This is Volume 1
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 18)
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A “field” means doctrine (AC 368)
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truth (AC 427; 4823)
Volume 1
Table of Contents
1.
The Writings Are A Divine Scientific Revelation
2.
The Writings Are The Lord’s Second Coming
3.
Heaven Is Created From Rational Love
4. A
Divine Revelation That Surpasses All Others
5.
Swedenborg’s Scientific Experiments In The Spiritual World
6.
Swedenborg’s Dual Citizenship—Natural And Spiritual
7.
This Book Is About Regeneration
REFORMATION: THE INWARD STRUGGLE AGAINST NONDUALITY
The New Church Mind is to
be Formed by the Writings Exclusively
3.
Spiritual Truths Understood Naturally and Spiritually
4.
The Great Battle Of Nonduality Vs. Duality
5.
Enlightenment From The Lord
7. At
The Threshold Out Of Hell Into Heaven.
8.
Cooperation in our Regeneration
9.
The Lord’s Relationship to All Religions
10.
The Writings As The Exclusive Source For Spiritual Truths
11.
Separating Nonduality and Duality in the Mind
12.
Reformation by Means of the Writings
13.
Old and New Testament From Perspective Of The Writings
14.
The Writings Are The Last Revelation
15.
The Writings Are For The Rational Mind.
17.
The Birth Of The Interior-Natural
18.
Reformation And Regeneration Begin In Early Adulthood
19.
Nonduality Fills The Culture Around Us.
20.
Two Methods For Fighting Nonduality In The Mind
Absolute Opposition Between
Duality and Nonduality
1.
Religious Membership Not Required For Salvation
2.
Revelation Is Necessary For Spiritual Truths
3.
The New Rational Consciousness of God.
4.
Nonduality is from Self-intelligence
5.
Nonduality In The Mind Opposes Regeneration
2. Incompatibility with the
Writings
4. Duality is the only
reality
1.
The New Age Of The Second Coming
5. The natural and
spiritual mind
1.
Nonduality Is In The Unregenerate Natural Mind
2.
The Spiritual Begins With The Rational
3.
The Spiritual In The New Testament
6. Why nonduality can be
attractive
Eastern Nonduality in
Western Thinking
1. The Writings do not
contain any nonduality
2. No
Overlap Between Nonduality And Duality.
3. The notion of
”experiencing nonduality”
4. “Sacred Tantric Sex”
versus Conjugial Love
1.
Nonduality Between The Physical And The Spiritual
3.
Hell Is A Choice, Not A Punishment
7. The Writings are not
like other books or systems.
1.
Rational Versus Corporeal Spirituality.
2. The New Testament does
not contain any nonduality.
1.
Who Runs The Universe: The Divine Father Or The Divine Human?
3. Trinity of Persons
versus Unity of Three Aspects in One Person
1.
Spiritual Unity Is Different From Nonduality
4. People are saved apart
from their religion
1.
Everyone Can Be Regenerated
2.
Regeneration Leads To Enlightenment
5. Mind-Body Nonduality and
God-Cosmos Nonduality
1.
God Is Separate From Creation
6. Christian Science
Nonduality
7. Secular nonduality in
Objectivism, Skepticism, and the Aquarian Conspiracy
8. Rudolf Steiner’s
Christian Occult Science
9. Anti-semitism and
Holocaust Theology
1.
Tenets Of Holocaust Theology
2.
The Victims In The Afterlife
3.
The Spiritual Meaning Of Anti-Semitism..
4.
The Old Testament’s View Of The Chosen People
5.
All Old Testament Details Represent The Lord
6.
The Meaning Of “Jews” In The New Church Mind
7.
Anti-Semitism Is An Evil Love of the Unregenerate Mind
2. The Secular Spirituality
of Gurdjieff
1.
Debunking Psychology Concepts
2.
Commingling Secular Psychology With New Church Dualism
3. The secular
Swedenborgianism of Henry James, Sr.
1.
Nondualities In Henry James
4. Spiritual Christianity
of Charles Augustus Tulk
5. Duality between good and
truth
1.
When Good And Truth Are Disunited
2.
The Duality Or Distinctness Of All Things
6. Psychological Nonduality:
Near Death Experiences
2.
The Unregenerate Natural Mind Is Entirely Nondualist
3.
Increase In The Number Of NDE Reports.
4.
NDE As A Medical Phenomenon
5.
Theistic Science Research Is Needed
6.
The Rational Nature Of Genuine Spiritual Experience
7.
Shamanism And Technologies Of The Sacred
1.
The New Age And The New Church
Overcoming Intellectual
Impediments to Reformation and Regeneration
2. The Rational Is The
Entry Way To The Spiritual
2.
The External and Internal Understanding of Spiritual Ideas
3.
Sin And Spiritual Punishment
3. Deconstructing Nonduality
In Our Mind
1.
Acquiring Rational Truths From the Literal Language of the Writings
4. Development From
Sensuous Rational Consciousness
2. To
Love God We Must Understand Him Rationally
3.
The Rational Is The Entry Point To The Spiritual
4.
The Spiritual Power Of Rational Concepts
5. The New Church Mind And
Other Religions
1. No
Continuity Between Truths And Falsities
6. The Nonduality Of
Persuasive Faith
7. The Doctrine Of Discrete
Degrees
1.
Knowing About Correspondences
8. The Formation Of The
Internal Marriage
2.
Religious Justification For Dominion Over One’s Wife
3.
The Wife Is The Will Of Her Husband’s Understanding
5.
Facing One’s Wife Instead of Turning Away
Disconfirming Nondualist
Propositions In The New Church Mind
1.
Only The Writings Have Spiritual Truth.
2. The Notion That “Self Is
An Illusion”
3.The Notion That ”All Great Religions Are Equivalent”
1.
The Lord’s New Revelation Regarding All Religions
4. The Notion That “Meditation Is Spiritual”
6. The Notion That “We Are Already Perfect”
7. The Notion That “Being
One With Nature Is Spiritual”
8. The Notion Of
“Unconditional Love”
1.
Spiritual Events In The Inner Mind
2.
Everyone Is Born Into The Slavery Of An Addiction
3.
Good Loves And Genuine Truths
4.
What’s Wrong With Unconditional Self-acceptance
5.
Spiritual Dualities From the Writings Are To Be Loved And Lived
7.
What Is Loving The Neighbor?
9. A
Poisonous Serpent And Cockatrice
9. The New
Church View On Forgiveness.
1.
