pleasure

Cats Don’t Get It!

Spiritual Questions & Answers

Discovering inner health and transformation

Lucy seeks and shows affection in the way she nuzzles up to me. She meows gently and quietly — not stridently and persistently like the un-neutered tom who visits our garden making a thorough nuisance of himself.

I often have on hand a glass of orange or lemon squash to sip from. But if she thinks she will get away with it, my furry friend will not hesitate to jump up on to the coffee table to have a quick drink — just too lazy to walk into the kitchen where her bowl of water is always available.

Another thing — the soft chairs in our hall are full of torn fabric where she sharpens her claws even though I have placed a log of wood conveniently outside the kitchen door for her sole use. Yes she has her faults and definitely needs to change her attitude!

But is she capable of change?  I haven’t seen any signs of what I would call a social conscience in her makeup. No contrition at all when I tick her off. She looks at me as if I were just exercising my lungs. Animals of course learn how to gain rewards and avoid punishment. But no public prosecutor would take an animal to court on a criminal charge. Cats are known to be self-willed. But we don’t blame them for doing their own thing – for following their natural inclinations.

It’s otherwise with human beings. We also have a will but is ours not one based on rational understanding? For unlike animals have we not a higher degree of mind that can see beyond the things of the senses? — into a human realm of aesthetics, moral values, and spiritual principles. Not everybody seems to recognise this spiritual dimension to life.  However, many writers such as H.T. Hamblin and Emanuel Swedenborg have pointed to an ineffable realm apart from place, time and even person. An ‘eternal now’ where they found something deeply moving yet not easy to convey in natural language.

And does this higher perception not allow us to reflect on our own actions? A self-examination of which my cat is incapable. On the one hand we are free to make mistakes, rebel against what we know to be good and proper. But on the other hand we have a tremendous opportunity to face in a new direction, to turn our lives round, and even be transformed.

But why would we want to make any personal changes? One reason can be to do with wanting deeper happiness. If you have had a glimpse of something wonderful and beautiful you long to have it back.

Walking through the woods near my home, the other day, I saw a dead branch of a tree without any new growth that you would expect at this time of year – and I smiled ruefully to myself, for I felt a bit like that dead bit of wood. A bit lifeless inside. It was only when the fragrance from the wild flowers were pointed out to me that I took any notice. I saw the bluebells shooting up all over the place and heard the birds singing but they didn’t have the usual uplifting effect on me.

I have noticed this kind of negative state seems to come along when I have become pre-occupied with the wrong things. I have come to learn that personal change for me means less attachment to the things of self; less concern with what others think of me and of getting my own way in things; less priority given to bodily comfort and pleasure.

It is only when we change radio stations and switch into the things of spirit can we hope to feel enlivened and illuminated by the divine source to life. It is not surprising,  that I lacked the zest for life I had previously enjoyed, for I had been turning my back on the divine within; orientating myself away from the mystery that is the changeless force within our being. Without that Christ force we cannot change. But with it anything is possible.

First published in New Vision Magazine

Copyright 2011 Stephen Russell-Lacy

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7th July 2011Authoreditor18CategoriesPrivate EthicsTags, , , , , , ,, , , ,  Leave a comment

NEW BEGINNINGS

NEW BEGINNINGS
A Sermon by Rev. Brian W. Keith
Preached in Glenview, Illinois September 7, 1986

Life can seem terribly dreary. Familiar patterns are repeated over and over again. Ruts appear. Dishes keep getting dirty. Bills keep coming. The house always needs something done to it. And as we grow older, our bodies signal the rapid passing of time. Energy levels decline. Aches and pains come from nowhere. From being unthinkable, one’s own death is seen as a real possibility.

Emotionally we can feel trapped by what has gone before. Previous actions, mistakes, and evils close in on our minds. We can be haunted by what has happened. The depressing patterns of petty frustrations and useless arguments scar and desensitize us. We can become numbed wandering through the day trying not to feel anything.

Ezekiel had a vision addressed to such a lifeless and hopeless frame of mind. He saw a valley full of dried out bones. As he prophesied, the bones came together, flesh was put upon them, and breath entered them. From dry bones came a great army. And the Lord said to Ezekiel, “These bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, `Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ Therefore prophesy and say to them, ` … Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves'” (37:11-13).

