The Door to Heaven Opens From the Inside | Heaven Isn’t About Belief—It’s About What You Love

If God wants me to believe in him, he could do that really easily. He can afford a billboard. It would just like write it in the clouds. I'm God. I'm real. Believe in me. Here's what happens if you don't.

If God wants you to go to heaven, why not just have an angel and a devil show up at some formative point in your life, and you get to see and smell and hear both of them and make a choice. But you know why God doesn't send us visions of the afterlife or do miracles in front of us? Cuz that wouldn't make us believe in God. It would actually make everything worse.

Hey everybody, welcome to Swedenborgan Life podcast. My name is Curtis. This is Dr. Jonathan Rose. Hey Curtis. The question we're answering today that if you don't have a good answer to this question, you don't have a picture of God. You don't have a you don't have a picture of life, right? The whole thing about it's important to believe in God that that that affects your eternal destiny. Okay. Well, if that's priority number one, why doesn't God just do it? Why why are people right now cruising YouTube looking for different videos and does this do these people know what's up with God? Or there's all these denominations wondering and questioning and pondering and I know. Couldn't you just like end all that in a heartbeat? Yes. Can't Isn't there a button that God can push that just says do miracles? This will make it clear to everyone?

Well, there's an answer to that. And the answer is that if God did that, it would shut parts of your mind down so completely that you could never go to heaven. And the only way that that makes sense, I'm serious. No, that Well, like that's what Swedenborg claims. And in order for that to hold, you have to have a sense of what is heaven and how do you come into heaven? Cuz of course, if God loves everybody all the time and wants to bring them into heaven, easiest thing in the world, just like bring them in. Yeah. Make it impossible for them to go anywhere else. I mean, just create a sort of cattle shoot or something.

But if you think about love, if I want somebody to love me, if I want my daughter to love me, is there any can I make her do that? If I had an if I just had it's notoriously challenging and what you will backfire. What you do will backfire. So that might just tell you something more true about the nature of love and the task that God has in front of him when he's trying. So there's actual laws of divine providence that say this is how he's got to do it.

This is we're gonna go to um why don't we just tackle the free will question at the same time which I feel like this is we've been building up to this in all the previous episodes. We keep getting off on these tangents about free will. Why why do we have it? Seems like it's at the root of all these problems. How necessary is it? Oh man. Okay. It's the most expensive part of the whole design and you sort of think, man, just don't have that feature. Everything gets easy. Yes, that's right. Because it could be infuriating if you're looking out and you're seeing all the problems in the world and you say to religious people, "Well, why that?" And, "Well, it's free will. If everything's riding on free will, next time we have the budget meeting or there's a shareholder meeting, I'm going to call up and I'm going to lodge a complaint." Like, get the free will thing. Get rid of it.

If you were in charge, do you think you would prioritize free will over everything else? Just like do what you want? I would like be coercive. Get get them to do what? I would just prioritize happiness, right? Just prioritize happiness. Not free will. Who? Okay. Well, doesn't work. Well, we can have free will, but so I know what happiness is. I can give you happiness right now. And so, just get them to go where they need to go to be happy. Here we go. About that. This is in the book divine providence. I don't know. We're going to find out.

Okay. So, in this first section, we're talking about how it's important. It's it's so important to our happiness, which is heaven is happiness, that we freely choose what to believe and care about. And it's so much so that it's it's actually a law of the divine providence. This whole thing is just a chapter title. You'll all on screen you'll see it's all capitalized. They don't make chapter titles like this anymore. This is a whole book today. You ready? It is a law of divine providence that we should not be compelled by outside forces to think and intend and so to believe and love in matters of our religion but that we should guide ourselves and sometimes compel ourselves.

Okay. So self-compulsion is okay but and it's interesting that it says it specifies in matters of religion because there are various areas of our lives where you absolutely have to be under some kind of compulsion you know the rule of law and so on like you can't do this or there will be consequences if you do and you know there are areas where we really don't have there's all kinds of things we don't have a choice about actually when you think about it you don't have a choice about who you are I mean you're you know you come into this world you didn't choose to be born here you are you have this existence you have this consciousness and didn't choose your mom and dad you didn't choose your mom and dad didn't choose where you were born or or what century or any of those I mean I know some people think you did in some secret way that you've forgotten you know before you were born pre-existence There's no evidence of that. There's no evidence of that. So that that aside, so maybe that's like a an offered explanation. But not only that, you didn't even choose like the limitations you have. You didn't choose how talented you are at things. No, whether you have particular physical health or you you you know, you just got got cursed somehow and you you you know, you have bad health or something.