Forgiveness Is Always Granted Immediately by the Lord
10. The
Secular View On Forgiveness.
11. The
Christian View On Forgiveness
2.
Willing And Thinking According To The Letter
Introduction: Key Concepts
In the New Church Mind
2.
Constructing Integrated Concepts
3. A
Few Key Concepts From The Writings
2. Discrete Degrees In Successive
And Simultaneous Order
Ghosts,
Vampires, Aliens, “Energies” And “Vibrations”
1.
“After The Completion Of This Book”
4. The Idea of “Salvation is by Means Only”
5. The Idea of “Conjugial Love”
1.
Achieving An Internal Union
2.
Discrete and Reciprocal Relationship Between Man And Woman
3.
Conjugial Love Vs. Pornography And Adultery
6. The Mind Is In The Spiritual World
1.
The Corporeal Sensuous Mind Tends Toward Hell
2.
Only Rational Loves Exist In Heaven
3.
Revelation Of Interior Rational Truths.
5.
Genuine Images and Maps Of The Spiritual World
7. The Vertical Community: Spiritual Influx From Heaven And Hell
1. We
Are Created Dual Citizens In Two Worlds
2. A
More Effective Self-Management Technique
3.
Spirituality Is Not Visible In The Letter
4.
Spirituality Reenters The Human Race
5.
Hearing But Not Understanding
6.
Spiritual Meaning Of Parables
7.
Building Up Spiritual Doctrine In Our Mind
8. The Idea of “Earths in the Universe”
1.
The Lord Would Not Want To Mislead Us.
Titles for the Abbreviated
Citations in the Book
Full Text Free Online Access to All Swedenborg’s
Writings:
Volume 2 is
located at this address:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nonduality2.html
Volume 3 is
located at this address:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nonduality3.html
Every
spiritual truth in the Writings
is a Divine Commandment
|
“The
manifestation of the Lord, and intromission into the spiritual world, surpass
all miracles. This has not been granted to anyone since the creation, as it
has been to me.” Emanuel Swedenborg (INV 52) |
This book
presents the perspective on reality given in the Writings of Emanuel
Swedenborg (1688-1772).
It is intended
for all those, regardless of religious or intellectual background, who want to
form a new mind in themselves that is based exclusively on the Writings. The
book’s purpose is to assist them in undergoing reformation and regeneration in
preparation for a conjugial life in heaven.
1. The Writings Are A Divine
Scientific Revelation
In today’s
intellectual climate revelations from God, His Name, the Bible, heaven and
hell, Church Doctrine, and the like are automatically considered religious
issues. When I started reading the Writings I was well into my career as a
psychology professor, writer, and scientist. I knew that the two-dozen books of
the Writings that I was studying were categorized as religious books, since I
found them in our university library in the section on Bible Commentaries. But
the books were written by Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish scientist of repute in
his days, and known to many influential intellectuals in
Swedenborg
was a fully rational thinker with a passion and commitment for explanations of
phenomena that span the entire chain of their existence from ultimates to
firsts. And since it is irrational to think that firsts can be from nothing or
from chaos, rationality requires that the first of all phenomena be a rational
Human God.
Swedenborg’s
science was therefore inclusive and centered on a Human God who runs the
universe in a rational way that is discoverable by intellectual investigation.
Swedenborg
relied on the revelations of the Bible for the scientific facts about the
spiritual world. Since he had no direct access to the spiritual world (until
age 57), he extracted the facts from the Bible using both its literal meaning
and spiritual meaning. The Bible reveals many scientific facts about the
spiritual world in relation to the natural world, as for instance:
q
that there is a God who forms and
runs the universe
q
that God is Human
q
that God’s personality is motivated
by Divine Love
q
that God runs the universe by means
of rational laws
q
that there is a spiritual world and
life after death
q
that we are immortal
q
that in the afterlife we live in either
heaven or hell
q
that the spiritual world is within
the mind, thus that the mind is in the spiritual world
q
that spirit and mind are the same
q
that those who make it to heaven are
then angels
q
that those who make it to hell are
then devils
q
that heaven and hell are within us
q
that our character is what
determines whether we are to live in heaven or hell within us
q
that we inherit a degenerate
character that must be regenerated
q
that regeneration consists in
following conscience, not doing evil to the neighbor, loving to do good
q
that our mind or spirit is in
unconscious communication with those who are already in the spiritual world
q
that God manages the smallest
details of our willing and thinking so as to facilitate regeneration
q
that God manages the details of
every event or outcome at the macro and micro levels, including fortuitous
events, accidents, the laws of chance, randomness, regularity
q
and many others
The above
list of scientific facts about the universe is based only on the literal meaning of the Bible.
Swedenborg
also extracted many scientific facts from the spiritual meaning of Bible verses, as for example:
q
that the Bible is the Word and
therefore it is Divine Truth
q
that parts of the Bible are written
as accurate history, while other parts are spiritual visions
q
that spiritual visions are universal
phenomena brought about by correspondences
q
that correspondences are revealed by
God to the human race
q
that correspondences are Divine
Truths accommodated to human intelligence
q
that correspondences are ordered in
discrete degrees or levels in a hierarch of truths from external to inmost
q
that regeneration of one’s character
is achieved by the applying the power of correspondences to one’s daily willing
and thinking
q
that the universe is managed by a
hierarchical order of correspondences that are represented in the spiritual
meaning of the Bible
q
that individual regeneration and
biography recapitulates history and evolution
q
that the Bible reveals the
intellectual history of the human race within the spiritual meaning of the details
regarding names, places, numbers, and descriptions
q
that we live in heaven as angel
couples
q
that in the afterlife we have
spirit-bodies allowing us to live in society, marriage, and an active creative
life
q
that the human race extends beyond
this planet to the entire universe
q
and many more
At age 57
the Divine Human appeared to Swedenborg, held him affectionately in His arms,
and announced to him the mission for which he was prepared by God since early
childhood. Swedenborg was to be the revelator by whom the Second Coming of the
Lord was to be effected. Swedenborg was going to write and publish a series of
books called the Writings. The Writings were to be the Divine Rational of the
Lord which was to be revealed to the human race as a rational and scientific
system of thinking. The Divine Human was to effect its Coming within these
rational truths. Any individual who read these truths and understood them,
taking them to be the guides of life, would be regenerated and conjoined to the
Divine Human by means of this new rational consciousness of God. Henceforth
this will be the orderly method of regeneration for the human race.
