The Afterlife
Before the universe was created, there was no space and time, and the realm where there is no space and time is the spiritual world. The spiritual world, which is divided between heaven and hell, is where the internal states of the soul become immediate realities. "All who die and become angels put off those two things proper to nature, which...are space and time; for they enter then into spiritual light, in which the objects of thought are truths, and the objects of sight are similar to the objects in the natural world, but correspondent to their thoughts." Instead of time, there are states of being, and instead of space or distance, there are affections and love. The more two souls love each other and are similar to each other, the closer they will appear to each other. God Himself is love itself, and the more one is in love towards God and others, the closer that person is to heaven, and the more one is into the love of self and the world, the closer they are to hell.
Read more about this topic: The New Church
Famous quotes containing the word afterlife:
“Continued traveling is far from productive. It begins with wearing away the soles of the shoes, and making the feet sore, and ere long it will wear a man clean up, after making his heart sore into the bargain. I have observed that the afterlife of those who have traveled much is very pathetic.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What art can paint or gild any object in afterlife with the glow which Nature gives to the first baubles of childhood. St. Peter’s cannot have the magical power over us that the red and gold covers of our first picture-book possessed. How the imagination cleaves to the warm glories of that tinsel even now! What entertainments make every day bright and short for the fine freshman!”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)