§304 union through the word 163
But there is no way to explain briefl y the nature of that connection of
everything with what is prior and therefore with the First that is the source
of everything, because it is varied and diverse. We can say generally only
that there is a connection of the natural world with the spiritual world that
results in a correspondence between everything in the natural world
and everything in the spiritual world. (On this correspondence, see
§§ 103 – 115 , and on the connection and consequent correspondence of
everything in us with everything in heaven, see §§ 87 – 102 .)
We have been so created that we have a connection and a union with 304
the Lord, while with angels we have only an association. The reason we
have only an association, not a union, with angels is that we are from
creation like angels in respect to the deeper levels of our minds. We have
a similar purposefulness and a similar capacity to understand. This is
why we become angels after death if we have lived according to the divine
pattern, and why we then, like the angels, have wisdom. So when we talk
about our union with heaven, we mean our union with the Lord and our
association with angels, since heaven is not heaven because of anything
that really belongs to the angels but because of the divine nature of the
Lord. (On the fact that the Lord’s divine nature makes heaven, see §§ 7 –
22 [ 7 – 12 ] above.)
[ 2 ] Over and above what angels have, though, there is the fact that
we are not just in a spiritual world by virtue of our inner natures but are
at the same time in a natural world by virtue of our outward natures.
These outward things that are in the natural world are all the contents of
our natural or outer memory and the thinking and imaging we do on
that basis. In general, this includes our insights and information together
with their delights and charm to the extent that they have a worldly fl a-
vor, and all the pleasures that derive from our physical senses. Then too,
there are those senses themselves and our words and actions. All these are
ultimate things in which the Lord’s divine infl ow comes to rest, since it
does not stop in the middle but goes on to its very limit.
We may gather from this that the ultimate form of the divine pattern
is in us, and since it is the ultimate form, it is the basis and foundation.
[ 3 ] Since the Lord’s divine infl ow does not stop in the middle but
goes on to its very limit, as just stated, and since the intermediate region
it crosses is the angelic heaven and the limit is in us, and since nothing
disconnected can exist, it follows that there is such a connection and
union of heaven with the human race that neither can endure without
the other. If the human race were cut off from heaven, it would be like a