But when it comes to matters of our religion, which I think you could also translate as matters of uh ethics and moral frameworks and Yeah. That's right. That's right. Because the words that he glosses it with, if I remember what you just read there, is believe in love, right? Like it's about what you believe in love. So the stuff about what's right and what's wrong and what's really true about life. Um, it's a law of divine pro. It's a law of how God runs the world that you can't have anyone forcing you right to do that stuff. And lots of people may try to force you but it backfires. The consequence if this was flipped around is this just just the loss of our being human. This is divine providence 129. Oh, is that a Well, that's not a big I mean loss, is it?

Everyone recognizes that none of us can be compelled to think what we do not want to think or to intend what we think we do not want to intend. So we cannot be compelled to believe what we do not believe and certainly not anything that we do not want to believe or to love what we do not love and certainly not anything that we do not want to love. Our spirit or mind has complete freedom to think, intend, believe and love. We can be compelled to say that we think and intend something or that we believe and love something. But unless this is or becomes a matter of our own desire and our consequent reasoning, it is not something that we really think, intend, believe, and love.

Yeah, there it is. So you I was just having that very thought before it got to that point that you you can be compelled to say, you know, people could put various stricters on you to make you at one kind of a threat or another. I I I believe this. I care very deeply about this, but what goes on in here, you you can't you can't hack that. Well, and you what you really buy and what you don't really buy, that that's unhackable.

Well, this is why that some of these really u tightknit closely controlled cultlike settings that people can grow up in. I think about documentaries that I've seen and it was really like we're going to put everything in this environment to try to make you think this way and believe this way. Uh eventually that boils over because it's not you having if you grow up in that and everyone's telling you this is how you have to do it and you don't have the freedom to look around and think it's not really you thinking those thoughts and it's not really it's not a love it's just I have to. Yes. And so really it's someone else's as Swedenborg explains at some point. I don't know if the quotes are going to get into this. It's not really your will because you didn't want some it was someone else's will. Someone else's will was that you think this or believe this or say that. And so it it doesn't even represent your own heart and mind. It it's some other coercion. And you look at all those situations, is isn't it quite routine that there are people who just don't buy it and they turn on it? Or there was recently quite a different example, but there was recently a a famous spy from the Soviet Union who had come over and and spied for the statesffected and he recently passed away. uh but he he just didn't buy it and he was high up in the system and there's all this stuff that says buy this buy and lots of other people did did buy it but he didn't buy it and he had the freedom to no I I'm going to undermine this I'm going to throw myself at it and seriously undermine this whole thing so we've given these examples of how that works with human beings and it's just an undeniable part of reality we give those but situations but the obviously parents want their kids to be a certain way. Doesn't work that way. You can try to force someone even even in companies like the CEO can like all right everyone this is our company philosophy. This is how we do it. Whether or not people actually do it, it doesn't always line up. Yeah. And you you you have to love it because it's part of our culture, you know, and you have to be happy about it. And we don't want any disscent or else you're not on board. So, we'll kick you out. And notice you you only had 31 pieces of flare. That was so great. Um, that's right. You're not really But it says I'm required to have 31. What do you think about people who do the bare [Laughter] minimize from their regular life? We're just talking about things that are self-evident as part of the nature of being a human being. That's just how it is. So that we know when we're trying to deal with other human beings that what it's hurting cats. You cannot get people to do to do what you want unless you have a major power leverage over them. But if you do, what you're not doing is affecting what they love and what they really believe. You're just compelling behavior. So we know that that's how it works with people, right?

