Space: How to think spiritually, part 1
The first in our new series on How to Think Spiritually, or, Thinking like an angel. Today, About Space.
“It is well known that the Word is spiritual, but this spirituality is not visible in the letter, for the content of the letter is worldly, especially in the historical sections. But when it is read by man the worldly content in it becomes spiritual in the spiritual world, that is, among the angels. For the angels are unable to think except in a spiritual way about anything whatever, and so cannot think of ‘dwelling in the land’ except in a spiritual way.” (Heavenly Secrets, 4480)
“… places and spaces in the Word (and everything that involves space) mean matters that involve state – distances, for instance, and nearness and remoteness, paths, journeys, emigrations, miles, stadia, plains, fields, gardens, cities, streets, motion, various kinds of measurement, length, breadth, height, and depth, and countless other things – for so many things that enter our thought from our world derive something from space and time.” (Heaven and Hell, 197)
“… space does not pertain to thoughts, for whatever is intently thought of is set before one as present.” (Heaven and Hell 196)
ON PLACE
“It can in no case be said that heaven is outside anyone; it is within him. For it is in accordance with the heaven that is within him that every angel receives the heaven that is outside him. … This makes clear how greatly deceived is he who believes that to come into heaven is simply to be taken up among angels, whatever he may be as to his interior life, …, when in fact, unless heaven is within anyone, nothing of the heaven that is outside inflows and is received.” (Heaven and Hell, 54)
ON DIRECTIONS
“Angels turn their faces continually to the Lord as the sun, …, people also say of a person who is in a state of love and wisdom from the Lord that he sees God, that he looks to God, that he has God before his eyes, meaning that in his life he is like an angel. People say things like this in the world both because they actually occur in heaven and because they actually occur in a person’s spirit. Who does not see God before him when he prays, in whatever direction his face is turned?” (Divine Love and Wisdom, 129)
ON DISTANCE
“… those who are in like states are near to each other, and those in unlike states are at a distance, and spaces in heaven are simply the external conditions corresponding to the internals.” (Heaven and Hell 193)
“… in the spiritual world one individual is present to another if only that presence is intensely desired. This is because one person sees another in thought in this way and identifies with that individual’s state.” (Heaven and Hell 194)
From Eben Alexander’s Proof of Heaven:
“… from my perspective, I would suggest that you couldn’t look at anything in that world, for the word ‘at’ suggests a separation that did not exist there. Everything was distinct, yet everything was also a part of everything else, like the rich and intermingled designs on a Persian carpet … Or a butterfly’s wing.”
And reading from Luke chapter 17, verses 20-37
Recorded on Sunday 5th June 2022