Selection from New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
A person's life is really the same as his love; and what his love is like determines what his life is like, in fact his whole personality. But what makes a person is his dominant or ruling love. That love has a number of subordinate loves with it, which derive from it. These appear to be different but are each a part of the dominant love and make up a single kingdom with it. The dominant love is as it were their king and chief; it controls them and by their instrumentality, using them as mediate ends, aims at and pursues its end which is the mainspring and ultimate of all, and this both directly and indirectly. What belongs to the dominant love is loved above all.What a person loves above all is constantly present in his thoughts and also in his will, and it makes up his life in the truest sense. For example, anyone who loves wealth above all, whether money or possessions, continually ponders in his mind how to get these; he feels the keenest pleasure when he acquires them, the keenest grief when he loses them. His heart is in them. Anyone who loves himself above all, remembers himself in everything, thinks about himself, talks about himself and acts for his own advantage; for his life is a selfish life.
Everyone has as his end in view what he loves above all. This is what he aims at in every detail of his life. His will contains something like a hidden current in a river, which drags and carries him away even when he is doing something else, for it is what motivates him. This is the kind of thing one person looks for and sees in another, and, depending on what he sees, he either leads him or acts jointly with him.
A person's character is determined by the dominant factor in his life, and this is what distinguishes him from other people. This factor makes his heaven, if he is good, his hell if evil. It is his real will, his self and his nature, for it is the real essence of his life. It cannot be changed after death, for it really is the person.
Everyone's pleasure, bliss and happiness come from his dominant love and are characterised by it. One calls pleasant what one loves, for that is what one feels. One may, however, call pleasant what one thinks about and does not love, but it is not the pleasure of one's life. It is what pleases his love which is anyone's good, and what displeases it which is his evil.
There are two loves from which all kinds of good and truth arise, as it were from their proper sources. There are also two loves from which all kinds of evil and falsity arise. The two loves which are the source of all kinds of good and truth are love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour; and the two loves which are the source of all kinds of evil and falsity are self-love and love of the world. These two latter loves are the complete opposite of the former two.
The two loves which are the source of all kinds of good and truth, which, as just said, are love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour, are what make heaven in a person. These therefore are the ruling loves in heaven. And because they make a person's heaven, they also make the church for him. The two loves which are the source of all kinds of evil and falsity, which are, as just said, self-love and love of the world, make hell in a person. These therefore are the ruling loves in hell.
The two loves which are the source of all kinds of good and truth, which, as has been said, are the loves of heaven, open up and develop the internal spiritual man, because that is where they reside. But the two loves which are the source of all kinds of evil and falsity when dominant close off and destroy the internal spiritual man. These make a person the more natural and influenced by the senses in proportion to the strength and nature of their dominance.
(New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 54-61)