Day: May 4, 2017

Divine Image in Creation

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The whole of God’s creation supports the development of spirituality and so brings forth angels of heavenThe purpose of creation is for individual people to be linked with God; that is, for individual people to become angelic beings eternally experiencing peace, love and active usefulness in a state of heaven.

Here is a series of quotations from the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg through which a person may find it possible to contemplate experiencing the Divine in creation in every step he or she takes.

For example, with the system revealed to Swedenborg, pure water can be experienced as cleansing, thirst-quenching, a medium for preparing food and, through harnessing its power, a means of energy. Subsequently, it is possible to appreciate a link or correspondence between a physical manifestation and concepts to do with a person’s spiritual nature. That is, a person can experience the flow of genuine enlightenment as refreshing the spirit, as correcting or altering attitudes towards life – the result of which may feed into a more wholesome appreciation of inner energy and fulfilment.

Now because every single thing remains in being from the Divine, that is, is constantly coming into being from Him, and every single thing from that source is inevitably a representative of the real thing by means of which it has come into being, the whole visible universe is therefore nothing else than a theatre that is representative of the Lord’s kingdom. And this in turn is a theatre representative of the Lord Himself.   Emanuel Swedenborg in Arcana Caelestia 3483

waterfall

This mighty system which is called the universe is a single unit coherently organised from beginning to end, because God had one end in view in creating it, to create from the human race a heaven of angels. The means to this end are all the things of which the world is composed; for he who wills the end, wills also the means. The man therefore who contemplates the world as a piece of work containing the means to that end can contemplate the created universe as a single coherent unit, and he can see that the world is an assemblage of services structured for the benefit of the human race, to form a heaven of angels.   Emanuel Swedenborg in True Christian Religion 13:1-2

The following quotations offer a concept of usefulness, rather than forms, showing images of the Divine in creation. A visit to the countryside can bring a person into touch with the created universe in a way quite different from exposure to a man-made environment of a large town or city. For example, a person could reflect on:

– Various herbs being for the use of healing the body.

– Timber serving various uses from relaxation (willow for cricket bats) to building material (oak).

– Leaves of trees being a means of purifying the air people breathe.

– Grasses as staple foods.

– A chemist or botanist could delve deeper into the forms and penetrate into the wonders of uses revealed through the

microscope.

From these examples and your own experience reflect on the uses provided in the world of nature. How far a step is it to contemplate that what the Creator can provide as necessary for the physical body can also be provided on a level of spirit? Further, in what way may you then be able to make links between uses in the natural world and parallels mirrored within the needs of your spirit?

That love and wisdom are the origin of all things of nature cannot be seen unless nature is regarded in terms of the uses it serves in their series and succession, and not in terms of some of its forms, which are objects only of the eye. For useful endeavours spring only from life, and their series and succession from wisdom and love, while forms are the vessels serving those uses. Consequently if one regards only the forms, it is impossible to see anything of life in nature, still less anything of love and wisdom, and so neither anything of God.   Emanuel Swedenborg in Divine Love & Wisdom 46

timber yard

… even though the Divine is present in each and every constituent of the created universe, still there is nothing of the Divine in their being. For the created universe is not God, but from God. And because it is from God, it has in it His image, like the image of a person in a mirror, in which the person indeed appears, but which nevertheless has nothing of the person in it.   Emanuel Swedenborg in Divine Love & Wisdom 59

The universal end of creation, or the end in all its constituents, is for an eternal conjunction of the Creator with the created universe to take place, and this is not possible without vessels in which His Divinity can exist as though in itself, thus in which it can dwell and abide. For these vessels to be His dwellings or abodes, they must be recipients of His love and wisdom as though of themselves, thus recipients which will as though of themselves elevate themselves to the Creator and conjoin themselves with Him. Without this reciprocity, conjunction is not possible. These vessels are human beings, who are able as though of themselves to elevate and conjoin themselves. … By that conjunction the Lord is present in every work created by Him. For everything was created ultimately for the sake of mankind. Consequently the uses of all that He created ascend by degrees from the lowest created forms to mankind, and through mankind to God the Creator from whom they originate, … Emanuel Swedenborg in Divine Love & Wisdom 170

wildflower meadow

http://www.spiritualwisdom.org.uk/spiritual-principles.htm

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Loving Uses for the Sake of Uses

