512. THE THIRD STATE OF MAN AFTER DEATH, WHICH 15 A STATE OF INSTRUCTION FOR THOSE WHO COME INTO HEAVEN
The third state of man after death, that is, of his spirit, is a state of instruction. This state is for those who come into heaven and become angels. It is not for those who come into hell, because such are incapable of being taught, and therefore their second state is also their third, ending in this, that they are wholly turned to their own love, thus to that infernal society which is in a like love. When this has been done, they then will and think from that love; and as that love is infernal, they will nothing but what is evil and think nothing but what is false. Willing what is evil and thinking what is false are their delights, because they are the delights of their love; and in consequence of this they reject everything good and true which they had previously adopted as serviceable to their love as means. [2] Good spirits, on the other hand, are led from the second state into the third, which is the state of their preparation for heaven by means of instruction. For one can be prepared for heaven only by means of cognitions of good and truth, that is, only by means of instruction, since one can know what spiritual good and truth are, and what evil and falsity are, which are their opposites, only by being taught. One can learn in the world what civil and moral good and truth are, which are called justice and honesty, because there are civil laws in the world that teach what is just, and there is intercourse with others whereby man learns to live in accordance with moral laws, all of which have relation to what is honest and right. But spiritual good and truth are learned, not from the world but from heaven. They can be learned from the Word and from the doctrine of the Church that is drawn from the Word, and yet unless man in respect of his interiors which belong to his mind is in heaven, spiritual good and truth cannot flow into his life; and man is then in heaven when he both acknow.. ledges the Divine and acts justly and honestly for the reason that he ought so to act because it is commanded in the Word. This is living justly and honestly for the sake of the Divine, and not for the sake of self and the world, as ends. [3] But no one can so act until he has been taught, for example, that there is a God, that there is a heaven and a hell, that there is a life after death, that God ought to be loved above all things, and the neighbour as oneself, and that the things in the Word ought to be believed because the Word is Divine. Without a knowledge and acknowledgment of these things man is unable to think spiritually; and if he has no thought about them he does not will them; for what a man does not know he cannot think, and what he does not think he cannot will. So it is that when man wills these things then heaven flows into his life, that is, the Lord through heaven into the life of man; for the Lord flows into the will and through the will into the thought, and through both into the life, for the whole life of man is from these. All this makes clear that spiritual good and truth are learned not from the world but from heaven, and that no one can be prepared for heaven except by means of instruction. [4] Moreover, so far as the Lord flows into the life of any one He instructs him, for so far He kindles the will with the love of knowing truths and enlightens the thought to know them; and so far as this is done, the interiors of man are opened and heaven is implanted in them; and furthermore, what is Divine and heavenly flows into the honest things pertaining to moral life and into the just things pertaining to civil life with man, and makes them spiritual, since man then does these things from the Divine, since they are done for the sake of the Divine. For the things honest and just pertaining to moral and civil life which a man does from that source are the very effects of spiritual life; and the effect derives its all from the effecting cause, since such as the cause is, such is the effect.