What Swedenborg is saying is that why are people like that? Why are people like that? Good question. Yeah. Because God has made people like that because that's what it is to be a human being is to be free on things. And so God faces the same challenge that we do which is that he cannot force you to do things because that destroys the human nature. You could as soon as you have forced people to do things and we're actually going to get into the details of the damage that does internally. But you've you um you have changed the people into just a bunch of sticks or statues. They become objects. You cannot have it both. You cannot have conscious beings who are somebody outside of God who can be loved and and who can have we can have our own conscious life and also not have the free will. That's what conscious life is, man. It's the free will. That's right. And the free will, as Swedenborg says, uh, and love are totally tied up with each other. I mean, that that word will in the free will, your will is what what you love. What you love is what makes you feel free. That's what why you feel free is I feel free to do this because I love it. I don't I feel a little compelled to go to this event or that event because I don't really want to but it seems important. So not as much love in there, not as much freedom. You know, it's it's it's an exact correlation.

So God wants everybody to go to heaven. Why doesn't he just make everybody go to heaven? Well, what does it mean to go to heaven? What is going to heaven? If you don't have a clear concept of that, if it's just the same concept as well, it's just like you're a bouncer at a club and you not that I've ever been, but you gota okay, you're in. I've opened the door and then you're in and it doesn't matter who you are, you've walked in. Yeah. But that is not what heaven is. No. That that that's a cartoon idea of what heaven is. But actual heaven, as said by oh, you know, Jesus Christ, the kingdom of heaven is within you. Heaven is a state of loving the things that make up heaven, which is in particular loving other human beings and their welfare and loving God. So you cannot come into heaven and that's what we're about to read about here. You cannot come into to come into heaven means to love heaven. It's the same thing. That's how you get it.

Really comes down to that spiritual geography that we've talked about before, which is such a mindboggler to me, but it actually heaven is the quote unquote place. It's it's the spiritual area where people love heavenly things where where they have heavenly loves. Yeah. So, there's no way to sort of cheat and and get in or lie your way in or something. It it's uh doesn't work like that. Swedenborg talks about an afterlife where there is there's like a heaven over here and there's a hell over there and people are seem to be far apart in distance and it seems like this portion of the spiritual geography is where everybody who's in heaven goes but the the difference is the way the spiritual world works is what you love is what creates that geography. So the whole reason why there are people in different areas is because their own love what they love draws them to those areas. Yeah.

So in in brief, heaven mean is the state you are in heaven when you love being kind and beneficial to people and you're in hell when you love being cruel and harming people. And both both people love both of those things. People can devote their life to both of those things. So to say God wants everyone to come into heaven, coming into heaven means you love what is good and you don't like what is evil. And and it's not just a question of doing, not that that's a terrible thing, but but just doing good things for other people. Apparently Swedenborg sees all sorts of people going to the afterlife and they all say, "Well, I did this and I did that and I did this and I did that." But what was driving you? Why did you do those things? So, you know, because I because frankly I I wanted to be great. I wanted to be loved by other people or something. And so, okay, well, that was the love that drove you. That's not the most heavenly love, you know. Uh whereas if if no, I got tremendous satisfaction out of being a benefit to people and I didn't even want thanks. That's the that's the happiness, the point of existence.

Swedenborg has this quote in heaven and hell that I've really glombmed on to recently, which is divine love is the intent that everyone should be most profoundly and fully happy. There you go. In the middle of that quote, I don't usually quote it that part because it says, "Divine love is the intent that everyone should be saved and should be most profoundly and fully happy." But that should be saved people have wildly different or whatever. What are you talking about? So I like but that when you understand what Swedenborg means by saved. So the last part of the sentence does it for you. It does it for you. Yeah. So if that's the point, heaven is that h the happiness that comes when you love doing good things. That's what heaven is. And the freedom from the complication and misery that comes from loving evil things in all their forms. Yeah. So, it's a g it's you can't say like God wants you in heaven and not realize that what heaven is is a change in what you love and enjoy. And that change can only be wrought organically and gradually just like that's the nature of what love is. Yeah. And so it's an opt-in program. I we need to make actual choices to head in that direction and try to, you know, enjoy that more, try to siphon it in over time. And that process you're describing, Swedenborg calls reformation. M there's a distinct process which is reformation which is changing us from the self-centered materialistic uh paradigm that we start in and turning us into people who gain great joy from seeing others do well. Yeah. Who gain great joy from working for the common good. Yeah. Who gain great joy in what is honest and true and fair and who have a great affection and perception of the reality of the existence of God. Love love teamwork and just want to be a humble part of something that's doing some good. So that were done that's done through reformation alone and reformation cannot happen through uh events that compel and there's a couple categories of events that compel that people would think this is a solution to the problem of why why don't more people believe in God. Yeah. Right. The first one we want to look at is miracles and signs. Why doesn't God just do one good solid miracle for everybody? Very popular theory. Yeah. that that that that would do it. They would just chase and people even some people in the other world tell Swedenborg if I saw a miracle I would believe. Okay. And he says no you wouldn't. Which is amazing. He's not saying well God can't or God wants to test you because he wants to see if you would believe. Like doubting Thomas. Blessed are they who haven't seen and yet believe. Believe. No, you would not. You would temporarily believe, but you would not end up believing and you wouldn't believe fully and it wouldn't be deep. Wouldn't be That's what I'm trying to say. You wouldn't sort of buy in at a deep level. Yeah.

