Session Twelve
The Two Faculties of the Mind
Understanding and Will - Relationship with God
The Ability of the Mind to Communicated
and become Conjoined with God
Or: Becoming Spiritual in this World
The Two Faculties of the Mind
Understanding and Will - Relationship with God
The Ability of the Mind to Communicated
and become Conjoined with God
Or: Becoming Spiritual in this World
The Intercourse of the Soul and the Body: 14 - Chapter XII
"The understanding in a man can be raised into the light, that is, into the wisdom in which are the angels of Heaven, according to the cultivation of his reason; and his will can be raised in like manner into the heat of Heaven, that is, into love, according to the deeds of his life; but the love of the will is not raised, except so far as the man wills and does those things which the wisdom of the understanding teaches."
Man was endowed with two faculties, the understanding and the will so that he might receive from the Lord wisdom and love - the very essence of the Lord - that he may truly live from the Lord on this earth and in the next world in Heaven. These two are in the Lord and they proceed from the Lord as has often been shown in the Word of the Divine Human as the light and heat of the sun in Heaven in which the angels receive and live from. When man is in abstract thought he can understand 'light' as signifying wisdom and 'love' as heat. Although, now, in Christianity, in the old Christian Churches you will probably not hear or read this of light and heat of the spiritual sun in Heaven, or that in Heaven the Lord is as a sun there. "And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord gives them light; and they shall reign for ever and ever" (Revelation 22: 5). There angels live in a world that appears similar to ours in that there appears to be time and space as in the natural world. Nonetheless, there is a saying in the old Christian Churches that the Lord's love is unconditional and that it is the same for all. So, from the Lord's love or 'heat' and His wisdom or 'light' as the heat and light of the natural world's sun there His life flows into all equally. From this one sees that not all who receive the Lord's truths believes it nor who receive His love accepts it and, of course, in believing and accepting the Lord's love is meant following or doing well or good because it is loved for its sake. For such a person, then, walks or lives in the law of the Lord in which he mediates on (cf. Psalms 1).
"Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of the sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord (or in the truths that flows from Him, though now through in an external way); and in his law does he mediate day and night" (Psalms 1: 1, 2).
These two principles - love and wisdom - proceed from the Lord in union, that is, together and flow in that union into angels and men into their wills and understandings - the receptacles of that love and wisdom - though they are not received in a man's mind as one, but separated. Now, a man is born into this natural world and is to form his understanding from the wisdom which is call 'Heavenly light' which flow from the Lord and from this 'light' he is to form his will from the love which is called 'Heavenly heat' that flows from the Lord. Thus, from his infancy on, he is to imbibe, that is, to appropriate the knowledge of truth that he may learn how to live well, that he may will and act rightly and so, form both a new will and understanding that he becomes a new creature. The problem is that he also may appropriate evils and falsities as well, for he has chosen to eat, as it were, from the tree of knowledge of both good and evil as our forefathers - the Most Ancient Church - chose to eat 'as it were' and thereby being prevented from eating from the tree of life and live forever in sin. Certainly, all Christians know that he must be reformed and, thus, become created anew if he is to inherit eternal life from the Lord, for he is not worthy to live in Heaven with the Lord and angels unless he comes into regeneration and is saved from his sins.
It is of assurance that the Lord would not require this of us and not give us the ability and means to enter into eternal life in Heaven if it were not necessary. Therefore, He has provided us with a way of salvation and has come, as promised, and defeated the evils and falsities that have reigned over us. And, so, we can become conjoined with Him by means of our will and understanding. To this end, the faculty of our understanding can be raised into the 'Heavenly light' that angels live in. This is so that a man can see what he ought to believe and will accordingly and, thus, in so doing, he becomes prosperous in this world and blessed in the next to eternity. Just as a man knows that he is to understand and develop for himself a work or profession that he and his family has the means of physical life - food, clothes, and shelter - a man needs, also, to prosper spiritually that he live a spiritual life hereafter in Heaven. It is his procuring for himself wisdom that he is able to live a spiritual natural life, even while, here, in this world and later spiritually in the next if he wills to do so.
