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

AFTERLIFE
What belongs to them is the contents of their deeper
thought and intentions.
Once the first state has been completed—the state of
more outward concerns described in the preceding chap -
ter—we as spirits are brought into the state of our deeper
concerns, or into the state of those deeper intentions and
consequent thoughts we engaged in when we were left to
ourselves in this world and our thinking was free and
unfettered. We slip into this state without realizing it
much as we did in the world when we drew the thought
nearest to our speech, the immediate source of our speech,
back toward our inner thought, and let it pause there a
while. So when we as spirits are in this state, we are being
our selves and living our real life, since thinking freely
from our own affection is our very life and our very self.
When spirits are in this state of their deeper concerns,
then it is obvious what kind of people they really were in
the world. They actually behave in accord with their own
nature. People who were inwardly devoted to the good in
the world then behave sanely and wisely, more wisely
than when they were living in the world, in fact, because
they have been freed from any connection with the body
and therefore with the earthly things that darken and
cover with a kind of cloud.
In contrast, people who were focused on evil in the
world then behave foolishly and insanely, more insanely
than when they were in the world, in fact, because they
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