§535 not hard to reach heaven 323
I have been allowed to talk with some people in the other life who 535
had distanced themselves from the affairs of the world in order to live in
devotions and sanctity, and also with some who had mortified themselves
in various ways because they thought this was renouncing the world and
taming the desires of the flesh. However, most of them had wound up
with a gloomy kind of life from this and had distanced themselves from
that life of active thoughtfulness, which we can have only by taking part
in the world, so they could not associate with angels. The life of angels is
cheerful and blessed. It consists of worthwhile activities that are deeds of
thoughtfulness. Particularly, people who have led a life withdrawn from
worldly concerns are aflame with a sense of their own worth and con-
stantly crave heaven. They think of heavenly joy as their reward, but they
have no knowledge whatever of what heavenly joy actually is. When they
are with angels and are let into that joy—which has no sense of merit
and consists of activities and of public duties and of bliss at the good that
is accomplished through them—they are as bewildered as though they
were seeing something totally alien to their faith. Since they are not open
to these joys, they move off and associate with people who have led the
same kind of life in the world.
[ 2 ] There are other people who have lived outwardly devotional lives,
constantly in churches and at prayer there. They have mortifi ed their
souls while constantly thinking about themselves, how they are worthier
and more estimable than others and will be regarded as saints after their
death. They are not in heaven in the other life because they have done all
this with themselves fi rst in mind. Since they have polluted divine truths
by the self-love they immersed them in, some of them are so deranged
that they think they are gods. So they are with similar people in hell.
Some of them are ingenious and crafty and are in hells for the crafty
people who used their skills and wiles to construct outward appearances
that would lead the masses to believe them possessed of a divine sanctity.
[ 3 ] This includes many of the Catholic saints. I have been allowed to
talk with some of them and have had their lives clearly described, both
the lives they had led in the world and what they were like afterward.
I have mentioned all this to let it be known that the life that leads to
heaven is not one of withdrawal from the world but a life in the world,
and that a life of piety apart from a life of thoughtfulness (which is pos-
sible only in the world) does not lead to heaven at all. Rather, it is a life of
thoughtfulness, a life of behaving honestly and fairly in every duty, every
business transaction, every task, from our deeper nature and therefore