This divine providence 130. No one is reformed by miracles and signs because they compel. No one they compel. That's a strong statement I would say. You know, it's not sort of like it's it's not ideal or it's not done by the best people. No, he's saying no. 30% of people. Yeah. No. And why? Because we were just talking about this because they compel. Because if you have a miracle that is like, oh, this shouldn't be able to happen. So, I know. Well, I think he's about to say what I want. He's about to more eloquently say what I'm about to say. So, let me hold my tongue. We cannot deny that miracles induce faith and they that they persuade us convincingly that what the miracle worker says and teaches is true. Oh, you did that? It must be true. To begin with, this conviction takes over the outer processes of our thought so completely that it virtually constrains and bewitches them. I'm thinking of the way you see people react to some of those there's some great people online who do magic right in front of other people and then you just see the you know like their their whole view of reality is just being kind of shattered by what just happened and you can see from your camera angle that he actually just threw the bottle and he didn't notice and Right. Right. So the other person just like what? However, this deprivives us of the two abilities called freedom and rationality and therefore of our ability to act in freedom and in accord with reason. Then and so what's so bad about that? Then the Lord cannot flow in through our inner thought processes into the outer ones. All he can do is leave us to convince ourselves by rational means of the truth of anything that has become a matter of faith for us because of the miracle. Wow. So that's really striking that the Lord wants to flow in from the inside and now something's getting in the way. Yeah. Because this thing happened on the outside and then okay, work stoppage. Can't can't do my thing right now. There's a system to it. There's a system to the process of how do you change a human heart? How do you change what somebody loves and cares about? It has to be a free process where where that you are doing your part where you have choice. Here's the things that you believe are good. Here's the things that you believe are evil. They both can have their advantages. Which one are you doing? We make our outer choices. And then the Lord through the dayto day, why you have so much time to ponder things? Why you have so many decisions to make? Why are you so apparently left alone in your life? Cuz you're constantly making these choices about who you are and what you love and who you want to become. And in the in the midst of that, God is working through these complex inner processes and and working through your freedom slowly to the extent that we allow changing that. But when you got a miracle that comes, it shuts down your your spirit of inquiry. You no longer are looking and deciding in your heart what you think is true and false. You no longer are looking and deciding in your heart what's good and evil. you just uh you're frozen into this state of compulsion by let's say some thing that you take to be a miracle or that is some kind of supernatural thing and then God can't really do the actual work of changing your heart it's like as you said this assembly line somebody pulled the cord it's not moving forward at this point I'm remembering a situation where um I was at a week-long camp and at the end of the camp everybody's cleaning up and then I noticed that The stove was really really dirty. Like whole stove and oven. You had 150 people there for a week or something. And it was just a mess. And uh and there was this older woman there who just said to me um I don't think you can possibly get that clean. And then I worked away at it and worked away at it. Worked at it. Wait. And then when it when I showed it to her at the end, she just smiled and I realized, "Oh, I think she got me to do that." You know what I mean? Like, I think she motivated me. You tricked me by doing the opposite. Yeah. You know, she worked through my freedom by challenging me a little bit with it, but not in any kind of direct way. Just I think that's caked on. I don't think you'll ever get that off. Reverse psychology. Reverse psychology. Yeah. You got to sort of do a corner shot, an angle shot to to Yeah. You You can't directly get people to do your will. Wasn't that Wizard of Oz? Like you you just had to learn that what you needed was here all along. The Ruby slippers. I'm just suddenly movies are flipping through my mind all the time. Like the master or the sensei is like I I already know this lesson, but I you have to figure it out for yourself. You have to figure it out for yourself. You have to live it and make it your own or else you wouldn't believe me. like Jeremiah Johnson where the guy puts his um sleeping bag too close to the fire and the other guy doesn't say anything and then his sleeping bag catches fire and I you know just have to have to learn the hard way you know I could tell you you're too close to the fire but you wouldn't believe me that's it you wouldn't believe me you wouldn't believe me because you got to see it for yourself that's the seeing it for yourself that's the seeing it for yourself you have to be able to weigh it Even the religion that you grow up with, it could be right. It could have plenty of great truths. Yeah, you could you could have plenty of great truths. But even there, even somebody who is surrounded by something that is good and is true, Swedenborg says that that will never take you all the way to heaven because you have to have a point in which you examine it for yourself. The box is not already checked. It's an optin. The default setting is that box is not filled in. you have to opt in. It's an opt-in situation.