Our bones are dry. Our hope is lost. How pitiful! And how false! Life is repetitive and dreary only if we choose to look at it that way. For all around us there is a renewal of life. New beginnings are taking place constantly.

Consider the natural world. Plants and animals are constantly reproducing, much more than this world could support. Every day the sun comes up anew. Each new year is ushered in with festivity. Even in the fall when the leaves turn and life seems to drain away, there is the promise of rebirth. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain” (John 12:24).

Consider also some events in the life cycle. A child leaves home for school. A person leaves school for a job. Single life is given up for marriage. Children grow up and establish their own homes. Retirement comes. Each of these changes involves loss and gain a new beginning. Even death itself is growth. The Heavenly Doctrines show that when a person awakens in the other world, “at this point his life begins” (AC 186), and his entrance into his eternal heavenly home “marks a new beginning” in his life (AC 1273).

Even as natural life has changes new beginnings so spiritually there can be a constant renewal of life. Above our consciousness the Lord is gently guiding our thoughts and feelings. While we are unaware of it, He is inspiring new ways of looking at life, stimulating new feelings of warmth and concern (see AC 6645e). The Lord is working with our spirits so that we are renewed every moment of every day. The fact is, there are new beginnings in our lives all the time. The Lord is raising up our apparently dry bones, putting flesh upon them, and breathing life into them.

We can choose to feel trapped by the past or dulled by routines. Or we can look at what is happening as the opportunity for one of the many new beginnings in life. For the Lord does not control what happens to us. Yes, His Providence is overseeing all that happens, but that does not mean He is causing specific events to occur good or bad. In one sense He is not concerned for what happens; rather He is concerned with how we respond, for that determines what good He can then bring about. Retirement, for example, is not important, but how a person then uses his or her time is. The response can be gloomy, for the loss of co-workers, status, or income; or it can be of renewal more time for friends, family, church work, or others. A newness of life can be born in any situation any time, anywhere.

Our participation in renewal is critical. The Lord never forces us to grow. He never forces us to change our minds or actions. While He is always working, urging and pressing to influence us in heavenly ways, He will not change our outlook if we do not want Him to. We can remain in the trenches. We can look upon life as a deterioration of our physical and mental abilities. We can see the dark side of every event, pessimistically awaiting the next cruel blow of fate. We can cry about dry bones and hopelessness. But those dry bones can have flesh on them, breath in them.

Regardless of what has occurred in the past, new beginnings are possible if we are willing. They do not start outside of ourselves. They start with our thoughts and intentions (see AC 1317). We have the freedom to think about life in any way we wish. We can think negatively or positively. We can desire, intend, anything we wish. We can want what is good. We can want what is evil. We are not trapped by previous choices or patterns of behavior. We are trapped only by our fears and refusals to think and try.

Our attitude makes all the difference in how we view the world and how easy we make it for the Lord to renew us. From a negative, doubting viewpoint we see the world and ourselves through a warped lens. We reject or give up on the ideals the Lord has shown us in His Word. But if we attempt to trust in what He has said, if we will be positive, affirmative to Him, then wonders can be worked (see AC 3913:5). “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, `Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20).

Our basic assumptions can never be proven. And if we assume, have faith, that the Lord speaks to us in His Word, and our lives will be improved if we listen, then a new beginning can occur. For regeneration is the new creation of life spiritual life. It begins when a person affirms the truth and intends to live according to it. This is the start of regeneration. It does not occur at any set time in life, nor does it happen only once. Each and every time we positively turn our minds to the Lord’s way, a new beginning occurs.

Such beginnings are like seedlings. They are planted in the soil of our lives. With watering, with light and warmth, they take root. As they grow, as we walk in the Lord’s way, the earth of our life is made more secure. The interlocking root systems stop the erosion of false ideas, evil desires. The more that take root the better, for the roots hinder the washing away of good by selfishness.

But for seedlings to grow strong they need weathering. The storms and bitter cold which could harm the trees actually serve to strengthen them. So in regeneration. Each new beginning of spiritual life will be challenged. Where honesty is growing, the harsh wind of theft will blow and try to destroy it. Where compassion is developing, cold disregard for others and apathy will also be present.

