and other goods to achieve those useful things, and their sense-oriented self
carries them out as part of its position and derives honor from so doing.
Surely everyone also realizes that all the things we do with our body
we do from the state of mind in our head. If our mind has a love for acts
of service, our body uses its limbs to perform acts of service. Our body
will do this because our will and intellect have their primary structures in
our head and the derivations of those primary structures in our body, so
that our will is present in what we do and our thinking is present in what
we say.
Likewise the reproductive impetus in a seed affects each and every
part of a tree and uses those parts to produce pieces of fruit as its acts of
service. Or for another example, fire and light inside a clear container
make the container hot and bright. In people whose three categories of
love have been prioritized in the right and proper way, their mind’s spiri-
tual sight and their body’s physical sight are translucent to the light that
flows in through heaven from the Lord, just as a pomegranate is translu-
cent all the way through to the center where the seeds are stored.
Something comparable is meant by the following words of the Lord:
“Your eye is the lamp of your body. If your eye is whole, that is, good,
your entire body is full of light” (Matthew 6 : 22 ; Luke 11 : 34 ).
[ 3 ] No one whose reason is sound could condemn wealth. Wealth in
the general body politic is like blood in us. No one whose reason is sound
could condemn the levels of status that go with different jobs—they are
the monarch’s hands and the pillars of society, provided a spiritual love
for status takes priority over an earthly and sense-oriented love for it. In
fact, there are government positions in heaven and there is status that
goes with them; but because the people who fill these positions are spiri-
tual, the thing they love the most is to be useful.404 We take on a completely different condition if love for the world or for
wealth constitutes the head, meaning that this is our dominant love. Then
love for heaven leaves the head and goes into exile in the body. People who
are in this state prefer the world to heaven. They do indeed worship God,
but they do so from a love that is merely earthly, a love that leads them to
take credit for all their acts of worship. They also do good things for their
neighbor, but they do them to get something back in return.
In the case of people like this, heavenly things are like the clothes in
which they strut about, garments that we see as shining but angels see as
drab. When love for the world inhabits our inner self and love for heaven
inhabits our outer self, then love for the world dims all things related to
the church and hides them as if they were behind a piece of cloth.