320 HEAVEN and HELL §532
world, it is also turned away from heaven and spread out among what-
ever items meet our eyes.
[ 2 ] It is our love that creates our intentions and that focuses our
inner sight or our thought on its objects. So love for ourselves directs
our thought toward ourselves and what we claim as our own, love of
the world directs it toward worldly matters, and love of heaven directs
it toward heavenly matters. This can enable us to know what state the
inner reaches of our minds are in once we identify our love. That is, if
we love heaven, the inner reaches are raised up toward heaven and open
upward. If we love the world and ourselves, our inner reaches are closed
upward and open outward. So we may gather that if the higher reaches
of our minds are closed to what is above them, we can no longer see the
objects that pertain to heaven and the church. These are in darkness for
us, and whatever is in darkness we either deny or do not understand.
This is why people who love themselves and the world above all, since
the higher levels of their minds are closed, deny divine truths at heart;
and if they do say anything about them from their memory, they still do
not understand it. They have the same attitude toward these matters as
toward worldly and physical interests; and since they are like this, they
cannot think about anything except what comes in through their physi-
cal senses, which are their sole delight. Their sensory experience also
includes much that is foul, obscene, irreligious, and criminal. They can-
not be distracted from these obsessions because there is no infl ow from
heaven into their minds, since as already noted their minds are closed to
what is above them.
[ 3 ] The purpose that focuses our inner sight or thought is our voli-
tion, since our intentions determine our aims and our aims determine
our thoughts. So if we aim for heaven, we focus our thinking on it, and
with our thinking, our whole mind, which is therefore in heaven. This
means it looks at the concerns of the world as below itself, like someone
on the roof of a house. This is why people in whom the deeper levels of
the mind are open can see the evil and false elements in themselves, since
these are below their spiritual mind. Conversely, if people’s inner reaches
are not open, they cannot see their evil and false elements because they
are in them and not above them. We may gather from this where our
wisdom comes from and where our insanity comes from, and what we
will be like after death when we are left to intend and think and then to
act and speak in keeping with our inner nature.
Again, this has been presented to show what we are like inwardly, no
matter how much alike we may seem outwardly.