Spiritual struggles ensue. These raging storms are painful, as the new beginnings of spiritual life are threatened and buffeted. Yet, as we endure, as we resist the forces of hell, a greater strength is acquired. More spiritual life grows perhaps a clearer idea of His ways, a deeper appreciation of our need for the Lord’s presence, or a greater intensity of affection for His good (see AC 2272). Whatever is gained, our spirits are growing flesh upon dry bones, breath giving life. As the Lord promised: “I will bring the blind by a way they did not know; I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked places straight” (Isaiah 42:16).

The Lord leads us through all the many byways of life, through the valleys up to the peaks. He would have each day be a new beginning for us, not in a dramatic sense, for we are not meant to have radical changes often. The new birth, or regeneration, is not a series of sudden changes in direction. Yes, it can begin with that when a person first realizes the importance of spiritual values, when a person experiences the grief of repentance. But rebirth is an evolving process. It is made up of many small beginnings.

The small beginnings of regeneration are a series of purifications the regular washing away of evils in the spirit, of saying, “No, I won’t do that because it is wrong.” And as the Heavenly Doctrines note, ” … such purification ought to go on all the time and so always to be taking place as if from a new beginning” (AC 2044).

“As if from a new beginning.” In one sense, each time we resist an evil, each time we intend on doing something good, it is a new beginning. Something new has started in our lives. But in another sense, every positive step is a continuation of what was begun before. It is a resurfacing of the seeds planted years before from parents, from teachers, from whatever good we had willingly done. The Lord keeps working with the good He has established in everyone’s life. While it may not be seen for a time, it is carefully preserved, awaiting the occasion to be seen again. Hellish choices and life styles shut it up, but it is still there. The Lord is very patient, always leading us so that the good we have might be protected, develop, and eventually blossom in the fruit of an angelic life.

What this means is that life is never pointless. While we will certainly go through times when we feel our life is dry or our lot hopeless, the Lord can put flesh on our bones, breath in our lungs. All our patterns which seem so fixed and limiting, all the painful baggage we carry from the past, need not defeat us. For every day the Lord is providing us with new beginnings small, almost imperceptible opportunities to renew our lives. If we are not utterly downcast, if we have not given up if we will be open and affirmative to what He has said then new life may grow. Seedlings are planted which, though they may not bear visible fruit until the next life, will give us strength, will renew our spirits. And the prophecy of Isaiah will come true for us: “But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not be faint” (40:31). Amen.

Lessons: Ezekiel 37:1-14; John 3:1-8; NJHD 173-182 (portions)

New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 173-182 (portions)

173. He who does not receive spiritual life, that is, who is not begotten anew by the Lord, cannot come into heaven, which the Lord teaches in John: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except anyone be begotten again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (3:3).

174. A person is not born of his parents into spiritual life, but into natural life. Spiritual life consists in loving God above all things, and in loving his neighbor as himself, and this according to the precepts of faith, which the Lord has taught in the Word. But natural life consists in loving ourselves and the world more than the neighbor, yea, more than God Himself.

175. Everyone is born of his parents into the evils of the love of self and of the world.

176. [So] everyone continually inclines to, and lapses into, what he derives from heredity: hence he confirms with himself that evil, and also superadds more from himself. These evils are altogether contrary to spiritual life; they destroy it; wherefore, unless a person receives new life, which is spiritual life, from the Lord, thus unless he is conceived anew, is born anew, is educated anew, that is, is created anew, he is damned; for he wills nothing else, and thence thinks nothing else but what is of self and the world, in like manner as they do in hell.

179. Everyone has an internal man and an external man; the internal is what is called the spiritual man, and the external is what is called the natural man, and each is to be regenerated so that one may be regenerated. With one who is not regenerated, the external or natural rules, and the internal serves; but with one who is regenerated, the internal or spiritual rules, and the external serves. Whence it is manifest that the order of life is inverted with one from his birth, namely, that serves which ought to rule, and that rules which ought to serve. In order that a person may be saved, this order must be inverted; and this inversion can by no means exist except by regeneration from the Lord.

