August 15, 2016

Everyone May See What Kind of Life He has by Searching Out the End Preferred

From Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
With everyone his end is his love, and it is the love alone that lives. All other objects are only derivations from this, and they all draw their life from the end. Everyone may see what kind of life he has, if he will only search out what his end is; not what all his ends are - for he has numberless ones, as many as intentions, and almost as many as judgments and conclusions of thoughts, which are only intermediate ends, variously derived from the principal one, or tending to it-but let him search out the end he prefers to all the rest, and in respect to which all others are as nothing. If he has for his end himself and the world, let him know that his life is infernal; but if he has for his end the good of his neighbor, the common good, the Lord's kingdom, and especially the Lord Himself, let him know that his life is heavenly.
(Arcana Coelestia 1909:2)