[ 3 ] Nevertheless, since these degrees are within people’s inner selves
and these are rarely obvious to the world, it is enough to love our neigh-
bor by the degree of goodness that we are aware of.
Now, these degrees are clearly perceived after death, since there the
feelings in our will and the thoughts in our intellect form a spiritual
sphere around us that others can sense in various ways. In this world,
however, this spiritual sphere is absorbed by our physical body and is
contained in the physical sphere that pours out around us.
The Lord’s parable about the Samaritan shows that there are degrees
of love for our neighbor. The Samaritan had mercy on the person who had
been wounded by robbers—a person whom both the priest and the Levite
had seen and yet passed by. When the Lord asked which of the three
seemed to have been a neighbor, the reply was “the one who had mercy”
(Luke 10 : 30 – 37 ).
411 We read that we are to love the Lord God above all things, and our
neighbor as ourselves (Luke 10 : 27 ). To love our neighbor as ourselves
means not despising our neighbors in comparison with ourselves. It means
treating them justly and not judging them wrongfully. The law of good-
will pronounced and given by the Lord himself is this:
Whatever you want people to do for you, do likewise for them. This is
the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7 : 12 ; Luke 6 : 31 , 32 )
This is how people who love heaven love their neighbor. People who love
the world, however, love their neighbor on a worldly basis for a worldly
benefit. People who love themselves love their neighbor in a selfish way
for a selfish benefit.The Neighbor We Are to Love Is Humankind on a Wider Scale
in the Form of Smaller and Larger Communities
and Humankind in the Aggregate
as a Country of Such Communities412 People who do not know what “our neighbor” really means think that it
simply means an individual human being; benefiting that human being
is loving our neighbor. Yet our neighbor, and love for our neighbor, also
extends more widely than that—in fact it rises as the number of people
increases.