Man receives this 'Heavenly light' or the Lord's wisdom into his understanding first, so that he may form in him a new understanding while he next receives 'Heavenly heat' or the Lord's love slowly, and throughout his natural life on earth, so that a new will may be formed in him, creating within him a new life, a spiritual natural life, here on earth, that is, that he is 'born again'. The reason this is is that in the natural state he now lives in as his forefathers did - with the tendency to sin - they having fallen from a life in paradise. In this fallen state his nature is that he lives from the hereditary tendencies that led him to sin. Therefore, by receiving the light which angels live in, a man can learn the truths and the goods - the Heaven light and heat - that he becomes conjoined with that spiritual life that flows continually from the Lord into him. We can see that it is the understanding that needs elevated into Heaven 'as it were' so that a man learns of those Heavenly truths and goods that bring him true life and, then, that he must follow them in obedience in order to receive the Lord's love, for the Lord's love cannot enter into man when the man's love is contrary to the Lord's love and he rejects Him.
In our natural state that we now live in, without knowing these Heavenly or spiritual truths, we are inclined to do evil from our birth and this because of the love for ourselves and for worldly things which all mankind has fallen into. The only way our love of self can be restrained is by the means of our understanding, for we cannot be led against our understanding without taking away our freedom. Our understanding is governed by our will and our will is nothing but evil, in that its first love is to self, no longer is it as it was in man before his fall, which was love to God. Thus, you can understand why we receive the Lord's wisdom and His love separately in us and not as it flows from the Lord - in union. Man can become more than beasts that cannot think, for if he cannot perfect his understanding separately and by the means of it perfect his will, he is then as a beast. It is from his thinking that he can learn to speak, otherwise, he is only able express his affections by sounds as animals do. So, too, unless he has the faculty of understanding spiritual things of Heaven, as well as moral and civil things, he would not be able to act from reason, but from instinct as do animals. Finally, he would not be able to know God and the things which are of God and, therefore, could not be conjoined with Him and live to eternity in Heaven.
As in any conjunction there must be reciprocation. If one does not return the attempts of another to have association, then there is no conjunction of the one with the other. In fact, unless there is an exchange of acceptance between one and another there is no conjunction, and no association, let alone love, is developed between the two. When you apply this truth in order to conjoining yourself with the Lord, unless you reciprocate His love and wisdom there would be no conjunction, no regeneration, and no salvation. Now, it is this ability to return or to reciprocate the Lord's good or His love 'as of oneself' through what he thinks and wills. If the Lord's good and truth, His life, is not received by a man, that is, if a man rejects them and does not reciprocate them, he is, thus, unable to become conjoined with the Lord. It is 'as if' a man says that he knows a certain person and that he is his friend, when he, in fact, does not really know the person and does not live in any association in friendship with him, in spite of what he says he knows about him. You can understand that since one can either accept or reject the Lord then, he 'as of himself' lives 'as if; of himself choosing or not choosing to believe in the Lord's Word and act accordingly. Nonetheless, we, as Christians, know that the Lord gives us life, that, that life is the Lord's and, that we can do nothing good without His love and truth.
". . . A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from Heaven" (John 3: 27). And, "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing" that is, no good thing, for bearing or being fourth fruit is man's willing well from the Lord. (John 15: 5).
Therefore, it is that we react from receiving God's love and His goodness, for unless His life, His love and wisdom, enter us and we allow ourselves to be acted upon, we have no life, and, in fact, we are dead because we are not conjoined with the Lord in love and truth. ". . . for in that day that you eat thereof (the tree of knowledge of good and evil) you shall surely die" (Genesis 2: 17). In the Word one can read that the spirit is life not the flesh. "It is the spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words I speak unto you are spirit, and they are life" (John 6: 63). Thus, as the Lord's Spirit enters us and as we allow it to act upon us and as we react, we have life from the Lord in us. It is the Lord in us that acts, though it appears 'as if' we do from ourselves. Yet, we can also react from the evil and falsities that enter us, since we can know evil as well as good, and this is because the man of the Most Ancient Church chose to eat or appropriated both the good and evil knowledge.