Lastchurch - The Eternal PurposeSelection from Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The uses through which men and angels have wisdom

To love uses is nothing else than to love the neighbor, for use in the spiritual sense is the neighbor. This can be seen from the fact that everyone loves another not because of his face and body, but from his will and understanding; he loves one who has a good will and a good understanding, and does not love one with a good will and a bad understanding, or with a good understanding and a bad will. And as a man is loved or not loved for these reasons, it follows that the neighbor is that from which everyone is a man, and that is his spiritual. Place ten men before your eyes that you may choose one of them to be your associate in any duty or business; will you first find out about them and choose the one who comes nearest to your use? Therefore he is your neighbor, and is loved more than the others. Or become acquainted with ten maidens with the purpose of choosing one of them for your wife; do you not at first ascertain the character of each one, and if she consents betroth to you the one that you love? That one is more your neighbor than the others. If you should say to yourself, “Every man is my neighbor, and is therefore to be loved without distinction,” a devil-man and an angel-man or a harlot and a virgin might be equally loved. Use is the neighbor, because every man is valued and loved not for his will and understanding alone, but for the uses he performs or is able to perform from these. Therefore a man of use is a man according to his use; and a man not of use is a man not a man, for of such a man it is said that he is not useful for anything; and although in this world he may be tolerated in a community so long as he lives from what is his own, after death when he becomes a spirit he is cast out into a desert.

Man, therefore, is such as his use is. But uses are manifold; in general they are heavenly or infernal. Heavenly uses are those that are serviceable more or less, or more nearly or remotely, to the church, to the country, to society, and to a fellow-citizen, for the sake of these as ends; but infernal uses are those that are serviceable only to the man himself and those dependent on him; and if serviceable to the church, to the country, to society, or to a fellow citizen, it is not for the sake of these as ends, but for the sake of self as the end. And yet everyone ought from love, though not from self-love, to provide the necessaries and requisites of life for himself and those dependent on him.

When man loves uses by doing them in the first place, and loves the world and self in the second place, the former constitutes his spiritual and the latter his natural; and the spiritual rules, and the natural serves. This makes evident what the spiritual is, and what the natural is. This is the meaning of the Lord’s words in Matthew:

Seek ye first the kingdom of the heavens* and its justice, and all things shall be added unto you (Matt. 6:33).

“The kingdom of the heavens” means the Lord and His church, and “justice” means spiritual, moral, and civil good; and every good that is done from the love of these is a use. Then “all things shall be added,” because when use is in the first place, the Lord, from whom is all good, is in the first place and rules, and gives whatever contributes to eternal life and happiness; for, as has been said, all things of the Lord’s Divine providence pertaining to man look to what is eternal. “All things that shall be added” refer to food and raiment, because food means everything internal that nourishes the soul, and raiment everything external that like the body clothes it. Everything internal has reference to love and wisdom, and everything external to wealth and eminence. All this makes clear what is meant by loving uses for the sake of uses, and what the uses are from which man has wisdom, from which and according to which wisdom everyone has eminence and wealth in heaven.

(Apocalypse Explained 1193)
January 3, 2015

* Photolithograph has “kingdom of the heavens.” Schmidius also has it. The Greek is “Kingdom of God.”

The peace and joy of heaven is available to us

by Rev. Amos Glenn

And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, “I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel. Speak to them, saying, ‘At evening you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. And you shall know that I am Jehovah your God.’”

So it was that quails came up at evening and covered the camp, and in the morning the dew lay all around the camp. And when the layer of dew lifted, there, on the surface of the wilderness, was a tiny round substance, as fine as frost on the ground.

And Moses said to them, “This is the bread which Jehovah has given you to eat.” “This is the thing which Jehovah has commanded: ‘Let every man gather it according to each one’s need.’”

