can be one of those contributors of science or art, or
business, etc. Swedenborg has observed this insanity in spirits when they are
experimentally taken from their sane external into their insane internal (xx).
Spirits cannot stay for long in their external state because their internal
state is overpowering and dominates.
All these
things are said to show that the unregenerate mind lives in an insane state of
mind from within and it has this from hereditary infection of the spirit of
every individual born on this earth. It is similar with the
You can see
that the unregenerate New Church person and the unregenerate Old Church person
and the unregenerate atheist person have all three something in common, namely,
being in the unregenerate human state. The
Lord has made it crystal clear in the Letter of His Word: the unregenerate
person is entirely infernal regardless of background or belief system (xx).
This is the
deeper meaning of Nunc Licet, namely
that from now on there is no need for an intermediary mechanism of salvation
such as there was in the sensuous revelation of Himself in the New Testament. Now all intermediary mechanisms of religion, baptism, initiation,
worship, sacraments, prayers--which were required before, are now no longer
required. Now the Lord talks to every individuals rational mind. Now
the individual is the actual Church in which the Lord is the priest and preacher.
This is accomplished through the Letter of the Writings. Now anyone from
anywhere anytime can pick up a copy of the Writings and save himself from
eternal damnation by following the rational revolution in its pages. Salvation
is then obtained if we compel our willing and thinking all day long to conform
to this rational paradigm. Anyone can now do this anywhere on the planet,
without equipment, facility, permission, or instruction. This is all that is
required for salvation, for eternal conjugial bliss in heaven as an angel
couple.
16. Rational Consciousness Of The Lord Now Conjoins
The demystification
of religion is the greatest boon to the human race on this planet.
This one on
one conversion of an individual regardless of birth or belief is the new hallmark
or crown of the generations to come to eternity. This is the spiritual meaning
of Nunc Licet.
Nunc is
Latin for now which signifies the new state of the human race as a result of the
new rational consciousness the Lord has made available through the Word of the
Writings. Licet is Latin for it is allowed which signifies spiritually that it
is required. When the divine creates a new way for being conjoined to the human
race, this new way then becomes the required way, the only way for conjunction.
Nunc Licet in the internal sense therefore signifies that rational consciousness
will henceforth be the only way for being conjoined to the Divine Human. The New
Heavens that have been created at the Second Coming are made of these new
spiritual-rational truths, also called rational loves, since love is always
within truth.
Now it is
required that we enter into the mysterious of faith in a rational way. Only rational
consciousness can henceforth conjoin us to the Lord. This rational
consciousness is what enlightens the
This new
mode of conjunction of the Lord with the human race depends on the evolution of
our rational consciousness of Him. This is the purpose of the Second Coming,
namely, to establish the rational truths for this new role for the human race--the
rational consciousness of the Lord. Today, it would be injurious for our
spiritual life for the Lord to speak with us through a living voice such as was
heard by the people in the Old and New Testaments. It would be injurious of our
spiritual life for the Lord to appear in the clouds of our skies and gather the
faithful about him, catching them in the air, and taking them off to a new
place of living. By sensuous consciousness of Him the human race was advanced
to a higher plane of thinking than was possible before the Lords First Coming.
At that time He announced that He must come again after departing from them. To
depart from them meant that He would no longer be present to them in a sensuous
way. He said He would be present with the human race by means of the Holy
Spirit. This was the rational consciousness by which He was planning to bring
about the final step in the creation of the human race. This step was to attain
a celestial mind prepared for the highest heaven possible.
These final
heavens are the completion of the human race, its final evolution. These heavens are in the
So to ask
the Lord questions as a wise man is to apply the Letter to the Letter.
17. Rational Consciousness From Applying The Letter To The Letter
Before we
are wise, we read the Letter of the Writings in its sensuous, as a child,
addressing the Lord in His Divine Corporeal. We are not wise because one cannot
actually talk to the Divine Corporeal, but only to the Divine Rational within
the Divine Corporeal. In the innocence of childhood we do not know, and could
not believe, that the Letter of the Writings is in itself dead, and that the
literal understanding we have of it is an understanding of mere natural
correspondences of the Lords Divine Rational. But when we become like a wise
person, we address our focus and question to the Lords Divine Rational which
is within the Divine Natural of the literal meaning.