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So, miracles and signs, miracles and signs won't make you believe in God on their own. We're not saying they couldn't be a part of a balanced diet that leads you to believing in God, but that's not the answer on itself. An exclusive diet because what they will do if too much weight is placed on them is they'll freeze your brain and make it so the actual work of you believing in God with your heart and loving the things that come from God that will that will make that not happen anymore. So it's coming from the wrong place. Coming from the outside and pushing you from the outside. I'm sorry. You could just see this if there's is there some like every romance movie is about the depth of love. It's like no this arranged marriage I can't or you this I'm supposed to marry this person because they have a good family. Everybody knows that every movie is about no that's not what love is. Love is deeper than that. That's not that's not Yeah. that heaven my love is I'm sorry but my love is just somewhere else and heaven is not just loving the idea that there is a God who's big and powerful heaven is loving the things that God loves what is it to really love someone what's it to really love somebody you get to know what they care about and you want to make them happy or you care about the same things they care about that's what actual love is so just to say oh a miracle made me believe that there is God or or I have to now do this That's not love. And that what that won't do is get you in heaven, which is the happiness that comes from loving that stuff. So, miracles and signs won't do that. Also, visits or conversations with the dead won't do that. Even though here we are reading stuff from Swedenborg who was the king of visits and conversations with the dead, he would assert for himself that's not what convinced him of all this stuff. It was his encounter with Jesus and his reformation that did that. And it's so great that right in that story of uh the rich man and Lazarus in Luke uh the the rich man ends up in hell. And he wants to warn his brothers who are still alive in the world. And uh Abraham says, "Look, if they're not getting it from Moses and the prophets, they're not going to get it even from somebody who's raised from the dead." They said, "May, you know, maybe someone can go from here and tell them and it's not going to work." Which that seems strange because Moses and the prophet is just a book and you you have the freedom to see that and say that why do I care what that book says? There's a bunch of other books any you could have just written that for any you'd think an actual conversation with the dead that would be a lot more impactful than reading those books. Oh, seeing somebody right in front of you and saying like the um you know these chains I wear I forged in life, you know, warn warning you like Eene. Well, I'm I'm hearing the Marley brothers muppet version when you say that or Marley and Yes, exactly. But he's Swedenborg is not arguing that that wouldn't be more impactful, but it wouldn't do what the rich man wants to have happen, which is to change your trajectory toward hell or heaven. It closes the door that you want open. And okay, yeah. So, this is divine providence. No one is reformed by visions or conversations with the dead because they compel. That forces you. It's the very quality of being compelling that's bad about that's so funny because he's not saying oh it's not compelling or but people won't buy that. No, if it really got your attention actually that compulsion would be not good. It can force behaviors but it freezes the ability of God to change your heart because you're not really there anymore in the same way that you were back when before you were compelled by that. It's it's very much like being terrified like the idea of, you know, almost dying some horrible death or something and then I've got a I don't know, you know, and it shakes you up or something, but it's after you relax, you'll just go back and do that thing again. And you're going to like we're going to talk about that even more. So, put a pin in that.

