§118 the sun 65
a. The Lord is seen in heaven as a sun, and is the sun of heaven: 1053 , 3636 , 3643 , 4060. The Lord
appears as a sun to people in the heavenly kingdom, where love for him reigns, and as a moon to
people in the spiritual kingdom, where thoughtfulness toward one’s neighbor and faith reign:
1521 , 1529 , 1530 , 1531 , 1837 , 4696. The Lord as a sun appears at a medium elevation for the right
eye, and as a moon for the left eye: 1053 , 1521 , 1529 , 1530 , 1531 , 3636 , 3643 , 4321 , 5097 , 7078 , 7083 ,
7173 , 7270 , 8812 , 10809. The Lord has been seen as the sun and as the moon: 1531 , 7173. The
Lord’s essential Divine is far above his Divine in the heavens: 7270 , 8760.
b. Fire in the Word means love for either good or evil: 934 , 4906 , 5215. Sacred or heavenly fi re
means divine love: 934 , 6314 , 6832. Hellfi re means love for oneself and the world, and all the crav-
ing that belongs to those loves: 1861 , 5071 , 6314 , 6832 , 7575 , 10747. Love is the fi re of life, and life
itself actually comes from it: 4096 [ 4906 ], 5071 , 6032 , 6314. Light means the truth of faith: 3395
[ 3195 ], 3485 , 3636 , 3643 , 3993 , 4302 , 4413 , 4415 , 9548 , 9684.
c. The sight of the left eye corresponds to what is true in faith, and the sight of the right eye cor-
responds to what is good in it: 4410 , 6923.
allowed to see a number of times; so I should like at this point to describe
briefl y what I have heard and seen concerning the Lord as the sun.
The Lord does not appear as a sun in the heavens, but high above
them, and not directly overhead but in front of angels at a middle eleva-
tion. He appears in two places, in one for the right eye and in another for
the left, noticeably far apart. For the right eye he looks just like a sun,
with much the same fi re and size as our world’s sun. For the left eye,
though, he does not look like a sun but like a moon, with similar bril-
liance but more sparkling, and with much the same size as our earth’s
moon; but he seems to be surrounded by many apparent lesser moonlets,
each similarly brilliant and sparkling.
The reason the Lord appears in two places, so differently, is that he
appears to people according to their receptiveness. So he looks one way
to people who accept him through the good of love and another way to
people who accept him through the good of faith. To people who accept
him through the good of love, he looks like a sun, fi ery and fl aming in
response to their receptivity. These people are in his heavenly kingdom.
To people who accept him through the good of faith, though, he looks
like a moon, brilliant and sparkling in response to their receptivity. These
people are in his spiritual kingdom.a This is because the good of love cor-
responds to fi re, so that fi re, in its spiritual meaning, is love; while the
good of faith corresponds to light, so that light, in its spiritual meaning,
is faith.b
The reason he appears to the eyes is that the deeper levels of the
mind see through the eyes, looking from the good of love through the
right eye and from the good of faith through the left eye.c You see,