And to apply the Letter to the
Letter is to address the Lords Divine Rational.
This is
then how a wise man talks to the Lord and asks Him questions of the appropriate
kind. This kind of communication with the Lord constitutes conjunction with Him
to the extent that we love this way of communicating with Him. What is applying
the Letter to the Letter but to see Him rationally The Letter of the Writings are correspondences of Him in the external rational degree
and when we inquire about these natural-rational correspondences we are
inquiring about His Divine Rational. It is His Divine Rational truths that are
laid down within the Letter of the Writings. Interior-rational truths are laid
down within external rational truths. Correspondences are called external rational
truths. When we think and reason about the Lord by means of our natural-rational
thinking, we are seeing Him as His Divine Natural correspondences appear to the
human race.
By asking
what these correspondences stand for we are asking the Lord to enlighten us
regarding His Divine Rational. We must never ask anyone else about these
correspondences regarding His Divine Natural. We must not consult our own
intelligence, nor must we consult the intelligence of a teacher, priest, or
writer. We must ask the Lord alone, and that is the Letter of the Writings, for
the Lord speaks to the
We are
conjoined to the Divine Human of the Lord when we see the Letter of the
Writings as correspondences of Him and inquire of Him what these
correspondences stand for. This inquiry process is nothing else than the
process of extracting Spiritual Doctrine form the Letter of the Writings. The Spiritual Doctrine is in our
interior-natural mind, is of spiritual and celestial origin, and is Divine.
This new
spiritual consciousness is the understanding of interior-rational truths by
means of higher correspondences of the Divine Human.
Applying
the Letter to the Letter is asking an appropriate question of the Lord. The
Lord then always answers. When the Lord answers us, we are enlightened, for the
Lord answers by giving heavenly light and when we understand by heavenly light
we are spiritually enlightened. Enlightenment is therefore nothing else than
understanding interior-rational truths by means of higher correspondences.
As
discussed elsewhere, there are lower and higher correspondences that we can be
conscious of while we are regenerating. Lower correspondences are the natural-rational
truths of the literal meaning of the Letter of the Writings. Higher
correspondences are the interior-natural truths we understand when we are
enlightened. The content of enlightenment is therefore the perception of higher
correspondences called interior-natural truths.
You might wonder: if these interior truths are also correspondences when do we get to the state where we see the actuality rather the higher and higher correspondences of the actuality
The answer
is that the idea truth and the idea correspondence are parallel ideas and
can practically be taken to mean the same thing. If we see higher
correspondences, we see higher truths. That is, if we understand the
correspondences for higher correspondences, we understand ever more
interior-truths. When we are angels we continue to grow daily
in wisdom through the Letter of the Writings (xx). How is this daily
increment achieved By seeing the new truths received each day as
correspondences. In this way, the new truths we receive today will be seen in a
still more interior light tomorrow. This progression from interior to more
interior is achieved by means of the vehicle of correspondences. Such is the
process of enlightenment that it can increase day by day to eternity.
18. So Far As The Lord Is Present, So Far He Speaks With The Man
It is
written that the Lord is continually speaking with man, but quite differently
with one man than with another (AC 904). When I read this Commandment, I wondered
how was I to acknowledge this Divine intimacy
I could say
prayers at mealtimes and study the Writings daily, and this I was able to do.
But not so much talking to Him and actually acknowledging and being rationally
aware of His presence and teamwork as the day unfolded. I kept forgetting to do
it and hours would go by before I realized in shock that, in my conscious
awareness, I had totally ignored His Co-Presence and Co-Participation. And so I
keep my practice up and amazing to say, I'm only partially succeeding after
decades of trying. But this is the spiritual
discipline of it--to keep striving for progressively better performance in the
face of opposing forces from interior sources.
The angels
never for one instant forget the Lords presence before them and they see the
Lord amidst the spiritual Sun no matter which way they turn or walk (DLW 131).