A man's will, if it is raised by his understanding into spiritual intelligence and celestial wisdom when he has learned of the Lord's truths and goods and chooses to follow them from a love for them, and he comes into spiritual conjunction with the Lord. If he does not become elevated or enlighten in his understanding to Heavenly goods and truths and from them, in obedience, raise his will to do good, we can see what his nature is: the opposite of the Lord's love and wisdom. And, he has lust instead of love and his understanding is of nothing but falsities. But to see what the Word shows as an illustration we read the following: "But the nature of a man, if the love of his will is not raised by means of the understanding, shall be illustrated by comparisons. He is like an eagle on high, which, as soon as it sees below the food which is the object of its desire, such as chickens, young swans, or even young lambs, casts himself down in a moment and devours them." Perhaps you have known someone who has knowledge of spiritual things, having raised his understanding to see in the 'light' of Heaven, but lives his life otherwise and has cast himself down 'as it were' and commits evil. In other words, he speaks and knows of spiritual things, but lives a life contrary to them. Such a person loves knowing these spiritual things - things of truth and good - because of the prominence and notoriety that he gets from others as he speaks in lectures or in worship services or he uses the knowledge for his own benefit that he might prosper. And, if he acts in accordance with the truth, he does so for the same reasons, so, that his real nature is not discovered.
In the Word there is an internal sense, a spiritual sense, and in this sense there lie hidden celestial and spiritual truths and genuine truths. While in the literal sense words like the names that are found in the Word remain in their appearances to us that our natural nature understands. In other words, an eagle (a name of a bird in the Word) is just an eagle to the natural man, unless his understanding is raised in intelligence and he knows what its significance is in Heaven in the spiritual sense. It is the eagle that represents a man's rational when what he has learned are the truths and goods of faith. Such a rational in man is from the Lord if he has accepted and has acted according to such truths and goods. Otherwise the knowledge he has of spiritual things are but in his memory and is but memory knowledge and his understanding remains unchanged. But, if he has not, though his understanding may be raised 'as it were', he appears in the world 'as if' he is in goods and truth, though his rational is not from the Lord, but from himself. He does not have a new will and understanding and is not in regeneration, nor saved. In this case, since he has not used his understanding to lead and teach his will in what is true and good; he will still have the desire for natural things, that is, for his love of self and the world - worldly wealth. Thus, he continues to live from worldly things and from self, which are from evils and falsities, rejecting the things of Heaven and the Lord - the things of good and truth that brings him true life. Continuing, the word chickens or young pigeons in the Word represent the young or the innocent. Thus, the Israelites were to bring their sacrifices of pigeons and turtle-doves, for they represented and pointed to the passion of the Lord who is innocence Himself. In that innocence in man is a conjunction with goodness. It is the young swans that represent that love of good and truth in our innocence and, of course, we acknowledge that the lamb represents the Lord who was slain. Here, we need to understand that the word 'slain' in relation to the Lord, means the end of the Lord's merely human, that it is extinguished and ends. Thus, the natural body He had put on in which there was the tendency to do evil was now extinguished. He had overcome of the evils of hell. You can see that He being 'slain' was His glorification, but it was also a preparation for our spiritual enjoyment, having provided us with a way in which we can follow. So, it is the Lord's innocence of His love that is within us and that what must become conjoined within us is His wisdom. His love or will together with His wisdom becomes in us in a new will and understanding from which there is a rational from the Lord that leads us to eternity.
By a man whose will or desire for what is for his self and for worldly things, is his eating or 'devouring' evils and falsities 'as it were', for he does this by 'devouring' them in himself, that is, he kills the goods and truths in himself that comes from the Lord, for, as said, his love or will is of 'self' and are not for the Lord's. He, thus, knows evil and what is false and does not know good and the truth; neither does he know the Lord or Heaven. This is because mankind, had in disobedience, taken or eaten from the 'tree of knowledge of good and evil', and then, from his proprium or what is of one's self, he has turned away from the Lord who vivifies or makes him alive, he thus has the tendency to love 'self' more then the Lord and as such, he sins against God.