Every man had gathered according to each one’s need. And Moses said, “Let no one leave any of it till morning.” Notwithstanding they did not heed Moses. But some of them left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. So they gathered it morning by morning, every man according to his need.

(Excerpted from Exodus 16:9-36)

The Lord wants us to have the peace and joy of heaven. Everything He does leads us away from misery and toward happiness. A willingness to follow the Lord’s instructions doesn’t come naturally to most of us, so we are unhappy at times. The children of Israel complained about their suffering in the wilderness because they trusted neither Moses nor Jehovah to take care of even their needs. Ironically, this very mistrust was the source of their misery.

Just as He cared for the Children of Israel, the Lord responds to our unhappy grumblings by sending two types of happiness: natural (meant by quail) and spiritual (meant by bread). The flavorful quail corresponds to the natural feelings of pleasure that come from doing a good deed—­sometimes for selfish reasons. The Lord provides these positive feelings to motivate us, even when we aren’t feeling loving, to sustain us during times of struggle.

While sustaining us with feelings of happiness (quail), the Lord also offers bread, corresponding to unselfish, spiritual happiness. Tasting the bread corresponds to genuinely enjoying serving the neighbor, authentic good feelings not mixed with self-gratification. The bread is satisfying and nutritious; quail was tasty, but the bread was life-giving. The bread corresponds to the happiness of heaven, which the Lord provides each of us.

Here is the catch: you cannot generate these simple, good ideas yourself. The bread was impossible to store and it is impossible to provide ourselves with heavenly life. The test for the children of Israel was to collect only as much as was needed for the day and to trust that the Lord would feed them again tomorrow. Bread stored overnight became putrid and full of worms. This is a picture of what happens when we lack trust in the Lord and His Providence.

Happiness comes from the daily journey. We are filled with heavenly happiness when we gather true ideas from the Lord’s Word and make them part of who we are, when we do what the Lord teaches because we acknowledge Him as God. The Lord understands there are times when the bread is difficult to eat, when it seems tasteless, dry and unpleasant. In those times, the lower delights, represented by the quail, serve to motivate us to continue acting in a good way. These actions form a container into which the Lord can rain down the bread of life and its heavenly happiness.

https://newchurch.org/

DAILY INSPIRATION

“Whatever spiritual qualities a person acquires in the world remain with him or her after death.”

Heaven and Hell

5 Ways to Experience Divine Love Today

Swedenborg Foundation

Emanuel Swedenborg writes that one of the best ways to grow spiritually is to embrace and embody love in the same way God radiates it. That may seem like a pretty tall order, but throughout his writings, Swedenborg offers some clues about how we can put divine love into practice in our everyday lives.

blog_useful

1. Do something that’s useful for others

“God dwells in the individual useful things because he dwells in the purpose behind them.” — True Christianity #13

Swedenborg often talks about usefulness, the idea that everything and everyone has a purpose—a unique service that they provide to the world just by being who or what they are. What’s something that you could do today to help others, to move a project forward, to contribute ideas or inspiration, or to help bridge a communication gap?

blog_forgiveness

2. Forgive someone

“The Lord forgives everyone’s sins. He does not accuse us or keep score.” —Divine Providence #280

Many people are taught to think of God as a wrathful being who punishes people for the smallest transgression. But Swedenborg says that God is pure love, incapable of hating or even being angry at any person, no matter what they’ve done.

It’s human nature to hold grudges, big and small. Are you holding on to anger at someone who was rude to you at a store, or who cut you off in traffic, or makes your daily life difficult in some way? One way to deal with those situations is to think about them as whole people who have goodness inside them, even if they make mistakes or if their actions have consequences they might not have intended. Just as we can forgive ourselves for having a bad day, we can forgive others, too.