This is the attitude we can strive to achieve in our life of discipline as a
regenerating
The Lord speaks
with every man, for whatever a man wills and thinks that is good and true, is
from the Lord. There are with every man at least two evil spirits and two
angels. The evil spirits excite his evils, and the angels inspire things that
are good and true. Every good and true thing inspired by the angels is of the
Lord; thus the Lord is continually speaking with man, but quite differently
with one man than with another. With those who suffer themselves to be led away
by evil spirits, the Lord speaks as if absent, or from afar, so that it can
scarcely be said that He is speaking; but with those who are being led by the
Lord, He speaks as more nearly present; which may be sufficiently evident from
the fact that no one can ever think anything good and true except from the
Lord.
()
[3] The presence of the Lord is first possible with a man
when he loves the neighbor. The Lord is in love; and so far as a man is in
love, so far the Lord is present; and so far as the Lord is present, so far He
speaks with the man. Man knows no otherwise than that he thinks from himself,
whereas he has not a single idea, nor even the least bit of an idea, from
himself; but he has what is evil and false through evil spirits from hell, and
what is good and true through angels from the Lord. (AC 904)
This is an
astonishing scientific revelations about the human race, totally unsuspected by
scientists today, and if they're told about it, totally unbelievable to them. I
call it our membership into the vertical community of spirits and angels, in
contrast to our membership in the horizontal community of counties and nations
on the planet. We are never alone in our
mind! Entire societies of thousands of people are connected to our thoughts
and affections through the one or two subject spirits that are directly near
our spirit-body (xx).
The
The
We need to examine records we keep about topics we discuss in the course of the day and week. Carrying a notepad or small voice recorder is essential for this type of record keeping. Now you have the data in front of you: How many times in a day have you spoken about correspondences and spirits as explanatory concepts in events and in our thinking and willing How many times a day have you thought about it yourself
I ask
myself this as a regenerating person: How can I train my mind to be sane if I
only think about correspondences and spirits while I'm reading the Writings or
attend a class I know theoretically that everything around me happens by means
of the Lords management laws, including what is happening in my thoughts and
feelings. The Lord is like a Great orchestra director, upon whom every musician
on stage focuses attention and obeys the rhythm of his baton. All day long my
mind is busy figuring things, explaining things, deciding this, expecting that.
This busy activity keeps my experiences coherent to myself. I know what I'm
doing, what I'm thinking, what I don't know, etc. I explain and interpret what
happens here, and then what goes on over there. As an unregenerate man, I construct these accounts and understandings
solely from myself since I think I'm alone in my mind.
But following
reformation, I read the Writings every day, by which I immerse my understanding
in the reality of correspondences and spirits. Now everything I see must be
explained differently than before or else the Writings are not really real. All
the normal events around me must now be related to correspondences and spirits.
To fail to do this would be to remain in insanity, for the unregenerate state
is a universal state of spiritual insanity (xx). Natural sanity and
intelligence appear on the outside surface of our behavior, so that the insanity
within remains hidden until the afterlife where it bursts open like a genie in
a bottle whose cork was popped off.
This
obviously applies to how we talk to our children and teach them about reality.
Imagine you
read a transcript of your interactions with your children in one week and
nowhere do these words appear:
What would it mean that only five of these appear in a weeks discourse in your life What would it mean if ten
The point
is that I need to have such a list a conscious part of my sanity. Am I in
training to create a celestial mind in myself Is it logical for me to expect
that I will just automatically and spontaneously have the kind of mind that can
be happy in heaven where only rational loves can exist Reason tells me that
that I must prepare in an active way by figuring out the reality behind the
appearances. The Lord has given us soap and water by which to wash and bathe.
The soap represents the regeneration of our will and the water represents the
reformation of our understanding. That the Lord gives us this soap and water
means that our effort and power is from Him, not ourselves. That we are to wash
our hands, feet, and body means that we are to exert as-of self effort in
constructing a new understanding for ourselves, one that is faithful to the
reality He reveals to us in the Writings.
