72 HEAVEN and HELL §129
d. Garments in the Word mean the truths that clothe what is good: 1073 , 2576 , 5248 , 5319 , 5954 ,
9216 , 9952 , 10536. The garments of the Lord when he was transfi gured meant the divine truth
that emanates from his divine love: 9212 , 9216.
e. Heaven’s light illuminates our discernment, making us rational individuals: 1524 , 3138 , 3167 ,
4408 , 6608 , 8707 , 9126 [ 9128 ], 9399 , 10659 [ 10569 ]. Discernment is enlightened because it is what
is receptive of truth: 6222 , 6608 , 10659 [ 10569 ]. Discernment is enlightened to the extent that we
accept what is true in what is good from the Lord: 3619. The quality of our discernment is deter-
mined by the quality of heartfelt truths out of which it is formed: 10064. Discernment has light
from heaven the way sight has light from the world: 1524 , 5114 , 6608 , 9128. Heaven’s light from
the Lord is always present with us, but fl ows in [only] to the extent that we are engaged in truth
because of what is good: 4060 , 4213 [ 4214 ].
f. When we are lifted above the sensory level, we come into a gentler light, and eventually into a
heavenly light: 6313 , 6315 , 9407. An actual raising into heaven’s light occurs when we are engaged
in intelligence: 3190. How much light I perceived when I was led out of my worldly concepts:
1526 , 6608.in the Word mean truths as well,d so it says in David, “Jehovah, you
clothe yourself with light as a garment” (Psalms 104 : 2 ).130 It stands to reason that the light in the heavens is spiritual and that
that light is divine truth when we consider that we also have spiritual
light and that we have enlightenment from it to the extent that we par-
ticipate in intelligence and wisdom on the basis of divine truth. Our spir-
itual light is the light of our discernment, whose objects are things true
that it arranges in order by a process of analysis and forms into relation-
ships, and from which it draws a series of conclusions.e
Natural people are unaware that the light that enables us to see such
things is a real light because they do not see it with their eyes or notice it
with their thought. Still, many people do recognize it and also distin-
guish it from the natural light in which they fi nd themselves when they
are thinking naturally and not spiritually. People are thinking naturally
when they are focusing solely on this world and attributing everything to
nature. They are thinking spiritually, however, when they focus on
heaven and attribute everything to the Divine.
I have often been allowed to perceive that the light that illumines the
mind is a true light, quite different from the light that we call natural
light. I have also been allowed to see it. I have been gradually elevated
into that light inwardly, and as I was raised up, my discernment was
enlightened to the extent that I could grasp what I had been unable to
grasp before, ultimately things that could in no way be comprehended by
thought from natural light. At times I have resented the fact that they
were incomprehensible [in natural light] when they were so clearly and
plainly perceived in the heavenly light.f