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

Heaven
it is the very inward pleasure that is called blessedness in
marriage. Love of being in control stifles this blessedness,
and with it absolutely everything heav enly and spiritual
about the love, to the point that even all knowledge of its
existence is lost. One could even say that it is held so
cheaply that the mere mention of [marriage] blessedness
makes people laugh or flare up in anger.
When one partner wants or loves what the other does,
then there is a freedom for both, because all freedom stems
from love. However, there is freedom for neither one
when there is control. One is the servant; and so is the one
in control, because he or she is being driven like a servant
by a need to be in control.
Between partners who are in marriage love there are
heav enly pleasures almost like games of innocence to
their minds, like those of babies, because there is nothing
that does not delight them. Heaven flows into the small -
est details of their lives with its joy. This is why marriage
love is pictured in heaven by the loveliest things of all. I
have seen it represented by an indescribably lovely young
woman enveloped by a white cloud. I was told that all the
beauty of angels in heaven comes from marriage love. The
affections and thoughts that flow from it are represented
by gleaming auras, like those of fiery gems or rubies, all this
accompanied by feelings of delight that move the deeper
levels of the mind.
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