To have
these basic topics in our thinking and in our speaking all day long is a Divine
Commandment (xx). These topics need to appear in our thinking all day long. They
need to appear in our reasoning and decision making, in our interpretations and
explanations of every ordinary thing I do. These topics also need to appear in
my dialog with my wife, children, and friends. What does it mean if they are
absent I've been interviewed by reporters hundreds of times in the past five
years regarding my expertise on road rage and aggressive driving (see my Web
site www.DrDriving.org ). Not once have
I mentioned what I think is the spiritual reality of driving in relation to
spirits and regeneration. Not once have I mentioned the Lords work and role in
auto safety and crash statistics. And this is a rational decision, as you can
no doubt understand. Instead, I remain at the expertise level of psychology and
of my own self-observations as a driver. There is also much discussion on
surveys and polls of drivers and what they say about themselves in relation to
who they are by age, gender, education, or geographic location.
But if you
were to examine my own thinking and reasoning about driving and other drivers,
the 21 fundamental topics of reality listed above, are involved and do appear.
This is one point that needs to be stressed. The
It is an
important regeneration discipline to make ourselves think and talk about the rational
ideas that explain natural events and acts. These rational ideas must be those
we take up from the Letter of the Writings by daily study. When we read the
Writings is the same as worshipping the Lord and speaking with Him. The Lord
speaks with man only through the Word (xx).
For a
discussion on teaching children with integrated concepts see Chapter xx Section
xx.
19. Cleanliness
And Health
Disciplines
In general,
disciplines include physical, verbal, and mental domains of our daily
behaviors. All disciplines are natural, not yet spiritual, but they create
natural-rational vessels into which spiritual truths can descend (NJHD 51; AC
3508, 978, 4286; AE 355:14). Disciplines can be readily applied to many
behavioral routines that we repeat daily. Physical habits of cleanliness and
health often encounter resistance in our external mind, providing opportunities
for overcoming them through discipline. For years I have monitored myself in
daily struggles to floss my teeth. My research with college students shows that
this is a common problem (see Note 15 at end). Another behavioral area where
discipline can be effectively applied is cursing and the extremely common use
of the f word. The
Regarding
forms of speech: The things people say and the way they say them are like the
ideas of their thoughts, for ideas of thought become words when they go out
into speech. (De Verbo3:7)
Swearing
appears to be a universal practice among humans. It takes years of dedicated
practice to cut out these harmful verbal habits and at length be shocked at
them. The key to success, as with all disciplines, is to monitor and keep
cumulative records of ones lapses and resistances. For to fail in profanations
is to lose everything:
By
"taking the name of God in vain" is properly signified to turn truth
into evil, that is, to believe that it is truth, and nevertheless to live in
evil; and it also denotes to turn good into falsity, that is, to live holily,
and yet not to believe. Both are profanation (n. 4601), for believing is of the
understanding, and living is of the will; and therefore in those who believe
otherwise than they live, the thought and will are divided. But as the will
continually flows into the understanding, for the understanding is the form of
the will; that is, the will manifests itself there in light; therefore it is
that when a man believes in one way and lives in another, truth and evil, or
good and falsity, are conjoined; thus the things that are of heaven with man
are conjoined with those which are of hell.
This
conjunction cannot be dissolved, and thereby the man be healed, except by a
pulling asunder which carries away with it everything of spiritual life; and
therefore these persons are sent into a hell the most grievous of all, where
they are direfully tormented.
This is
what is meant by the words of the Lord in Matthew:
All sin and
blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy of the spirit shall not
be forgiven unto men. If anyone shall say a word against the Son of man, it
shall be forgiven him; but he who shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall
not be forgiven him, neither in this age, nor in that which is to come (Matt.
(AC 8882:2)
20. Not Detachment,
But Right Attachments
Eastern
nonduality promotes the view that detachment from life's dualities must be the
direction of our life's struggles. The opposite is promoted in the Writings,
namely, that the direction of our life's struggles must be right attachments, and the more such attachments the better for
our spiritual development and happiness. For what is right attachment but
uses in life, which constitute the very foundation of celestial life. The
highest consciousness and evolution of the individual is the ever increasing
number of uses one can perform (DLW 65).
What is
detachment It is the weakening of the will to struggle and perform uses or
good works. Attachment to falsities and evils bring spiritual death; attachment
to truths and goods bring heavenly life. The human mind contains both motives:
the love for detachment which is in the lowest region called natural, and the
love for attachment which is in the highest degree called celestial. The
natural mind feels attracted to the idea of detachment when it is turned
towards the outward senses and builds is nonduality from there. Then detachment
is the promise of bliss without struggle. By rejecting the good and the true
equally with the bad and the false, one is no longer constantly making choices.