In order
for the revelations of the Writings to be scientific and rational it was
necessary that Swedenborg have direct access to both worlds simultaneously.
Swedenborg had to be given the means to make empirical and experimental observations
in the spiritual world, such as the following:
q
to be present in heaven and hell and
to interview the people there
q
to watch the resuscitation process
during death and how the spirit emerges from the physical body
q
to talk to people whose body was
being buried
q
to interview various authors well
known from history and the Bible
q
to conduct experiments involving
spirits and their mental abilities
q
to compare the language and script
of the Word on earth and in heaven
q
to interview angel couples in their
homes
q
to travel in spirit to distant
planetary regions in the universe and to investigate the character of spirits
from those planets, and even, to see certain physical scenes on those planets
through the eyes of spirits associated with the people there
q
to be given visual observation posts
from which to describe the shape or form of the land masses of heaven and hell
q
to witness demonstrations of the
spiritual power of truths from the Word
q
to attempt therapy on those in hell
q
to interview new arrivals in the
afterlife and what memories they bring with them
q
to observe the education and raising
of children who arrive from the many earths
q
to experiment with correspondences,
seeing which produces what visual appearance
q
and many more
From all
this you can see that Swedenborg’s Writings constitute theistic science. The
Writings of Swedenborg are rational scientific works written in Neo-Latin by a
Swedish scientist and engineer in the 18th century. They are unique in the history of humankind
because they present a fully rational comprehensive scientific account of all
of reality, God, and human beings.
Prior
accounts in the history of literature were never fully scientific, and never
fully complete and comprehensive. If Swedenborg had merely written what his own
genius figured out, the Writings would remain one of the greatest collections
of rational philosophy, science, and theology anywhere. But the Writings are
not books from the genius of Swedenborg, but much more, something entirely
different, unparalleled in the history and evolution of the human race. The Writings are God’s Rational and
Scientific Revelation now given to the human race for the first time. They
present a fully rational and scientific account of reality, such as God has
created it. If the content of the Writings were merely Swedenborg’s ideas of
reality and God, they would form part of the literature of the world. But if
the Writings are from God, then the Writings are unlike all other books that
could be written.
No one
should decide between these two possibilities without examining the Writings. I
have examined them in detail, like I would a scientific collection of books
which I intend to evaluate. Having done this, I have come to the conclusion
that the Writings are the work of God, the last of the great revelations
intended for the human race and called “the Word.” What is astonishing is that the Word of God in this new revelation is a
science encyclopedia of the spiritual world! Since the spiritual world is
within the natural, and is the cause of all natural phenomena, you can see why
the Writings are a total and full scientific revelation of God. The human race
now possesses two sets of scientific encyclopedias, one natural, the other
spiritual; one about the natural world, the other about the spiritual world and
how it animates the natural.
Now in the
Writings, the human race has before it a full integrated rational description
of God, creation, the universe, heaven and hell, history, truth, love,
marriage, and regeneration.
This new beginning in science and rationality
may be called the new age of THEISTIC SCIENCE.
The
Christian tradition since the Lord’s First Coming has been that He is to come
again to complete the world’s makeover called the salvation of the human race.
They expect the Second Coming of the Lord to take place physically, appearing
in the clouds, calling on those who believe in Him, gathering them together in
one place, and giving them eternal life and happiness in Him. No one can tell
you exactly what this means in terms of details—except those who have read and
understood the Writings. For the Lord has effected His predicted Second Coming.
This Second Advent was to complete the creation of the human race. He had
already appeared physically in history and science, giving sensuous proof of
Himself. When He foretold that He must come again, He did not mean that He is
to come again in His glorified Divine Natural. He was actually saying that He
must come again in His Divine Rational. Then we can know Him fully, by knowing
the Divine Rational that is within the Divine Natural. A Second Coming in the
physical would retard still further the evolution of rational consciousness in
the human race.
The Lord is
Divine Truth, which means that the new heavens He creates are made of rational
loves, and these exist only in rational consciousness. The human race must
evolve rational consciousness to become spiritually enlightened and live in
heaven in eternity. This rational consciousness is brought about by forming our
mind to reflect the order described in the Writings. This rational order is the
Divine Rational of the Lord. From creation this is what the Lord intended, a
human race that would evolve into rational consciousness and capable of having
a celestial mind that lives in heaven. Now these rational truths have at last
been revealed in the Writings. This rational revelation of Divine Truth is the
Lord in His Second Coming.
Can a
neighbor of yours know you if he only knows what you look like but not what you
believe in and how you think? Christians got to know the Divine Natural of the
Lord in a sensuous way, tangible, touchable. Even after the first generation
passed on, the ensuing generations of Christians knew the Lord in this sensuous
way because they believed that He was real, that He had indeed been here on this
earth as God Incarnate. But this is relatively speaking, knowing the Lord like
a neighbor whom we can see with our eyes every morning exiting from the
apartment building, but whom we do not know because we do not know his beliefs
and attitudes.
The Divine Rational
of the Lord is within His Divine Natural, which makes sense because the Lord is
Human. All humans consist of a rational mind within a body. In this world, we
are a rational mind within a physical body, and in the afterlife, we are this
same rational mind, but now in a spirit-body. The Lord is always within His Divine Natural
Sensuous Body, as humans are always within their sensuous body. The sensuous
body is the outward casing for the spiritual rational mind. The Lord’s Divine
Natural Body is the outward Casing for His spiritual-rational mind called the
Divine Rational. This Divine Rational is the origin and source of Divine Truth,
the substance from which all is created. So the Lord’s Divine Rational is the
true Divine Human that we are to love and know. This Divine Rational is what has been revealed in the Writings.
2. The Writings Are The Lord’s
Second Coming
The Second
Coming refers to the revelation of the Divine Rational. This revelation was
completed and published on
The
Writings are God’s revelation to the human race of how He creates the universe
and how He runs and manages every detail. This includes the revelation that the
universe is created for a human purpose by means of truth within which is love.
And it also includes the revelation of the existence of two worlds, one being a
natural world where human beings are born and raised, the other a spiritual
world, where human beings awaken a few hours after death and continue
individual life eternally in either a celestial existence in heaven or an
infernal existence in the hells. I mention these things here as general topics
that have been of interest to the human race since the beginning of literature.
But the Writings deal with these spiritual, philosophical, and religious topics
in a rational way that give a scientifically precise and dynamic account of
them. This is what I found so attractive in the Writings the minute I started
reading them in 1981 at age 43, having discovered them in our university
library while I was searching for Bible Commentaries.