In the lessons passage - The Intercourse of the Soul and the Body: 14: 1-6 - are other illustrations comparing what the nature of a man is whose understanding is raised, but who does not use it to raise his will into the heat or the Lord's love can be read. It is otherwise with the man, who from his raised understanding subdues the lusts of his will by means of the 'light of Heaven'. It is in this man that there is a marriage-covenant of his will and understanding, thus, love and wisdom when dwelling together within him and is the Lord conjoined with him as good and truth is conjoined. Such conjunction makes Heaven in man while here on earth and is the Church within his mind, in his will and understanding, and when he leaves this world and his natural body is put off and he enters the next, the spiritual world, that he enters Heaven, and comes into a life in Heaven and is there with angels as an angel and is conjoined with the Lord to eternity.
End.
"Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of the sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord (or in the truths that flows from Him, though now through in an external way); and in his law does he mediate day and night" (Psalms 1: 1, 2).
These two principles - love and wisdom - proceed from the Lord in union, that is, together and flow in that union into angels and men into their wills and understandings - the receptacles of that love and wisdom - though they are not received in a man's mind as one, but separated. Now, a man is born into this natural world and is to form his understanding from the wisdom which is call 'Heavenly light' which flow from the Lord and from this 'light' he is to form his will from the love which is called 'Heavenly heat' that flows from the Lord. Thus, from his infancy on, he is to imbibe, that is, to appropriate the knowledge of truth that he may learn how to live well, that he may will and act rightly and so, form both a new will and understanding that he becomes a new creature. The problem is that he also may appropriate evils and falsities as well, for he has chosen to eat, as it were, from the tree of knowledge of both good and evil as our forefathers - the Most Ancient Church - chose to eat 'as it were' and thereby being prevented from eating from the tree of life and live forever in sin. Certainly, all Christians know that he must be reformed and, thus, become created anew if he is to inherit eternal life from the Lord, for he is not worthy to live in Heaven with the Lord and angels unless he comes into regeneration and is saved from his sins.
It is of assurance that the Lord would not require this of us and not give us the ability and means to enter into eternal life in Heaven if it were not necessary. Therefore, He has provided us with a way of salvation and has come, as promised, and defeated the evils and falsities that have reigned over us. And, so, we can become conjoined with Him by means of our will and understanding. To this end, the faculty of our understanding can be raised into the 'Heavenly light' that angels live in. This is so that a man can see what he ought to believe and will accordingly and, thus, in so doing, he becomes prosperous in this world and blessed in the next to eternity. Just as a man knows that he is to understand and develop for himself a work or profession that he and his family has the means of physical life - food, clothes, and shelter - a man needs, also, to prosper spiritually that he live a spiritual life hereafter in Heaven. It is his procuring for himself wisdom that he is able to live a spiritual natural life, even while, here, in this world and later spiritually in the next if he wills to do so.
Man receives this 'Heavenly light' or the Lord's wisdom into his understanding first, so that he may form in him a new understanding while he next receives 'Heavenly heat' or the Lord's love slowly, and throughout his natural life on earth, so that a new will may be formed in him, creating within him a new life, a spiritual natural life, here on earth, that is, that he is 'born again'. The reason this is is that in the natural state he now lives in as his forefathers did - with the tendency to sin - they having fallen from a life in paradise. In this fallen state his nature is that he lives from the hereditary tendencies that led him to sin. Therefore, by receiving the light which angels live in, a man can learn the truths and the goods - the Heaven light and heat - that he becomes conjoined with that spiritual life that flows continually from the Lord into him. We can see that it is the understanding that needs elevated into Heaven 'as it were' so that a man learns of those Heavenly truths and goods that bring him true life and, then, that he must follow them in obedience in order to receive the Lord's love, for the Lord's love cannot enter into man when the man's love is contrary to the Lord's love and he rejects Him.