This idea is attractive to the natural mind turned towards the outside world of
nature.
But once we
begin to be regenerated the natural mind turns itself inward toward the
spiritual mind and waits for instructions. A constant stream of instructions
comes down from the correspondences between the spiritual mind and the natural
mind. Now the natural mind sees life's struggle as the opportunity to perform
uses in the natural world. The spiritual mind is created to experience
blissfulness in uses. As regeneration progresses more interior uses are revealed
to our natural mind and our bliss grows in proportion to our love of uses.
These are the right attachments for the
Its
important to think about right attachments, or uses, in rational terms, not
natural. For example, its a natural way of thinking when we think about the
number of hours we should volunteer for charity work or services, so we may
fulfill religious uses. There may a hidden sense of meritoriousness in this
type of natural idea of uses (NJHD 124). Of course there may not be as well,
especially in the case of people who do it in response to an urge by their good
will. Such natural idea of charity is then counted by the Lord as good, meaning
that He is able to turn it into a spiritual benefit to the person. (TCR 360) But
the uses done out of a desire for acquiring spiritual points are not counted
as good, for within them there is a selfish motive. This the Lord cannot turn
into the individuals spiritual benefit. Right attachments are of spiritual
benefit; wrong attachments are harmful to spiritual development.
The
nonduality of detachment is therefore to be turned into the dualities of
attachments that are distinguished into good and evil uses.
Consider
religious disciplines we do for our regeneration. They point towards uses in a
rational way. We can see that uses depend on motive and therefore whatever we
do from a motive to obey the Lords Commandments, is a
use. Whatever it is. Take for instance the discipline
of washing dishes (see Chapter 9 Section 6). Its an activity that tends to
take roughly the same amount of minutes at predictable times during the day. We
can perfect that use more and more, day after day, without changing the number
of minutes or the times. This is because any task that takes a few minutes to
perform is composed of numerous sub-parts, each of which has its own numerous
sub-parts. You can see this easily with a musicians use of performing on an
instrument. A piano concerto might require several thousand notes to be played
by the fingers and each note can be played in many ways. No matter how many
times the musician plays that piece improvement could take place with each new
repetition. Each time the practice is repeated, a new use is performed. And perhaps many new uses with one repetition.
This
rational view of uses shows that uses are infinite and that what allows us to
perform new uses is the right attachments we struggle to achieve, note by note,
sub-task by sub-task, dish washing episode by dish washing episode. Heavenly
bliss is to be able to increase our right attachments hour by hour, and day by
day, to eternity (AC 5354).
21. Self-worth, Self-esteem, Self-efficacy
The
If you
merely remove the old proprium, we fall into a swoon or coma of unconsciousness
since all our life and motive for being comes from the proprium. since the proprium is degraded, all our life in the
unregenerate state comes form evil affections and delights. If the Lord were to
suppress these evil affections and delights, we would have no affections and
delights left as every one is infernal or evil. Without any delights and
affections, we are in a comatose state of unconscious life as a human
vegetable. We feel alive when we can enjoy something or do something for our
enjoyment or goal. With no affections, there are no goals to strive for or live
by. With no delights, there is no happiness, no enthusiasm, gladness of being,
or emotional reaction to anything. Hence if the Lord were to remove our
proprium, we would no longer be human beings.
Therefore
before a single evil affection or delight can be removed, it must be replaced
by a good affection or delight. For example, if you like to overeat and
maintain such a habit, the moment you go on an honest diet (no cheating), you
feel the joy of your life diminished in a significant way, sometimes so much,
that you cant stand it and willfully break the diet and go on an eating binge.
The removal of delights in relation to eating causes depression and the feeling
of losing some of our life. Therefore, the Lord has to give a new delight about
eating that replaces the old, so that we may continue to feel alive,
encouraged, and happy. There are numerous new heavenly affections and delights
that individuals may obtain with a variety, depending on their character and
genius. For example, there is a positive feeling of accomplishment and delight
when seeing oneself gaining in ability to control the appetite.