Subsequently
I also found out that the Writings of Swedenborg have had a distinguished but
small following, that his books have been translated in a dozen languages, and
that several communities have been created by people who call themselves the
Well, if
the Writings do not spring from Swedenborg’s genius, what is their origin?
God has
created the human race to evolve to ever higher powers of life and being. The
perfecting of the human race is a gradual evolution in which our conscious
cooperation with God is required to increase as we evolve to higher states of
life and consciousness. The method by which the human race cooperates ever more
consciously in its own evolution, is the method of truth and love. God is a
Divine Rational Being whose essence is love and truth in an infinite degree.
Divine Rational is the same as Divine Human, because the human is defined by
the rational. The spiritual is nothing but the human rational in its essence.
God creates
the universe not out of nothing, for this is irrational. God is infinite in
quantity and complexity, and this infinite quantity is in God as one, that is,
as one coherent whole. Nothing can exist that is not created from this infinite
Divine Rational Substance called love and truth united as one. All things that
exist are kept in existence by God’s substance of truth, within which is love.
3. Heaven Is Created From Rational
Love
Since the
universe is created from truth and into the order of truth, reality is a rational
reality. God is a rational entity and our idea of God is a rational idea. All laws
of the universe are rational laws. The spiritual world and the natural world
are both rational worlds, by necessity of creation. Heaven is a rational
creation. The suns and earths in the universe are rational entities. The human
race is a rational creation and event, with a rational goal, and a rational
method of evolution. The ultimate goal of this evolution is to reach perfection
as a rational being.
Truth
belongs to love. Love is the creating, driving force, power, and goal. When love creates something, it does that by
means of truth. Truth is the exteriorization of love. Love is the
substance, while truth is the form of this substance. Truth can do nothing by
itself, but only from love. Love can’t do anything except by means of truth. Since
all things are created from love by its truth into truth, the human mind is the
highest element of all creation. Only the human mind is created capable of
conscious understanding of truth, which can also be called rational love. The
human mind is to evolve into the ability to understand ever more interior
truths or rational loves, of which the most interior, is God. All things of creation are in God, yet God
is separate from this creation. It would not be rational to think that God
has created Himself! Neither that reality has created itself! God has created
reality, which means that God is outside reality, able to create it and run it.
The method
by which the human race is to evolve to ever more interior understanding of
infinite Divine Truth, is the method of Divine Revelations. This has been the
case since the first generation of the human race. Literature has preserved the
long record of Divine Revelations to the earlier generations. Each Divine
Revelation was given by God as a stepped up evolutionary leap for the human race.
Each new revelation took hundreds of generations to fully digest and incorporate
into the fabric of human understanding. In this way there has been steady
progress in the evolution of human consciousness, as reflected by a world that
has left barbaric savagery behind and has developed for itself an advanced
civilization based on rational principles of mutual cooperation and treatment.
4. A Divine Revelation That
Surpasses All Others
The
Writings are the latest new revelation given by God to the human race.
This is a
special new revelation that surpasses all other Divine Revelations.
These new revelations are for the
first time fully rational and scientific. The human race had to evolve a modern scientific
mind before these new rational scientific revelations could be given. At last,
in the Age of Reason of the 18th century in Christian Western
Europe, the human mind was ready to receive, understand, and accept a full
unqualified and total revelation of God and reality in rational concepts and
terms that the modern mind could readily understand. This was done through the
mind of Emanuel Swedenborg, recognized as one of the great geniuses in the
history of literature and science.
At age 57
Swedenborg was at the height of his scientific and professional career. His
achievements have been well documented in several fields, including metallurgy,
chemistry, anatomy, psychology, theology, education, and legislation. He tells
how the God of His childhood and country, in the image of Jesus Christ, appeared
before him and held him affectionately in His bosom for a little while. He
writes that the Lord then told him that he was being prepared since early
childhood for the mission of Revelator and that the time has now come, in 1741,
for him to begin his Divine mission.
Swedenborg’s
awesome mission was to write the 30-volume collection of books called “the Writings”
or “the Writings of Swedenborg.” These Divine Revelations are going to be the
last in the series of Divine Revelations that were to be given to the human
race. They were therefore going to be a full and total rational disclosure of
reality and its workings. Prior Divine Revelations of the Word, such as the Old
and New Testaments, were given in a language of authority and mystery, but the
final portion of the Divine Word for the human race, are given in a language of
rationality and science. No mystery is left standing. No appeal is made to authority,
but only to the individual’s rational understanding.
A Divine
Revelation is given for the purpose of raising the consciousness of the race.
This is accomplished by means of the truths in the Revelation. It is necessary
therefore that people be able to understand the revelation. To make this
possible therefore, all Divine Revelations are given through the mind of an individual
human being, a capable representative of the rest of the race. The man whose
mind was prepared for issuing this last of Divine Revelations had to be a
product of the Age of Reason in Christian Western intellectual culture. It had
to be a modern scientific revelation because the human race had evolved to this
level of rational and spiritual consciousness. The modern mind was unwilling to
believe in a God of mystery and authority. It needed a rational scientific
account of God, reality, and our position in it. Even a sensuous God was no
longer enough. This sensuous God had to have a rational explanation or else He
could not be understood, and what the modern mind cannot understand, it won’t
love. Without love for God, we cannot be regenerated and saved for life in
heaven.
The Age of
Reason in
The
Christian religion was given as both a sensuous and rational revelation to the
human race. The sensuous revelation was the unprecedented event of
Incarnation--God born in history as a human being of flesh and blood. This
event took the human race forward into rational consciousness. Now there was scientific
physical empirical historical evidence and proof of God’s existence. Besides
the sensuous revelation of the New Testament, a rational revelation is also
made there, namely, that God is Human. This was the first time that the human
race had proof that the universe was a rational universe created for a human
purpose by a Human God. God was Human and Rational, thus, Love and Truth. And
He created the universe out of Truth into truth, hence in a rational order.
God’s Laws were rational laws. The presence of God with the human race was
through rational consciousness, rational understanding, rational loves, not
ecstatic emotions or animal sacrifices and ceremonies.
