§285 peace 151
h. The human sense of self consists in loving oneself more than God, and the world more than
heaven, and regarding one’s neighbor as nothing compared to oneself; which means that it is love
for oneself and for the world: 694 , 731 , 4317 , 5660. Evil people are so completely opposed to inno-
cence that they cannot stand its presence: 2126.
This has shown me that our self-image and the self-love it fosters are
opposed to innocence, for all the people who are in hell are caught up in
their own self-image and therefore in self-love.h
The State of Peace in Heaven
284
A
NYONE who has not experienced heaven’s peace cannot know
what the peace is that angels enjoy. As long as we are in our bodies,we cannot accept heaven’s peace, so we cannot perceive it, our percep-
tion being on the natural level. In order to perceive it, we need to be the
kind of person who as to thought can be raised and taken out of the body
and brought into the spirit so as to be with angels. Since I have perceived
heaven’s peace in this way, I can describe it, but not in words as it really
is, because human words are not adequate. Using words, I can only
describe what it is like compared to that peace of mind that people have
who are content in God.
There are two things at the heart of heaven, innocence and peace. We 285
say that they are at the heart because they come straight from the Lord.
From innocence comes everything good about heaven and from peace
comes all the delight of that good. Everything good has its own delight,
and both—the good and the delight—are matters of love. This is because
what is loved is what is called good and also is perceived as delightful. It
follows from this that these two inmost qualities, innocence and peace,
emanate from the Lord’s divine love and move angels to their very core.
In the previous chapter on the state of innocence of heaven’s angels,
it was shown that innocence is the very heart of good. Now I need to