306 HEAVEN and HELL §512
levels of our minds. We are in heaven when we acknowledge the Divine
Being and at the same time act fairly and honestly, recognizing that we
should because it is commanded us in the Word. In this way we live fairly
and honestly for the sake of the Divine and not for the sake of ourselves
and the world as our primary goals. [ 3 ] However, no one can behave like
this without fi rst having been taught things like the fact that God exists,
that heaven and hell exist, that there is a life after death, that God is to be
loved above all and our neighbor as ourselves, and that we are to believe
what it says in the Word because the Word is divine. Without recogniz-
ing and admitting these principles we cannot think spiritually, and with-
out thought about such matters we cannot intend them; for what we do
not know we cannot think, and what we do not think we cannot intend.
However, when we do intend such things, heaven fl ows in—that is, the
Lord fl ows into our lives through heaven, for he fl ows into the will and
through that into the thought, and through both of these into the life,
since they are where our whole life comes from. We can see from this that
spiritual good and truth are not learned from the world but from heaven,
and that no one can be prepared for heaven except by instruction.
[ 4 ] Then too, to the extent that the Lord fl ows into our life he does
teach us, since to that same extent he kindles our intentions with a love
of learning what is true and enlightens our thought so that we know what
is true. To the extent that this happens, our deeper reaches are opened
and heaven is sown in them. Even beyond this, to that same extent what
is divine and heavenly fl ows into the honest deeds of our moral life and
the fair deeds of our civic life and makes them spiritual, since then we
are doing them from the Divine because we are doing them for the sake
of the Divine. The honest and fair deeds of our moral and civic life that
we do from this source are actual effects of spiritual life; and an effect
derives all its being from its effi cient cause, because the quality of the
cause determines the quality of the effect.513 The teaching is done by angels from a number of communities,
mainly ones in the northern and southern regions, because these angelic
communities are focused on intelligence and wisdom based on fi rsthand
knowledge of what is good and true. The teaching sites are in the north;
and there are different ones, differentiated and arranged according to the
genera and species of heavenly virtues, so that everyone can be taught
there in a manner suited to his or her character and receptivity. The sites
are spread out over a large area there.
Good spirits who need to be taught are taken there by the Lord after
their second state in the world of spirits has ended. This does not apply
to everyone, though, since people who have been taught in the world