The First
Coming was the Incarnation of God in a physical body. It was a momentous
forward step in the evolution of human consciousness because the human race had
never had this proof before, had never been able to face God in a physical and
natural presence. Now God was part of our history, part of our science, part of
our rational understanding of reality. Prior to God’s Incarnation the relationship
of the human race to God was an indirect one. God could make an appearance in
the sensuous human world by taking over the mind of a celestial individual and
speaking through this person like a mouthpiece. The prophets and various
individuals to whom God appeared in the Bible saw God through such an
appearance, thus not God, but a human being possessed by the Spirit of God. But
since God’s Incarnation, He can appear to human beings as Himself in His Own
Divine Natural Body. This allows a far closer contact with God, hence a far
higher level of consciousness and life for the human race.
The New
Testament Revelations also revealed that there is going to be one more Divine
Revelation necessary to complete the creation of the human race into its full
perfection. This full perfection is the state in which we can cooperate
consciously with God in our preparation for heavenly life in eternity. Full conscious cooperation cannot be done
while there are mysteries left in religion, science, and reality.
The Last
Divine Revelation, or the Last Testament of the Word, has been laid down in
Latin through the mind of Swedenborg, and now we have it, I, you, and the rest
of the endless generations to come. A copy of the Writings as the New Word is
also to be found in every society of the numberless heavens in the spiritual
world.
The Divine
Rational Revelations in the Writings could not have been constructed and
delivered through Swedenborg’s mind if Swedenborg had merely to take Divine
dictation and to write down sentences in that way, without understanding them,
without having constructed them out of his understanding. Therefore in order to
have Swedenborg write those sentences he had to first understand all of reality
and God in relation to the human race. He had to understand rationally so that
he could compose those sentences from which others could extract the rational
truths.
5. Swedenborg’s Scientific
Experiments In The Spiritual World
How was Swedenborg’s understanding
to be enlightened so that he could rationally and scientifically describe
reality and God in relation to the human race?
The answer
is surprisingly simple: Swedenborg had to be given access to a spiritual laboratory
so that he may conduct his experimental and empirical observations by which he
might discover the rational truths of reality and God in relation to human
beings.
These
laboratory facilities were given him as part of the Divine mission, which is
why Swedenborg wrote that the Writings represent the greatest miracle and
wonder ever bestowed upon the human race by God’s Love. Swedenborg’s
experiments with spirit subjects and geographical explorations in the spiritual
world were effected through the intermediary of many people in the spiritual
world. The people who inhabit the celestial regions in their mind are called
angels and have many powers that Swedenborg did not have, being still a man on
earth. These angels intervened of his behalf, protected him from harm, and
arranged for conditions Swedenborg needed to make his observations and to write
them down in a natural language (Neo-Latin and Swedish). He not only wrote down
what happened but was also given the capacity to provide a scientific and
theological context for his observations and reports. Thus, nothing is wanting
in the Writings for fulfilling its role as the greatest intellectual boon the
human race has ever received, or will ever receive again.
Within a
matter of a few weeks since the Lord’s appearance to Swedenborg, he began to
experience new perceptions as he was reading the Bible. His practiced genius
was able to make detailed indexes of the Holy Book which he read in the
original Hebrew and Greek. To his amazement he discovered that within the
literal meaning of the Old and New Testaments there lay hidden a spiritual
meaning that was not apparent to the reader until each word and phrase was
taken as a correspondence for some deeper spiritual meaning. For example, by
collating many corresponding passages from both Testaments, Swedenborg showed
how any rational and educated person could discover the spiritual message in
each verse. The content of these
spiritual meanings hidden within the literal had to do with the rational
exposition of reality and God in relation to the human race.
This systematic
work of discovery was most important and impressive, and will be a benefit to
humankind for all the ages to come. And yet, this work would not have been sufficient
to constitute the final, total, and thus last, Divine Revelation by which
everything the human race can know and understand. There also had to be a
science to it. Where was the science of it? Extracting a rational system from
historical Divine works in the Bible is admirable, but it is not a scientific
work. The only way Swedenborg could
produce a scientific report of the spiritual world was to be there when he
describes it!
This was
granted to him by Divine intervention as the greatest miracle in human history.
6. Swedenborg’s Dual Citizenship—Natural
And Spiritual
A few
months after his momentous encounter with the Lord, Swedenborg began to have
flashes of conscious presence in the spiritual world. He did not know what is
the spiritual world. From his initial flashes it looked like a version of the
natural world, with people walking about in cities and in the country side
where there were forests, deserts, mountains, and lakes. It took just a few months for him to get adjusted to a full time
permanent conscious awake state in both worlds simultaneously.
Never
before in history has anyone ever claimed to be fully conscious in both worlds simultaneously
and uninterruptedly for 27 years while carrying on their profession and normal
duties and in society. This was especially a significant development because
Swedenborg was an impeccable scientist of the modern Age of Reason in Christian
Western Europe. He was able to connect all his vast modern knowledge of natural
science and biology to his new life in the spiritual world. He wrote daily
notes, forming a coherent description of the relationship between the two worlds.
He was given access by the Lord to any society or individual in the spiritual
world that he desired to investigate. He was given the means by which to
conduct experiments, such as for example, what happens to the mind when you
experimentally remove from it this or that idea or belief. Also, what happens
when you supply this or that truth to an individual, or how people with
different genius communicate with each other through others, in an information
network, what the language of communication is in the spiritual world, how people
form different cultures and civilizations can co-exist, and many such things.
He kept
notes of his meetings and interviews in the spiritual world with thousands of
people in all categories that were relevant to his science and culture. He was
thus able to compare the understanding and state of life of many categories of
people, comparing their demographics with their spiritual character. He was
able to talk to authors from the ancient Greeks whose books he had read and
studied, so that he could compare what happens to the author’s mind when he
goes to the afterlife with these ideas. He was able to speak and travel with
people in the spiritual world who had been born on other planets and thereby he
gained an empirical knowledge of the varieties of the human race. He was able
to visit the high places and the low places of the spiritual world,
encountering there the highest level of the human, and the most depraved.
Because humans retain their ideas and attitudes when they pass on, they can be
explored as to the details of their life and conduct. Swedenborg was able to
make precise cause-effect observations between the ideas and loves we
accumulate as our personality, and the quality of our life and experience in
the spiritual world.
You can see
from all this that no other writings can be compared with the Writings of
Swedenborg.
Now that
the modern scientific Divine Rational Revelations have been given to the human
race, it will take many generations before they are recognized and acknowledged
by many. Since 1771, the year the last work of the Writings was published,
there have been thousands of individuals who have recognized them and
acknowledged them as Divine Revelations. Today, in the computer age of the
Internet, the Writings have become available to anyone who desires them. The
Lord manages every detail in the universe, hence also, who and when anyone gets
to see the Writings, and then, what of it one can understand, love, and
assimilate for life.
