360 HEAVEN and HELL §589
equilibrium in the members of all three of earth’s kingdoms—mineral,
plant, and animal; for nothing would occur in those kingdoms if it were
not for the equilibrium. Everywhere, there is a kind of effort acting from
one side and another reacting from the other.
[ 2 ] Every event, or every result, happens in an equilibrium, or hap-
pens by one force acting and another allowing itself to be acted upon,
or by one force actively fl owing in and the other accepting and yielding
appropriately.
In the natural world, what acts and reacts is called force or energy, but
in the spiritual world what acts and reacts is called life and volition. Life
there is a living force and volition is a living energy, and the actual equilib-
rium is called a state of freedom. This spiritual balance or freedom occurs,
then, between the good acting from the one side and the evil reacting from
the other, or from the evil acting on the one side and the good reacting
from the other. [ 3 ] The balance between active good and reactive evil
applies to good people, and the balance between active evil and reactive
good applies to evil people. The reason the spiritual balance is between
good and evil is that all human life has to do with good and evil, and our
volition is their recipient vessel.
There is also a balance between what is true and what is false, but this
is secondary to the balance between good and evil. The balance between
the true and the false is like the balance between light and darkness,
whose effect on members of the plant kingdom depends on the amount
of warmth or cold there is in the light or darkness. You can tell that the
light and shade themselves do not accomplish anything, only the warmth
they bring, from looking at like amounts of light and darkness in winter
and in spring.
The comparison of truth and falsity to light and darkness rests in their
correspondence, since truth corresponds to light and falsity to darkness, and
warmth corresponds to the goodness of love. Further, spiritual light is truth,
spiritual darkness is falsity, and spiritual warmth is the goodness of love (on
this, see the chapter on light and warmth in heaven, §§ 126 – 140 ).590 There is a constant balance between heaven and hell. An effort to do
evil is constantly emanating upward from hell, and an effort to do good
is constantly emanating down from heaven. The world of spirits is in
this equilibrium (on its location halfway between heaven and hell, see
§§ 421 – 431 above).
The reason the world of spirits is in this equilibrium is that after death
we fi rst enter the world of spirits and are kept in the same state we were in
in the world. This could not happen unless there were a perfect balance