180. What it is for the internal man to rule and the external to serve, and vice versa, may be illustrated by this: If a person places all his good in pleasure, in gain, and in pride, and has delight in hatred and revenge, and inwardly in himself seeks for reasons which confirm them, then the external man rules and the internal serves. But when a person perceives good and delight in thinking and willing well, sincerely and justly, and in outwardly speaking and doing in like manner, then the internal man rules and the external serves.

181. The internal man is first regenerated by the Lord, and afterwards the external, and the latter by means of the former. For the internal man is regenerated by thinking those things which are of faith and charity, but the external by a life according to them. This is meant by the words of the Lord: “Unless anyone be begotten of water and the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). “Water,” in the spiritual sense, is the truth of faith, and “the spirit” is a life according to it.

182. The person who is regenerated is, as to his internal, in heaven, and is an angel there with the angels, among whom he also comes after death; he is then able to live the life of heaven, to love the Lord, to love the neighbor, to understand truth, to relish good, and to perceive the happiness thence derived.

ENJOYING LIFE

ENJOYING LIFE

A Sermon by Rev. Kurt Horigan AsplundhPreached in Bryn Athyn July 30, 1995

 

“Then they said to [Jesus], ‘My do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers, and likewise those of the Pharisees, but Yours eat and drink?'” (Luke 5:33)

As the Lord and His disciples travelled through the land of Israel, publicans and wealthy citizens often invited them to join them at meals. They ate the food and drank the wine that was offered. This baffled the religious leaders of the Jews. The Lord and His followers did not conform to the customary practices of holy men. They did not renounce worldly ways or fast like the Pharisees or the disciples of John. They freely ate and drank. So the Lord was denounced for being gluttonous and a winebibber (see Matt., 11:19). He seemed to enjoy the company and hospitality of the wealthy even if they were sinners. The Lord did not act the way the Pharisees thought He should. He didn’t obey their rules. Therefore, they concluded He was not a man of God.

Now, as then, there is an expectation that a good person, a truly religious person, is set apart from others by living an exemplary life. Good people, it is thought, live better lives than others. We think of them as “saints” because they renounce the ordinary pleasures we enjoy and human traits we exhibit. They practice a way of life that seems more spiritual than worldly, a life that you or I would find difficult to achieve.

Over time every religious body seems to develop criteria for the devout. Certain standards of behavior mark those considered to be true believers. With the Jews it was prayer and fasting, strict obedience to the Law. With Christians it is piety and charitable deeds. With the Eastern religions it is rigorous discipline.

True religions don’t begin this way. They begin with a spirit that infills practices. As the spirit fades, the practices harden and become ends in themselves. They are like the outside of the cup and platter which may be clean while the inside is full of filth. While the Jews were careful in tithing even on their least herbs, they were negligent about the “weightier” matters of the law: such things as judgment, showing mercy, and loving God (see Matt. 23:23, Luke 11:42).

Again, Christian piety and good deeds may lack love of God and the neighbor and simply be a show of external benevolence.

What of the New Church? Does the doctrine call for a special way of life? What must you renounce to regenerate? We’ll answer that later.

There is a kind of “folk wisdom” about religious life. People say, “If it feels good it must be bad.” If you’re having fun, it must be naughty. How can we forget the Lord’s parable about the rich fool who concluded that he could take it easy, could “eat, drink and be merry” (Luke 12:19)? Not so, said God. It seems this wealthy landowner was not allowed to relax. How about you? Do you feel guilty when you relax and enjoy life?

First, let it be clear: enjoying life is not abandoning ourselves to worldly and bodily pleasures for their own sake. This is spiritually fatal as the following passage shows: “Those who in the life of the body have made mere pleasures their end and aim, loving merely to indulge their natural propensities, and to live in luxury and festivity, caring only for themselves and the world without any regard to things Divine, and who are devoid of faith and charity, are after death … carried down to a hell … I have seen them there carrying dung and bemoaning their lot’ (AC 943).