No one can
see anything special and spiritual in the Writings who is not led by the Lord
to do so. This is not some special favoritism or sectarianism of this or that
new religion. The Writings are a complete work of rational science. The only
requirement for access to higher human consciousness is to read the Writings as
the Divine Word given to humankind for the enlightenment of rational
consciousness.
No religion
is necessary, no teacher or guru, no initiation ceremony, no prior
qualification of personality, orientation, or character. Nothing is required except a modern scientific mind able to figure our
and comprehend rational ideas laid down in a rational and scientific manner.
In this
book I have taken the rational arguments and proofs in the Writings and applied
them to my understanding of reality and science. As a trained professional
scientist all my life I have carried my profession and science into the
analysis and confirmation process of all that is in the Writings for anyone to
verify. I have then taken this new understanding of reality and myself and
applied it to what is every individual’s principal tasks in life: regeneration.
7. This Book Is About Regeneration
The human
race has been for a long time in a “Fallen” or degenerate state by heredity.
This is because all new human loves and tendencies accumulate in the mind and
are passed on by hereditary mechanisms to one’s offspring. Today as each of us
is born into the modern world and culture, we have the potential of becoming a
celestial mind by means of regeneration, which goes on throughout our life in
the physical body. Once we awaken in the spiritual world, a few hours after the
physical body dies, we begin a new life in a spirit-body that contains our will
and understanding. These two organs are filled with our experiences, knowledge,
and affections or loves. We are then to continue forever being the kind of
individuals we became while maturing on earth. Clearly then, it’s a matter of survival and rational self-interest to
see to it that we arrive in the afterlife with a personality and character that
can live in a heavenly sphere, by which we can avoid the eternal misery of
those who sink down into hell because of their distorted and insane character
or personality.
In the
spiritual world all individuals feel totally free to be who or what they are in
their loves and interests. In fact, they are compelled by the laws of the spiritual
world to be on the outside what their affections or loves are on the inside.
While tied to a physical body, our inner madness, rage, and insanity do not
show, being inhibited by society and consequences. But as soon as we awaken in
our spirit-body, nothing that is within can be kept from coming out. Therefore
by necessity there are Divine laws of reality in the spiritual world that keep
the order and make continued life possible in that order. And so, regions and
habitations are set up in the endless expanse of the spiritual world, in order to
accommodate the life for every type of human beings that enter the world of
spirits from the numerous earths in the universe. There are heavens and there
are hells, reflecting the character of those who live there. And within the
heavens and the hells, there are innumerable sub-regions and societies, each
made up of people of a similar character who live together and share one
another’s fate.
This book is about regeneration,
which is the conscious discipline of character change based on the scientific
principles revealed in the Writings.
When we
read the Writings we begin to understand regeneration in a medial,
psychological, and educational perspective that is unique and new. Our prior
understanding is based on the fundamental principle of nonduality, which is
that all things exist in one continuum of the universe or reality. When we begin
to see things from the perspective of the Writings, we can replace every concept
of nonduality into a duality. Every duality is by reference to the natural and
the spiritual as two separate and distinct worlds, tied together by rational
laws of correspondence that have now been revealed by God.
In Volume 1
I show how rational analysis can be used to debunk and deconstruct concepts and
notions of nonduality that are opposed to the dualities in our mind from the
Writings. Once our mind is rearranged in this new mode, we can begin
regeneration, which requires us to cooperate with the Lord by shunning evils as
sins because sins prevent the preparation of our mind for eternal life. This
cooperation must be in all the specifics of our willing and thinking hour by
hour, every day. In Volume 3 I explain how to do this systematically and
effectively by means of spiritual disciplines. These “regeneration disciplines”
consist of doing ordinary things in our daily life from a new motive, which is
that we are striving to obey the Lord’s Commandment that we monitor our willing
and thinking, that we evaluate every particular in the light of the truths from
the Writings, that we desist from willing what is evil and thinking what is
false, and at last, that we detest these things that are in us from hell by
heredity, culture, and unregenerate habits.
Others may also
have an interest in the book, especially the wives of the men who are
undergoing reformation and regeneration by means of the Writings. Women are
also going through the gradual process of regeneration and have to cooperate with
the Lord in that process in order to be saved for heavenly life. They may find
it useful to learn what their husbands are going through from a Doctrinal point
of view. Men and women have categorically different patterns of regeneration because
there can be no overlap of interior nature between men and women (xx). Also,
this book discusses the content and quality of everyday thoughts and feelings
of husbands who are undergoing reformation and regeneration. And since husbands
resist conjugial love from hereditary antipathy, often fiercely and cruelly,
their wives have to endure much abuse and unhappiness in the process of their
regeneration. Knowing the details of their husband’s mental struggles may be of
interest and use to their wives, and to women generally.
Also, all
who are interested in Swedenborg’s Writings and ideas may find much useful
details and spiritual applications to daily life. People who have not read the
Writings may be interested in how I analyze important lifestyle concepts such
as God, religion, spirituality, heaven and hell, love, truth, personality, and
especially, the process of deepening marital relations.
The
No
religious or spiritual mystery is allowed in the
For it is the
case with the life of charity (which is the heavenly life itself) that with
those who are being reformed and regenerated it is continually being born and
growing up and receiving increments, and this by means of truths; therefore the
more of truth there is insinuated, the more is the life of charity perfected …
(…)
In truth, however, there is no life, but in good. Truth is
only a recipient of life, that is, of good. Truth is as the clothing or garment
of good; therefore also truths are called in the Word "clothing," and
also "garments." But when good constitutes the rational, truth
disappears and becomes as if it were good.
(AC 2189)
The
Writings explain why reformation is necessary. The reason given is that we are
born with a natural mind and with the potential of developing also a spiritual
mind. This new mind becomes functional only through reformation and
regeneration of one’s old mind and inherited character. The spiritual mind is
required for a life in heaven after the life in the physical world. Regeneration is the process of character
self-modification and it goes on throughout one’s life here, and hereafter to
eternity (AC 47, 233, 1712, 2877, 5664, 10299; NJHD 148; DP 102; CL 82;
SE 5958; LJ 299; AE 864). The
This book presents practical methods for husbands who want to form the
All
citations in parentheses are to Swedenborg’s books which collectively, are
called the Writings. The places marked by (xx) are still to be filled in. If
you have any of these citations at hand, please email them to me. The standard
Title of the Work referred to in these citations is given at the end.