In our natural state that we now live in, without knowing these Heavenly or spiritual truths, we are inclined to do evil from our birth and this because of the love for ourselves and for worldly things which all mankind has fallen into. The only way our love of self can be restrained is by the means of our understanding, for we cannot be led against our understanding without taking away our freedom. Our understanding is governed by our will and our will is nothing but evil, in that its first love is to self, no longer is it as it was in man before his fall, which was love to God. Thus, you can understand why we receive the Lord's wisdom and His love separately in us and not as it flows from the Lord - in union. Man can become more than beasts that cannot think, for if he cannot perfect his understanding separately and by the means of it perfect his will, he is then as a beast. It is from his thinking that he can learn to speak, otherwise, he is only able express his affections by sounds as animals do. So, too, unless he has the faculty of understanding spiritual things of Heaven, as well as moral and civil things, he would not be able to act from reason, but from instinct as do animals. Finally, he would not be able to know God and the things which are of God and, therefore, could not be conjoined with Him and live to eternity in Heaven.
As in any conjunction there must be reciprocation. If one does not return the attempts of another to have association, then there is no conjunction of the one with the other. In fact, unless there is an exchange of acceptance between one and another there is no conjunction, and no association, let alone love, is developed between the two. When you apply this truth in order to conjoining yourself with the Lord, unless you reciprocate His love and wisdom there would be no conjunction, no regeneration, and no salvation. Now, it is this ability to return or to reciprocate the Lord's good or His love 'as of oneself' through what he thinks and wills. If the Lord's good and truth, His life, is not received by a man, that is, if a man rejects them and does not reciprocate them, he is, thus, unable to become conjoined with the Lord. It is 'as if' a man says that he knows a certain person and that he is his friend, when he, in fact, does not really know the person and does not live in any association in friendship with him, in spite of what he says he knows about him. You can understand that since one can either accept or reject the Lord then, he 'as of himself' lives 'as if; of himself choosing or not choosing to believe in the Lord's Word and act accordingly. Nonetheless, we, as Christians, know that the Lord gives us life, that, that life is the Lord's and, that we can do nothing good without His love and truth.
". . . A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from Heaven" (John 3: 27). And, "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing" that is, no good thing, for bearing or being fourth fruit is man's willing well from the Lord. (John 15: 5).
Therefore, it is that we react from receiving God's love and His goodness, for unless His life, His love and wisdom, enter us and we allow ourselves to be acted upon, we have no life, and, in fact, we are dead because we are not conjoined with the Lord in love and truth. ". . . for in that day that you eat thereof (the tree of knowledge of good and evil) you shall surely die" (Genesis 2: 17). In the Word one can read that the spirit is life not the flesh. "It is the spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words I speak unto you are spirit, and they are life" (John 6: 63). Thus, as the Lord's Spirit enters us and as we allow it to act upon us and as we react, we have life from the Lord in us. It is the Lord in us that acts, though it appears 'as if' we do from ourselves. Yet, we can also react from the evil and falsities that enter us, since we can know evil as well as good, and this is because the man of the Most Ancient Church chose to eat or appropriated both the good and evil knowledge.
A man's will, if it is raised by his understanding into spiritual intelligence and celestial wisdom when he has learned of the Lord's truths and goods and chooses to follow them from a love for them, and he comes into spiritual conjunction with the Lord. If he does not become elevated or enlighten in his understanding to Heavenly goods and truths and from them, in obedience, raise his will to do good, we can see what his nature is: the opposite of the Lord's love and wisdom. And, he has lust instead of love and his understanding is of nothing but falsities. But to see what the Word shows as an illustration we read the following: "But the nature of a man, if the love of his will is not raised by means of the understanding, shall be illustrated by comparisons. He is like an eagle on high, which, as soon as it sees below the food which is the object of its desire, such as chickens, young swans, or even young lambs, casts himself down in a moment and devours them." Perhaps you have known someone who has knowledge of spiritual things, having raised his understanding to see in the 'light' of Heaven, but lives his life otherwise and has cast himself down 'as it were' and commits evil. In other words, he speaks and knows of spiritual things, but lives a life contrary to them. Such a person loves knowing these spiritual things - things of truth and good - because of the prominence and notoriety that he gets from others as he speaks in lectures or in worship services or he uses the knowledge for his own benefit that he might prosper. And, if he acts in accordance with the truth, he does so for the same reasons, so, that his real nature is not discovered.