The teachings of the church give perspective on daily living. The first principle of the church to remember is that the Lord is a God of love and wants happiness for us. The whole power of His Providence is leading us to the greatest possible happiness of heaven (see DP 324:6). What about happiness on earth? For many reasons explained in the Heavenly Doctrine, our life here falls short of the happiness of heaven. We may, in fact, pass through many states of temptation, unhappiness and sorrow on earth all looking to our eternal welfare. However, the Lord does not intend a sorrowful or miserable life for us. The Lord wants us to be happy on earth as well as in heaven. He wants us to enjoy life! “I have come that [you] may have life,” the Lord said, “and that [you] may have it more abundantly” (John 10: 10). “These things I have spoken to you that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15: 1 1).

“What is life without delight and pleasure?’ the Writings ask (DP 195). It is a principle of doctrine that life on all levels, physical and natural as well as spiritual, is good if rightly subordinated. The pleasures of the body, such as the enjoyment of taste, serve for its nourishment. To follow up with this example, we know that the delight in eating is given us by the Lord for a good purpose: to sustain life so there may be a sound mind in a sound body. We are told, “A spiritual man does not despise nourishment nor even its pleasures …” (AC 3951:3). He “may enjoy the delicacies of food and drink if he does not place his life therein (HH 358).

So long as our enjoyment and pleasure support a higher use, they are legitimate and good. It is when we over-indulge appetites, exalting the pleasure out of proportion to its use, that we pervert it and it becomes evil.

Take another example illustrating this principle. In some religious cultures the sexual act between married partners is regarded as an accommodation to the animal-like nature of the body, tolerated merely for the sake of procreation. Not so in the New Church. The Writings give the universal law “that primes exist, subsist, and persist from ultimates.” Every prior and interior love has its resting place and its basis in the natural or ultimate degree of life. “So is it also with this love,” we are told. Its ultimate delights are a basis and foundation for conjugial love (see CL 44:8). “It follows that all the states of blessedness, happiness, delight, pleasantness, and pleasure which, by the Lord the Creator, could ever be conferred on people are gathered into this His love” (CL 68:2).

The Lord wants us to enjoy the legitimate and lovely delights of marriage. The fact that sexual pleasures are so grossly perverted and violated in our world today does not make them wrong in themselves. Misuse or abuse of uses does not do away with the uses (except with those who misuse them) (see DLW 331). We had asked the question, “What must you renounce to regenerate?” The Heavenly Doctrine is clear – not the things of the world. We do not have to renounce the joys and pleasures of life. “It is believed by many,” the Writings teach, “that to renounce the world, and to live in the spirit and not in the flesh, is to reject worldly things, … to be continually engaged in pious meditation concerning God, … salvation, and … eternal life; to lead a life in prayers, in the reading of the Word and pious books; and also to afflict one’s self, but this is not renouncing the world” the Writings teach (NJHD 126, emphasis added). The Lord wants us to live in the world and to engage in its activities.

How sadly misguided those are who put aside the normal activities of this life and their pleasures in order to attain heavenly life. Swedenborg talked with some in the other life who had purposely withdrawn in this way from worldly affairs. Ironically, the harder they had tried to renounce the world and its pleasures to become angels, the less able they were to come among the angels, because the life of angels is a life of joy. These people had acquired a joyless and self-righteous attitude and were unfit for heaven (see HH 535).

We are not required by our religion to plunge ourselves into poverty or self-induced wretchedness, or to shun all bodily delights. This is not how evil in us is mastered or subdued. In fact, such a life leads to the evil of feeling superior to, and more deserving of, heaven than others because of our sacrifice (see AC 1947). This is why it is not as difficult as some have believed to live the life that leads to heaven (see HH 528). We do not have to follow this difficult and unnatural path.

True renunciation is not giving up the things of the world and its pleasures. “To renounce the world,” the Writings say, “is to love God and to love the neighbor; and God is loved when man lives according to His commandments, and the neighbor is loved when man performs uses” (NJHD 126). That’s it: We can live a heavenly way of life full of joy and pleasure provided we obey the commandments and serve the neighbor – no other restrictions; no other sacrifices.