The Word is the Divine Truth which is in the Lord and from
the Lord … Divine Truth has power in itself, and such power that, by means of
it, heaven was created and the world with all things therein. (HH 137).
Without the Lord's coming into the world no one could have
been saved. It is the same today; and therefore without the Lord's coming again
into the world in Divine truth, which is the Word, no one can be saved. (TCR 3)
In the
spiritual sense, a “man of the field” signifies “the faith and truth of
doctrine” (AC 368, 427, 4823). This book is about the spiritual Doctrine that
each man is to extract from the Word of the Writings, by applying the literal
sense to oneself, to the hundreds of willing and thinking acts we perform every
day in the course of our normal activities. This use of the literal sense is
required for our reformation, regeneration, and salvation for eternal life in
heaven. Every time we apply in this way one of the literal sentences from the
Writings, we are enlightened by the Lord so that we can perceive the spiritual
sense within the literal. This conscious process counts as cooperation with the
Lord in our regeneration. Without this active conscious daily habitual
cooperation with the Lord, we cannot be regenerated. This will be proven in the
book by many citations from the Writings. It is the spiritual understanding of
Doctrine that constitutes faith and truth. The Lord infills true faith with
Divine Love, and from this union we have closeness with Him, love unto Him, and
new interior celestial truths that make us wise like an angel, and capable of
conjugial union with the wife.
To my wife
It is
her internal wisdom that led me to write this book as-of myself. She brought
into our marriage the conjugial love she has in her from the Lord, inborn from
nativity
An inclination to love one of the opposite sex, and with it
a capacity for receiving that love, has been implanted in Christians from
birth, for the reason that this love comes from the Lord alone (CL 466).
Wives are by birth forms of love, so
that it is innate in them to wish to be one with their husbands … But it is
different with husbands; since they are not by birth forms of love, but
designed to receive that love from their wives (CL 216)
The intelligence of women is by
nature modest, gracious, peaceable, compliant, soft and gentle, while the
intelligence of men is by nature critical, rough, resistant, argumentative, and
given to intemperance. Evidence that
this is the nature of women and the nature of men is clearly apparent from the
body, face, tone of voice, speech, bearing and behavior of each sex. (…)
From this I could clearly see that a
man is born a form of the intellect, and a woman a form of love. I could also see what the nature of the
intellect is and what the nature of love is in their beginnings, and thus what
a man's intellect in its development would be like without conjunction with
feminine love and eventually conjugial love. (CL 218)
|
The Word is the only doctrine which teaches how a man must live in the
world in order to be happy to eternity. (AC 8939) |
Quoting from the Writings:
There are two states that man must enter upon and
pass through, when from being natural he is becoming spiritual. The first state
is called Reformation, and the second Regeneration. In the first man looks from
his natural to his spiritual state and longs for that state; in the second
state he becomes spiritual-natural. The first state is formed by means of
truths, which must be truths of faith, and through these he looks to charity;
the second state is formed by means of the goods of charity, and by these he
enters into the truths of faith. Or what is the same, the first is a state of
thought from the understanding, and the second a state of love from the will.
When this latter state begins and is
progressing, a change takes place in the mind; the mind undergoes a reversal,
the love of the will then flowing into the understanding, acting upon it and
leading it to think in accord and agreement with its love; and in consequence
so far as the good of love comes to act the first part and the truths of faith
the second, man is spiritual and is a new creature; and he then acts from charity
and speaks from faith; he feels the good of charity and perceives the truth of
faith; and he is then in the Lord, and in peace, and thus regenerate.
The man who while in the world has
entered upon the first state, after death can be introduced into the second;
but he who has not entered into the first state while in the world, cannot
after death be introduced into the second, thus cannot be regenerated.
(TCR 571)
The
This
means that every spiritual truth found in the Writings is to be taken as a
Divine Commandment. Every idea and concept we acquire elsewhere must be kept
separated in the external of our knowledge or memory and not allowed to
commingle in the mind that is to be formed exclusively by the Writings. The
Without the Lord's
coming into the world no one could have been saved. The situation to-day is
similar. So unless the Lord comes into the world again in the form of Divine
Truth, that is, the Word, no more can anyone now be saved. (TCR 3)
You
can see from this that the
All Christian
people draw their doctrines from the Word as being their one and only source.
(TCR 629)
God's Word is the
source whence all theology must be derived (Letters 7).
What in particular concerns the
doctrine that now follows, is that it also is out of heaven, because it is from
the spiritual sense of the Word; and the spiritual sense of the Word is
identical with the doctrine which is in heaven. (NJHD 7)
The existence of
writings in the heavens is a provision of the Lord for the sake of the Word;
for the Word in its essence is Divine truth, and from it is all heavenly
wisdom, both with men and with angels; for the Word was dictated by the Lord,
and what is dictated by the Lord passes through all the heavens in order and
terminates with man. Thereby it is adapted both to the wisdom of angels and the
intelligence of men. Thereby, too, the angels have a Word, and read it the same
as men do on the earth, and also draw from it their doctrinals, and preach from
it (AC n. 221). It is the same Word; but its natural sense, which is the sense
of the letter with us, does not exist in heaven, but only the spiritual sense,
which is its internal sense. What this sense is can be seen in the small
treatise on The White
Horse spoken of in the Apocalypse. (HH 259)
These passages teach that henceforth,
from the Writings “is all heavenly wisdom, both with men and with angels.” All
Doctrine for the
The Word is the doctrine of Divine
truth, and …everything of doctrine must be from the Word (AE 612)
It is written that “the only source
of human regeneration is the Lord” (AC 10042) and the Lord is the Word (TCR
225; LORD 7; AC 2). Hence the only source of regeneration is the Word, which
for the
The Word of the Divine Human in the New
Heavens today is the Word of the Writings, and this Word is the same as the one
we have on earth:
It is the same Word; but its natural
sense, which is the sense of the letter with us, does not exist in heaven, but
only the spiritual sense, which is its internal sense. (TCR 1)
What in particular concerns the
doctrine that now follows, is that it also is out of heaven, because it is from
the spiritual sense of the Word; and the spiritual sense of the Word is
identical with the doctrine which is in heaven. For there is a Church in heaven
as well as on earth; for the Word is there, doctrine is there from the Word;
temples are there, in which sermons are delivered; because ecclesiastical and
civil governments are there. In a word, the only difference between the things
which are in the heavens, and those which are on earth, is, that all the things
in the heavens are in a state of greater perfection, because all who are there
are spiritual, and spiritual things immensely exceed in perfection those that
are natural. (NJHD 7)
The Word is to be found in all the heavens and is the
source of the angels' wisdom. (TCR 240)
The Word in heaven is written in a
spiritual style which is quite different from the natural style. The spiritual
style is composed simply of letters, each one of which denotes a particular
meaning; and there are dashes, curves and points above, between and within the
letters, which heighten the meaning. The letters used by the angels of the
spiritual kingdom resemble printed type in our world; the letters used by the
angels of the celestial kingdom are in some cases like Arabic letters, in
others like ancient Hebrew letters, but with curves above and below, and
pointing above, between and inside them. Even a single one of these points
conveys a complete meaning. (TCR 241)
It is
clear therefore that the angels read the Writings and this is their only source
of intelligence and wisdom—“doctrine is there from the Word”. Note that Doctrine is the same as the spiritual
sense of the Writings contained within the literal language—“doctrine is
from the spiritual sense of the Writings”
since the Writings are the Word. The spiritual sense cannot be written down in
a natural language, and neither can the spiritual Doctrine drawn from this
sense, since these two are identical. Note also that the spiritual sense of the
Writings in heaven also have a letter! Without an outward letter of the
Word there is no writing possible. So the outward containant of the holy truths
from the Lord, is the letter the angels have. The angelic writing mode varies
in accordance with the level of thinking in the three heavens, as the passage
above describes it (TCR 241).
