February 19, 2017

One True Love, Therefore One True Life

Selections from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
The universal heaven is a heaven of love, for there is no other life in the heavens than the life of love. From this is derived all heavenly happiness, which is so great that nothing of it admits of description, nor can ever be conceived by any human idea. Those who are under the influence of love, love the Lord from the heart, but yet know, declare, and perceive, that all love, and consequently all life-which is of love alone-and thus all happiness, come solely from the Lord, and that they have not the least of love, of life, or of happiness, from themselves. ...

It is in everyone's power very well to know that no life is possible without some love, and that no joy is possible except that which flows from love.

Such however as is the love, such is the life, and such the joy
if you were to remove loves, or what is the same thing, desires - for these are of love - thought would instantly cease, and you would become like a dead person, as has been shown me to the life. The loves of self and of the world have in them some resemblance to life and to joy, but as they are altogether contrary to true love, which consists in a man's loving the Lord above all things, and his neighbor as himself, it must be evident that they are not loves, but hatreds, for in proportion as anyone loves himself and the world, in the same proportion he hates his neighbor, and thereby the Lord.
Wherefore true love is love to the Lord, and true life is the life of love from Him, and true joy is the joy of that life.
There can be but one true love, and therefore but one true life, whence flow true joys and true felicities, such as are those of the angels in the heavens.
(from Arcana Coelestia 32,33)