In the Word there is an internal sense, a spiritual sense, and in this sense there lie hidden celestial and spiritual truths and genuine truths. While in the literal sense words like the names that are found in the Word remain in their appearances to us that our natural nature understands. In other words, an eagle (a name of a bird in the Word) is just an eagle to the natural man, unless his understanding is raised in intelligence and he knows what its significance is in Heaven in the spiritual sense. It is the eagle that represents a man's rational when what he has learned are the truths and goods of faith. Such a rational in man is from the Lord if he has accepted and has acted according to such truths and goods. Otherwise the knowledge he has of spiritual things are but in his memory and is but memory knowledge and his understanding remains unchanged. But, if he has not, though his understanding may be raised 'as it were', he appears in the world 'as if' he is in goods and truth, though his rational is not from the Lord, but from himself. He does not have a new will and understanding and is not in regeneration, nor saved. In this case, since he has not used his understanding to lead and teach his will in what is true and good; he will still have the desire for natural things, that is, for his love of self and the world - worldly wealth. Thus, he continues to live from worldly things and from self, which are from evils and falsities, rejecting the things of Heaven and the Lord - the things of good and truth that brings him true life. Continuing, the word chickens or young pigeons in the Word represent the young or the innocent. Thus, the Israelites were to bring their sacrifices of pigeons and turtle-doves, for they represented and pointed to the passion of the Lord who is innocence Himself. In that innocence in man is a conjunction with goodness. It is the young swans that represent that love of good and truth in our innocence and, of course, we acknowledge that the lamb represents the Lord who was slain. Here, we need to understand that the word 'slain' in relation to the Lord, means the end of the Lord's merely human, that it is extinguished and ends. Thus, the natural body He had put on in which there was the tendency to do evil was now extinguished. He had overcome of the evils of hell. You can see that He being 'slain' was His glorification, but it was also a preparation for our spiritual enjoyment, having provided us with a way in which we can follow. So, it is the Lord's innocence of His love that is within us and that what must become conjoined within us is His wisdom. His love or will together with His wisdom becomes in us in a new will and understanding from which there is a rational from the Lord that leads us to eternity.
By a man whose will or desire for what is for his self and for worldly things, is his eating or 'devouring' evils and falsities 'as it were', for he does this by 'devouring' them in himself, that is, he kills the goods and truths in himself that comes from the Lord, for, as said, his love or will is of 'self' and are not for the Lord's. He, thus, knows evil and what is false and does not know good and the truth; neither does he know the Lord or Heaven. This is because mankind, had in disobedience, taken or eaten from the 'tree of knowledge of good and evil', and then, from his proprium or what is of one's self, he has turned away from the Lord who vivifies or makes him alive, he thus has the tendency to love 'self' more then the Lord and as such, he sins against God.
In the lessons passage - The Intercourse of the Soul and the Body: 14: 1-6 - are other illustrations comparing what the nature of a man is whose understanding is raised, but who does not use it to raise his will into the heat or the Lord's love can be read. It is otherwise with the man, who from his raised understanding subdues the lusts of his will by means of the 'light of Heaven'. It is in this man that there is a marriage-covenant of his will and understanding, thus, love and wisdom when dwelling together within him and is the Lord conjoined with him as good and truth is conjoined. Such conjunction makes Heaven in man while here on earth and is the Church within his mind, in his will and understanding, and when he leaves this world and his natural body is put off and he enters the next, the spiritual world, that he enters Heaven, and comes into a life in Heaven and is there with angels as an angel and is conjoined with the Lord to eternity.
End.
| About |
| Doctrine
Site Content Copyright 2001 by The Lord's New Chapel All Rights Reserved
Site Concept and Creation Copyright 2001 by Stealth Media Solutions All Rights Reserved