3. Spiritual Truths Understood Naturally and Spiritually
It’s
interesting to note what natural letters of the alphabet on earth are similar
to the spiritual writing alphabets in the heavens. The written letters of the
second heaven of the spiritual angels resemble visually the “printed type in our world.” The letters of the third heaven of the
celestial angels resemble visually “Arabic letters” and “Hebrew letters.” These
two correspond historically on this earth with the three religions of the
Western world--Islam and Judaeo-Christian. “
Those in heaven pay attention to the Word in the
letter and perceive things there in exactly the same way as anyone is
accustomed to perceive a person's thought as it presents itself in spoken
words, or in the inmost heaven as anyone is accustomed to perceive a person's
aims or end in view. (AC 9407)
Note therefore that the spiritual
sense of the Writings only exists in the understanding because it is impossible
to render it in the letter of the Word. If it were possible, the angels would
not need a letter of the Word within which they can see and receive spiritual
things! But the highest angels also need a letter for the Word, written in
visible script, as discussed just above. This is a rational matter to
understand and follows from discrete degrees in all things created (see Chapter
5 Section 6).
Clearly then, the natural literal
sentences in the Writings cannot be same as the spiritual truths.
Prior to our reformation, sometime
in adulthood, we read many things about heavenly secrets, which are knowledges
revealed from heaven. They are called secrets because no human being in all of history
and evolution, can ever discover a single spiritual truth from self, from
experience, or from another human being. Every
spiritual truth comes from the spiritual world which is in a discrete degree
above the natural world, so that one can never access the spiritual from the
natural.
This also means that there is no conscious
access possible to our spiritual mind from our natural mind. The spiritual mind
is tied to heaven because all its content is from heaven, and the natural mind
is tied to earth because all its content is from earth. All spiritual truths
that enter our spiritual mind from the angels, is unconscious to us in the
natural. But it has an effect by correspondence. The spiritual meanings enter
the natural meanings that we have obtained from the Writings. This
correspondential activity goes on in the interior-natural mind that is formed
within the natural-rational mind.
Note carefully: the
natural-rational mind reads and understand the Writings naturally, but it is
the interior-natural mind that understands it spiritually, by correspondence. It is the spiritual understanding that we need in order to be
regenerated and saved.
4. The Great
To be saved we must undergo reformation
first, and when that is completed, we begin regeneration. The unregenerate mind
prior to reformation is filled with nonduality. Nonduality is an orientation of
the mind in which we are motivated to prevent the entry into the mind of absolute
dualities such as compose every page of the Writings. For example, everything
in the Writings is based on the idea that God is separate from created things,
as He is infinite and created things are finite. Nonduality puts up a combat
against this absolute duality, preferring the idea that there is a continuum
between the finite and the infinite, so that if we could imagine ourselves to
grow more and more perfect, we could become like God.
Another example is good and evil. In
the Writings there is an absolute and eternal division between good and evil,
or between spiritual truth and falsity. But nonduality in our mind desires to
level them into a continuum so that evil is just a lesser form of good. Still
another example is the spiritual constitution of men and women. The Writings
describe the difference as an absolute duality so that nothing in a man can
ever be like something in a woman, and vice versa. Nonduality is motivated to
prefer a continuum between men and women that yields an overlap in traits.
While this may be the appearance for natural traits, it is not so for spiritual
traits.
There are many thousands of such
items of nonduality in our mind as we begin our reformation. The nonduality is
already ensconced, and receives the support of culture, science, and education.
We therefore are faced with a great and mighty struggle to clean out our mind
from these nondualities. If we leave them there, they destroy the absolute
dualities we take up from the Writings, and therefore, prevent our reformation,
regeneration, and salvation. The nondualities cannot be gotten rid off except
by means of dualities form the Writings, and this only if we acknowledge the
Writings as the Word. For only Divine Truth from the Word has the power to defeat
the hells, and all of the hells are involved in maintaining nonduality in our
mind.
We are in this sorry and precarious
situation by birth. Our spirit or mind is born corrupted by heredity, deformed,
injured, sick, and dying, on its way to hell. The most atrocious evils are
within a beautiful baby, kept suppressed for a few months or years, by the
presence of angels. But as soon as the child grows older, and begins to think
from self, the evils break out and surround the individual, pulling like a mighty
chain tied to hell. We can put on a facade of niceness for the sake of
self-preservation and acceptance by others, but within the heart breathes every
rage, hatred, deception, and obscenity. This sorry and troubling description is
one of the most important revelations of the Lord’s Second Coming in the
Writings. We must know our spiritual state in order to reform and regenerate,
thus be saved for life in heaven. No religious faith or worship can save us,
but only reformation and regeneration. The Writings have been given so that its
truths within our mind, may have the power to battle and defeat the hells
within us.
You can see that it is essential to acquire in our mind the literal meaning of the Writings. Without this knowledge of the Writings in sufficient detail, we cannot be reformed because we are unwilling to give up the nonduality which is in our unregenerate mind. The only way we have the motive power to reject our own nonduality is by reading, understanding, and believing the literal sentences