What a refreshing teaching about life! “… a man may acquire riches and accumulate wealth as far as opportunity is given if it is not done by craft or fraud; … he may enjoy the delicacies of food and drink if he does not place his life therein; … he may have a palatial dwelling in accord with his condition, have dealings with others in like condition, frequent places of amusement, talk about the affairs of the world, and need not go about like a devotee with a sad and sorrowful countenance and drooping head, but may be joyful and cheerful; nor need he give his goods to the poor except so far as affection leads him; in a word, he may live outwardly precisely like a man of the world; and all this will be no obstacle to his entering heaven, provided that inwardly in himself he thinks about God as he ought, and acts sincerely and justly in respect to his neighbor’ (HH 358).

From this teaching we can see that wealth and riches are not in themselves evil nor are the enjoyments of life evil. It is the love of wealth and riches for their own sake that is evil. When we set our hearts on them, seek them for their own sake, and revel in their acquisition, we have stripped from them their true value as the means for good uses. It is the same with all loves and delights of this world. If we love them for their use, they are good; if we love them for their own sake, and our indulgence, they become perverted in us.

“The person who is being regenerated is not deprived of the delight of the pleasures of the body and lower mind,” we are told, “for he fully enjoys this delight after regeneration, and more fully than before, but in inverse ratio.” The Writings explain this: “Before regeneration, the delight of pleasures was everything of his life, but after regeneration, the good of charity becomes everything of his life; and then the delight of pleasures serves as a means and as an ultimate plane in which spiritual good with its happiness and blessedness terminates” (AC 8413:2, emphasis added).

The Lord taught the true spirit of life when He spoke in His Sermon on the Mount about fasting. “When you fast,” He said, “do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting.” He spoke against these acts of denial because they were done only for heavenly reward. The Lord said: “… they have their reward,” the reward of reputation and honor. “But you,” He said, “when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly” (Matt. 6:16-18).

By “fasting” here the Lord did not mean the actual deprivation of food which creates a longing for food. He meant a deeper longing of our spirit for good – our desire for a good life that comes through shunning evils and suffering temptation. Our “fast” is our resolve to follow the Lord and serve the neighbor sincerely, honestly, justly and faithfully in uses of life. This is not something to be done to draw attention to ourselves. What did the Lord teach? “Anoint your head and wash your face.” Live your life in joy, not as a martyr. Do not put on the face of sorrow. There is no merit in that. We find delight and happiness in life when we shun evils and go about our business. Then the Lord gives us a sense of satisfaction and joy.

“Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?'” (Matt. 9:14f). When the Lord is present in our lives we find joy and satisfaction.

“Thus says the Lord: ‘Again there shall be heard in this place the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who will say: “Praise the Lord of hosts, for the Lord is good, for His mercy endures forever. (Jer. 33: 10,1 1). Amen.

Lessons: Matt. 6:1-8, 16-18; 9:9-15; AC 995:2, 4

 

Arcana Coelestia 995:2,4

Some think that no one ought ever to live in the pleasures of the body and its senses who wishes to be happy in the other life, but that all these should be renounced on the ground that they are corporeal and worldly, withdrawing man and keeping him away from spiritual and heavenly life. But those who think so and therefore reduce themselves to voluntary misery while they live in the world are not well-informed as to what the real case is. No one is forbidden to enjoy the pleasures of the body and its senses, that is, the pleasures of possession of lands and wealth; the pleasures of honor and office in the state; the pleasures of conjugial love and of love for infants and children; the pleasures of friendship and of social life with companions; the pleasures of hearing, or of the sweetness of singing and music; the pleasures of sight, or of beauties, which are manifold, as those of becoming dress, of elegant dwellings with their furniture, beautiful gardens, and the like, which are delightful from harmony of form and color; the pleasures of smell, or of fragrant odors; the pleasures of taste, or of the flavors and benefits of food and drink; the pleasures of touch. For these are most external or bodily affections arising from interior affections …

That the pleasures above-mentioned are never denied to man, and that so far from being denied they are then first really pleasures when they come from their true origin, may also be seen from the fact that very many who have lived in power, dignity, and opulence in the world, and who had all pleasures in abundance, both of the body and of the senses, are among the blessed and happy in heaven, and with them now the interior delights and happiness are living, because they have had their origin in the goods of charity and the truths that are of faith in the Lord. And since they had regarded all their pleasures as coming from charity and faith in the Lord, they regarded them from use, which was their end. Use itself was the most delightful thing to them, and from this came the delight of their pleasures.