I like to
use the term self-efficacy beliefs to refer to these new feelings and their associated
thoughts. Since we reject the old proprium as an infernal attachment we were
born with, we need a new self-esteem that looks toward the new proprium. Self-efficacy beliefs are thoughts we have
about ourselves that are compatible with the exercise of self-control over our
disorderly affections and delights.
Regeneration
is the struggle to find, reject, and suppress our evil delights and affections,
and at last, to find them detestable. We then hate the old proprium as infernal
and love the new proprium as heavenly. The
new self is now called as-of self.
This name
change marks a momentous actual change in our personality makeup.
The as-of
self is a heavenly construction, therefore a rational one, since all of heaven
is purely rational (xx). The as-of self has high self-esteem and strong
self-efficacy beliefs. When we are willing and thinking in the state of mind
called the as-of self, we are born in our activities by the current of Divine
Providence like a ship is carried by the strong currents to a friendly port
(xx). All things are then possible to us. No force exists that can stop us.
To gain
this kind of angelic self-confidence we start by being grounded in the Letter
of the Writings. There are many teachings regarding the as-of self and the
angelic character. Taking up the Letter into our mind is accomplished by daily
study in a cumulative scholarly procedure that strives to understand the
literal meaning. The purpose of taking up the Letter must be that we can begin
thereby our regeneration. Once the Letter is in our understanding it forms a
plane for our thinking and reasoning. Now we can apply this way of thinking and
reasoning to our daily life and evaluate it. We must monitor our willing and
thinking acts by the minute, hour by hour, every day. In this way we can apply
the Letter to our willing and thinking. This creates the Spiritual Doctrine in
our mind, and this has the power to regenerate us, as is discussed in Volume 2.
22. Remains Are The Cornerstone of Self-worth
Remains are
affections for good and truth that the Lord implants in every individual
starting at birth and onward. The individual is not conscious of this process,
nevertheless the remains connect the person to heavenly protection and
influence. The angels inflow into those remains and
activate a beneficial process of mental development that helps us direct our
willing and thinking into good and truth.
Remains refer
to both the individual and the race. When a civilization becomes vastated, a
But still remains are always preserved, or some with whom
the good and truth of faith remain, although they are few; for unless the good
and truth of faith were preserved in these few, there would be no conjunction
of heaven with mankind. As regards the remains that are in a man individually,
the fewer they are the less can the matters of reason and knowledge that he
possesses be enlightened, for the light of good and truth flows in from the
remains, or through the remains, from the Lord. If there were no remains in a
man he would not be a man, but much viler than a brute; and the fewer remains
there are, the less is he a man, and the more remains there are, the more is he
a man. Remains are like some heavenly star, which, the smaller it is the less
light it gives, and the larger, the more light. (AC 530)
Remains
contribute to our regeneration in a continuous way, the more of them present,
the more we can be regenerated in our willing and thinking. This makes sense
since remains are angelic influences within our new proprium. When we
voluntarily choose to act on these inner positive influences, we are acting
from these remains. Conscience is a common every day example. Dozens of times
every day our conscience directs us in our willing and thinking. This is
possible because of the angelic influx into the remains. These are located in
the spiritual mind, which remains unconscious while we are still tied to the
physical body. But as explained in Volume 2, the activity of the spiritual mind
interacts with the interior-natural mind that the Lord creates within the
natural-rational mind. These higher spiritual correspondences in our
interior-natural mind give us the ability for rational consciousness of
spiritual things, also called spiritual-rational truths. The consciousness
of these truths make us genuinely human for the first time. In this
regenerating state, the
The man who is in the good of charity and faith loves also
himself and the world, but no otherwise than as the means to an end are loved.
The love of self with him looks to the love of the Lord, for he loves himself
as a means to the end that he may serve the Lord; and the love of the world
with him looks to the love of the neighbor, for he loves the world as a means
for the sake of the end that he may be of service to the neighbor. When
therefore the means is loved for the sake of the end, it is not the means that
is loved, but the end. (AC 7819)
The love of
self discussed here is what we acknowledge as self-esteem in the
The
There is no
need or place for false modesty in the
23. Shunning The Rage-Depression Spin Cycle
zzz (to
be completed)
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, Gurdijeffs and Swedenborg General Church Sound
Recording Library, Bryn Athyn, 1976.
