Afterlife: A Guided Tour of Heaven and Its Wonders - Swedenborg ...

AFTERLIFE
through that reli gion, and an inner life. That is, living
according to one’s reli gious principles is an inner life, for
then we focus on the Divine; and to the extent that we do
focus on the Divine, we do not focus on the world but
move away from the world and therefore from a worldly
life, which is an outward life.
People can realize that non-Christians as well as Chris -
tians are saved if they know what constitutes heaven in us.
The heaven within us is our acknowledgment of the
Divine and our being led by the Divine. The beginning
and foundation of every religion is its acknowledgment of
the Divine Being; a religion that does not acknowledge
the Divine Being is not a religion at all. The precepts of
every religion focus on worship, that is, on how the Divine
is to be honored so that we will be acceptable in its sight;
and when this fully occupies the mind (or, to the extent
that we intend this or love this) we are being led by the
Lord.
The heaven in one individual is not the same as the
heaven in another. It differs in each according to the
affec tion for what is good and true. If people are absorbed
in an affection for what is good for the sake of the Divine,
they love divine truth because the good and the true love
each other and want to be united. Consequently, non-
Chris tian people who have not had access to genuine
truths in the world still accept them in the other life
because of their love.
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