230 HEAVEN and HELL §400
wholly focused on pleasures of the body and the fl esh because of their
love for themselves and love for the world; while all the people who are
in heaven, while they lived in the world, were focused on pleasures of the
soul and the spirit because of their love for the Lord and their love for
their neighbor. Since these loves are opposed to each other, the hells and
the heavens are completely separated, even to the point that spirits who
are in hell do not dare stick out a single fi nger or raise the top of their
heads, for the moment they do so, even the slightest bit, they are in tor-
ment and agony. This too I have often seen.401 As long as people who are caught up in the love for themselves and
the world are living in the body, they feel the pleasure that stems from
those loves and the pleasure of the gratifi cations that result from those
loves. As long as people who are focused on love for God and love for
their neighbor are living in the body, though, they have no obvious sense
of the pleasure that stems from those loves and from the good affections
that arise from them. All they feel is a sense of well-being that is barely
perceptible because it is hidden away in their deeper natures, veiled by
the outer sensations of their bodies and dulled by the cares of this world.
Our state changes completely after death, however. Then the pleasures of
love for ourselves and the world turn into painful and fearful sensations,
because within them is what we call hellfi re, and also into foul and
unclean things that answer to their fi lthy gratifi cations—all of which,
remarkably enough, are now quite delightful to them.
In contrast, the faint sense of pleasure, the almost imperceptible
sense of well-being that was found in people who were focused on love
for God and love for their neighbor in the world, turns into the pleasure
of heaven, perceptible and palpable in countless ways. That sense of well-
being that had been lying hidden in their deeper natures while they lived
in the world is now unveiled and released into open sensation, because
now they are in the spirit, and this was the delight of their spirit.402 All the pleasures of heaven are united to forms of service and dwell
within them, because forms of service are the good effects of the love and
thoughtfulness that angels are immersed in. Consequently, the nature of
each individual’s pleasures depends on the nature of that individual’s ser-
vice, and its intensity depends on the intensity of the affection for service.
We can be assured that heaven’s pleasures are pleasures of service by
comparing them with our own fi ve physical senses. Each sense has its own
pleasure in accord with the service it performs. Sight has its pleasure, hear-
ing its own, smell its own, taste its own, and touch its own. The pleasure of
sight derives from beauty and forms, that of hearing from harmonies, of