Leonard
Fox, Gurdijeffs: 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.À 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
)
Rev.
Theodore Pitcairn, The Internal Sense of the Chapter on Ecclesiastical and
Civil government in The New Jerusalem And Its
Heavenly Doctrine. (March 1930)À Discovered recently and published in
the restart issues of De Hemelse Leer,
April 2002 issue, pp. 83-91. Dr. Rutger Perizonius, Editor (Van der Heimstraat
5, 2582 RX,
Note 23
The
following
Rev. Donald
L. Rose, Sermon titled The Colt Loosed For the Lords
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;À Introduction to Chapter 8)
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 Silvermans 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 in an exchange of correspondence 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.eduÀ
The Web address of the latest version of this document is:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nonduality.html
Titles for the Abbreviated Citations in the
Book
|
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 |
Full text
access to these works is free, with a search engine, at:
http://www.theheavenlydoctrines.org
When printing this document use the Microsoft Word version since it
retains the original pagination and formatting. The .doc file is available
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Volume 2:À www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/volume2-nonduality.doc
This document is in the process of being revised. Please note the draft
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located at this address:
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The first
of them was at that point taken back to a state he had passed through when he
lived in the world; for anyone can easily be taken back to a state of his life
when in the world because every state of his life is present within him. (AC
4658)
On the
knowledge of the angels
To speak
only of the knowledge of the angels of the inward heaven, let just a single
example suffice-their knowledge of the structures and forms of the body. For
when one or another internal organ of the body is under consideration, they are
able to find out not only that organ's whole structure and operation, but also
whether any least answer that anatomical science has been able to detect experimentally
is really true. They are also able to find out in an instant whether anything
asserted regarding the individual internal organs, besides many other interior
parts, is true-things which no one of the human race could ever possibly know,
as I have experienced several times. They also know to which spiritual elements
all these parts correspond. À(SE 1625)
I was
afterwards remitted into the company of those of this character, from whence
respiration flowed in, that I might know their quality; the respiration was
then separated from the pectoral region, and removed to the abdominal about the
naval, nor did it extend itself any further; and this signifies a life
separated from good and truth. There were then shown to me certain species of
respirations, concerning which much conversation also was had, as, for
instance, that there is conjoined with the usual respirations an external one,
which is common to the world of spirits; then an internal with an insensible
external, which is sufficiently good; then an internal without an external,
which is better; and finally an insensible one that was to me scarcely
perceptible, which is angelic. But these in general; there are still other
genera, and an indefinite number of species, pertaining to different regions of
the body and the determinations thence, concerning which, by the favor of the
Lord, I shall speak elsewhere. I was first accustomed thus to respire in my
early childhood, when saying my morning and evening prayers, and occasionally
afterwards, when exploring the harmonies of the lungs and heart, and especially
when deeply engaged in writing the works that have been published. For a course
of years I continually observed that there was a tacit respiration, scarcely
perceptible, concerning which it was subsequently given me to reflect, and then
to write. I was thus during many years, from the period of childhood,
introduced into such respirations, especially by means of absorbing
speculations, in which the breathing seems to become quiescent, as otherwise the
intense study of truth is scarcely possible. Afterwards, when heaven was opened
to me, and I was enabled to converse with spirits, I sometimes scarcely
breathed by inspiration at all for the space of a short hour, and merely drew
in enough of air to keep up the process of thinking. Thus I was introduced by
the Lord into interior respirations. I have also again and again observed, that when I was passing into a state of sleep, my
respiration was almost taken away, so that I would awake and catch my breath. When
I observe nothing of the kind, I continue to write and think, and am not aware
of my respiration being arrested, unless I reflect upon it. This I may say has
happened in instances innumerable. Nor was I at such times able to observe the
various changes, because I did not reflect upon them. The design of all this
was, that every kind of state, every kind of sphere, and every kind of society,
particularly the more interior, might find in my own a fit respiration, which
should come into play without any reflection on my part, and that thus a medium
of interaction might be afforded with spirits and angels. (SE 3464)
The ability
to confirm whatever one pleases is not an indication of understanding; but the
ability to see that truth is truth, and that falsehood is falsehood, and to
confirm it is an indication of understanding. (TCR 334)