234 HEAVEN and HELL §407
enjoyed from the Lord through life in the world. If he wanted to rule on
any other basis he was a revolutionary, since he was in someone else’s
kingdom. He was embarrassed when he heard this.408 I talked with some spirits who thought that heaven and heavenly joy
consisted of being important; but I told them that in heaven the greatest
is the one who is least. This is because people are called “least” when they
have no ability or wisdom and do not want any ability or wisdom on
their own, but only from the Lord. This kind of “least person” has the
greatest happiness. And because such people do have the greatest happi-
ness, it follows that they are the most important, because this is how they
have all their capability and the most wisdom of all—from the Lord.
Further, what is being the greatest if not being the happiest? The greatest
happiness is what powerful people are seeking with their power and what
rich people are seeking with their wealth.
I went on to say that heaven did not consist of wanting to be least in
order to be greatest. People who do this pant and long for greatness.
Rather, it means a heartfelt wishing better for others than for oneself,
and serving others for the sake of their happiness with no thought of
reward, simply out of love.
409 Actual heavenly joy as it is in and of itself is beyond description because
it dwells in the deepest natures of angels. It fl ows from there into the
details of their thought and affection and from these into the details of
their speech and action. It is as though their deeper levels were wide open
and freed to accept a delight and bliss that spreads out through all their
fi bers and therefore through their whole being, giving them a kind of per-
ception and feeling that simply cannot be described. Anything that arises
from the deepest levels fl ows into the details that derive from those deepest
levels and proliferates toward the outer levels, constantly gaining strength.
When good spirits who have not yet experienced this pleasure (not
having been raised into heaven yet) perceive it from the aura of love from
some angel, they are fi lled with such pleasure that they fi nd themselves in
a kind of sweet faint. This often happens to people who want to know
what heavenly joy is.
410 Some spirits wanted to know what heavenly joy was, so they were
allowed to feel it to the point that they could not bear any more. Still, this
was not angelic joy, but only the slightest trace of the angelic quality that
they were allowed to observe and share. It was so slight that it was almost
cool, yet they called it most heavenly because it was so deep within them.
I could tell from this not only that there are levels of heavenly joy, but
also that the deepest level of one individual barely touches the outmost or