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3. Take care of someone

“The sphere of divine love has a special influence on parents. Because of it, they tenderly love their children (who are outside themselves), the want to be one with them, and they want to bless them from themselves. The sphere of divine love affects not only the good but also the evil, and not only people but also animals and birds of every kind.” — True Christianity #44

Parents aren’t the only people with the urge to help others. Is there someone in your life who needs extra help, maybe someone that you already spend a lot of time caring for? Are there little ways that you take care of the people in your life, even if it’s an action as small as cleaning up a mess or helping them to find a lost object?

If we consciously choose to perform caring actions for others out of a sense of love or kindness, Swedenborg tells us that we open ourselves up to even more of that love in the future.

blog_celebrate_differences

4. Celebrate differences

“It does seem as though Divinity were not the same in one person as in another, as though it were different in a wise person than in a simple one, for example, or different in an elderly one than in a child. This is just the deceptive way things seem, though. The person may be different, but the Divinity within is not.” — Divine Love and Wisdom #78

Celebrating differences can be a bit of a cliché. It’s easy to forget that it’s human nature to judge others—not just for obvious reasons like race, gender, age, sexual orientation, and so on, but for things as simple as how a person dresses and what kind of music he or she likes.

Every day we’re surrounded by people who are different from us in some way, large or small. Have you ever caught yourself forming preconceived ideas about people who aren’t like you or people you don’t understand? How might those people be expressing the Divinity within themselves?

blog_begenerous

5. Be generous

“The love we were created with is a love for our neighbor that makes us as generous with our neighbor as we are with ourselves, and even more so.” —Divine Providence #275

Everyone has something that they can share with others, whether it’s a tangible item like food or money or an intangible like time, experience—or love. It’s easy to share things that we have in abundance, but sometimes it can be a powerfully loving act to share something that you don’t have a lot of. Try it, and see how it feels.

 

If you’d like to hear more about Swedenborg’s take on divine love, you can:

Watch “How to Love,” a recent episode of our weekly webcast Swedenborg and Life.

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Read more:

“Good Love and Good Actions,” an excerpt from Swedenborg’s book True Christianity
“The Lord’s Nature is Love,” an excerpt from Swedenborg’s book Heaven and Hell
“Usefulness,” an essay from psychologist Wilson van Dusen on how to apply Swedenborg’s concept of being useful.

http://www.swedenborg.com/

Stella English

Spiritual Questions & Answers

Discovering inner health and transformation

Stella with Alan Sugar

Stella is known as a winner of BBC tv’s The Apprentice

Her childhood was a painful one. “It was quite a lonely hard time for me.” Her father had abandoned her at a young age, leaving her mother Drusilla unable to care for her due to psychological ill-health. It wasn’t deliberate neglect. Her mother couldn’t look after herself let alone a daughter.

Stella was able to do more or less what she wanted and she didn’t know right from wrong. She says she didn’t go to school much because of being bullied there due to her appearance.

She also spent time in children’s care homes and was taken in by her great aunt, Mrs Brockman, (also called Stella) who raised her in loco parentis. However she missed her real mother and moved back with her when aged 14 – only to find her lifestyle was more chaotic. At 15 she was living alone in a run-down bedsit.

Thamesmead a place Stella once called home. It is a social housing development built in the 1960s on former marshland with a population of some 50,000 people. It has graffiti-lined avenues known for their high crime levels and grey concrete buildings.

It  has had the worst record for credit card fraud of any postal address in the country. In the 1990’s teenage gangs intimitated people on the streets. The area was then known to be associated with poverty, gang violence and race wars. There were racially motivated murders although these days there is better racial co-existence in sharp contrast with the not so distant past.

Stella mixed with some hard people, is street-wise and knows how to look after herself. She drank in one of London’s roughest pubs, The Wildflower, in the heart of Thamesmead where gangs with knives and clubs would fight after hours.

Stella however has made something of her life. She studied a one-year business course before adding City firms such as Merrill Lynch, Nomura and Daiwa Securities to her CV.
She won the prestigious BBC business Apprentice contest.  She lives in St Albans with her partner and 2 sons.

Stella has bettered herself. If she can do it, anyone can. As she says ‘You are in charge of your own destiny’. She has shown a lot of determination.

