202 HEAVEN and HELL §356
[ 15 ] Truths on a spiritual level cannot be grasped without a knowl-
edge of the following universal principles:1. Everything in the universe goes back to the good and the true and
their union in order to be anything—that is, to love and faith and their
union.2. People have discernment and volition: discernment is the receptacle of
what is true, and volition the receptacle of what is good. Everything
in us goes back to these two and to their union just as everything [in
the universe] goes back to the good and the true and their union.3. There is an inner and an outer person, as distinct from each other as
heaven and the world; yet they must become one if the person is to
be truly human.4. Heaven’s light is the light the inner person is in, and the world’s light
is the light the outer person is in. Heaven’s light is what is essentially
divine and true, the source of all intelligence.5. There is a responsiveness between the things in the inner person and
those in the outer, so that things from either side appear in a differ-
ent guise on the other side—so different that they cannot be identi-
fi ed without a knowledge of correspondences.Without knowledge of these and many other matters, only incongru-
ous concepts can be grasped and formed of truths on the spiritual and
heavenly levels. This means that without these universal principles, the
information and insights of the natural person can scarcely serve for the
discernment and development of the rational person. This shows how
necessary elementary information is.Rich and Poor People in Heaven
357
T
HERE are various opinions about acceptance into heaven. Some
people think that the poor are accepted but not the rich; some think
that rich and poor alike are accepted; some think that rich people cannot