I'm reading Heaven and Hell by Emanuel Swedenborg. I find it interesting. Swedenborg was an 17th-18th century scientist, philosopher and theologian who began having visions at the age of 56. He wrote volumes on spiritual matters taught him by angels. I find his writings thought provoking and they make me want to serve God and do good towards my fellowman.
Here's a small segment on love and pleasure.
"All pleasures flow from love, because what we love we feel as pleasant. There is no other source of any pleasure. It follows, then that the quality of the love determines the quality of the pleasure. Pleasures of the body or of the flesh flow from love for ourselves and from love of the world, and these are also the source of our urges, and their gratifications. The pleasures of the soul or spirit, though, all flow from love for the Lord and love for our neighbor, which are also the source of affections for what is good and true and of our deeper bliss."
"Heaven's pleasures are both indescribable and innumerable; but no one can realize or believe anything about their multitude who is wholly wrapped up in the pleasures of the body or the flesh....For no one who is wholly involved in pleasures of the body or the flesh (or in love for oneself and the world, which is the same thing) feels any pleasure except in eminence or profit or in physical and sensory gratification. These stifle and smother deeper pleasures of heaven so completely that people do not even believe such pleasures exist. So they would be quite bewildered if they were so much as told that any pleasures remain once the pleasures of eminence and profit have been taken away; and they would be even more bewildered if they were told that the pleasures that take their place are countless and simply defy comparison with pleasures of the body and the flesh, especially pleasures of eminence and profit. We can see, then, why people do not know what heavenly joy is."
"We may gather the magnitude of heaven's pleasure simply from the fact that for everyone there, it is delightful to share their pleasure and bliss with someone else; and since everyone in the heavens is like this, we can see how immense heaven's pleasure is....This kind of sharing flows from the two loves of heaven, which as noted are love for the Lord and love for our neighbor. These loves by nature want to share their pleasures. The reason love for the Lord is like this is that because the Lord's love is a love of sharing everything it has with everyone, it intends the happiness of everyone."
2 comments:
Thanks for the wonderful quote! Very inspirational. Weren't you reading Swedenborg a few years ago? R and I were just talking about Swedenborg because he is studying 19th century spiritualism.
So thought provoking. I have recently been pondering the 'whys' of why we like to share moments with others. ie. a sunset, an accomplishment, a song, a joke. Everything seems a bit more poignant when you share the experience with someone. Eric has traveled extensively the last couple of years for work. I commented how wonderful it must be to see all the wonderful places. His response, "Not really. It is just not the same when there is no one to share them with."
Thank you for sharing.
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