Stella was cared for by great-aunt then aged 72. Stella says ‘Her fostering me was life-changing.   “She was very strict. I went from having no rules – or if there were any, ignoring them – to having lots of rules”. “She made me do 3 hours of homework a night.”

Stella now wants to help find foster homes for the thousands of youngsters in the care
system. A report to mark the start of Barnardo’s  Fostering and Adoption week now reveals at least 8,750 new foster families are urgently needed.

http://www.spiritualquestions.org.uk/

Posted on11th January 2012Authoreditor18CategoriesEthics & Children, Meaning and inspirationTags, , , , , ,  Leave a comment

Charity

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You do so much for me, thank you

People who read Swedenborg’s works will – in most translations, anyway – frequently encounter the word “charity.” In many cases, it is paired up with the word “faith.” This can cause a fair amount of confusion, because the way Swedenborg uses them is rather different from their common modern meanings.

At it’s simplest level, “faith” to most people means a belief in the existence of God. But the idea of “faith” rises from there to an intensely emotional state: a feeling of peace and euphoria arising from belief in God, trust in His salvation, and a transporting sense of personal relationship. “Charity,” meanwhile, is used to describe physical acts: contributing money or effort to service organizations or specific causes. It’s something that’s done, not a state of being.

In Swedenborg’s works, however, “charity” is usually the English rendering of the Latin word caritas, which is also the root of the verb “to care.” If we think of “charity” as “a state of caring,” we can start seeing what Swedenborg was trying to convey.

“Caring” does not necessarily have to be emotional. You can take care of someone you don’t like, you can take care of business or errands or duties that really have no emotional content at all. Swedenborg would call these “acts of charity,” things done from a desire to be a good person. But the idea of “caring” can elevate, too: When you “care about” someone it involves real affection, and to “care about” an idea or mission implies a deep commitment – it is a feeling, an emotional state. The ultimate state of “caring,” of course, would be caring about all of humanity, wanting what’s best for everyone on the planet. This is what Swedenborg would call “true charity,” and it is marked by love – the love of others.

Or as Swedenborg puts it in Arcana Coelestia number 8033: “Charity is an inward affection consisting in a desire which springs from a person’s heart to do good to the neighbour, which is the delight of his life.”

At all these levels, though, charity cannot act on its own. It needs tools.

Imagine, for instance, a young mother falling and breaking her leg. Her four-year-old might love her desperately, but cannot take care of her. A paramedic, meanwhile, might see her as just a case number, but will get her stabilized and delivered to a hospital. The difference, obviously, is knowledge. The paramedic has a bunch of tested, true ideas in her head that give her the capacity to care for the mother; the four-year-old does not.

That knowledge is actually part of what Swedenborg would call “faith,” though he’s referring to spiritual things rather than medical ones. In general, “faith” in Swedenborg’s works refers to things we accept as true because they come to us from the Lord and the Lord’s teachings. If we take them and apply them to life, we can do works of charity – we can use knowledge to take care of people and things, to actually do something good.

And just like the idea of caring, these items of faith can elevate. “Thou shalt not murder” is a good low-level matter of faith, and should certainly be applied if we want to be charitable people. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is a bit higher, a bit more internal, and will help us be charitable on a deeper level. The idea that by loving others we are loving the Lord will take us to a deeper place yet.

And perhaps most beautiful of all is what happens when we reach a state of true charity. If we work to be good because we want to serve the Lord, the Lord will eventually change our hearts, transforming us so that we delight in being good and delight in loving and helping others. At that stage the ideas of faith change from being the masters over our evil desires to being the servants of our good desires. From a loving desire to be good and serve others we will seek and use knowledge that lets us fulfill that mission.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 809, 1994, 8033, 8120; Arcana Coelestia 1798 [2-5]; Arcana Coelestia 1799 [3-4]; Arcana Coelestia 916 [2]; Charity 11, 40, 56, 90, 199; Divine Wisdom 11; The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine 121; True Christian Religion 367, 377, 392, 425, 450, 453, 576)

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