Um, check this out. Check this out. There are two kinds of visions, divine and demonic. Really? Divine visions are given by means of portrayals in heaven while demonic visions are affected through magical events in hell. So kind of uh movie magic. So sort of right. So people have visions like crazy all over the place. All over the world, people have these visions of spiritual things. It's in the Bible all over the place. The entire book of Revelation is a series of visions. Yeah. 22 chapters of visions. Yeah. And what's lots of stuff in the prophets and so yeah, people are having visions all the time. What Swedenborg is saying is that when you have those visions, like what's the actual process that's taking place? Swedenborg claims that you have your physical eyes, but you all because you have a body that's that sees through those eyes, but you also have a spirit and your spirit has eyes as well. You know, if somebody if you do people have a near-death experience and they do go meet someone that they had known in life, the person always like they have a face, they're still a person-shaped person. Yeah. and and they'll even see themselves while they're leave like they'll see their body over there on the stretcher or something and they're they're so they're they're in a different body and they see other people who are in different non-physical bodies. So you still have eyes, your spiritual eyes. When you're having a vision, what happens is your spiritual eyes open and you see something that's in the afterlife. And according to Swedenborg, there are two kinds of things you can be seeing portrayals in heaven. So in in the spiritual world and in heaven, there's a lot of gr mo motion graphics going on. Yes, there's a lot of things that here we would we call movie magic where you can bring ideas to life have fantastical things happen have a information infographic just gorgeous gorgeous sights that can happen like anywhere any time in heaven because in heaven as in all the spiritual world thoughts and feelings and inner concepts can be made visible. So if you are having a vision of heaven, what you're seeing is some truths or something actually portrayed in visual form and your your spirit is sitting there looking at this actually happening in the spiritual world. That's the way Swedenborg tells it. It's just reminding me of this statement from the ancient classics of Greek and Roman that said that there were two gates through which dreams come. The gates of horn and ivory and one were true dream. I forget which was which, but one one were true dreams and one were deceptive. In other words, some are really revealing something to you. It's interesting that thought that just, you know, you may pray for a vision. I I want to, you know, I want to see what's going on, but you need to be aware. You could be told the truth in a vision or you could be absolutely lied to. And I think the difference, so if you're when these demonic visions that he's describing, you're still looking through the eyes of your spirit, you're still seeing things. This time you're seeing things that are in hell, but the things you're seeing are lies. They're not true. Twisted. They're upside down in some way.

When Swedenborg would go and see angels in heaven, he would see I'm thinking of a story of a couple he went who would to visit their heaven. And they had been married for thousands of years because he's doing this thing about the importance of marriage and how two people can grow closer and closer forever. And when they were coming up to him, when they were far off, it said he said they looked like little children. Yes. And they had like wreaths on their head and they were playing around, but when they got close, they looked like they were adults. Yeah. And the those people were actually surprised. They didn't realize because I said to our to ourselves, we just look like adults the whole time. But what he was seeing was a portrayal of the innocence that's in them because those people have this innocence and goodness to them. So they're like little kids on the inside. So you see that when they're coming up, that's a portrayal in heaven. Portrayal in heaven. It's a real thing. And it's so interesting to me that sometimes you can see the truth from farther away or a different truth from farther away than up close. We generally sort of think, well, only somebody who was inside the organization could really know what's going on, you know? Yeah. Oh, not necessarily. Somebody could see the truth from very far away. We need some fresh eyes on this. We need an outside expert. Definitely you can see things about people that they don't even know about themselves. So that's the truth being shown to you in heaven. But Swedenborg would also encounter, if you read his journal of spiritual experiences, all the time, evil spirits. These are people who actually uh hate everyone and want to hurt everyone. And they would appear sometimes to him like they would have little children by them or they would, you know, have some nice looking uh adornments, but that was it was fake. it was them tr and he would say it was them trying to feain innocence to gain his trust so they could stab him in the back or something. So it's that's a false portrayal. It's not actually a representation of what's in them or what's really there. It's them trying to cast a false appearance. That's a demonic vision. I remember one time when he saw some person in the spiritual world and the person was an author. They'd written a number of books and he said to Swedenborg, "Do you want me to make them glow?" And sounds like Swedenborg sort of said, "Sure, knock yourself out, you know, whatever." Okay. And so he makes them glow for a little while and then the glowing just stops, you know, and you take that contrast that with what the Bible does in the afterlife. According to Swedenborg, there's a there's a spiritual version of the Bible. So the inner contents of the Bible are there and people read from it and even do religious services from it and there's blasting light that Yeah. It was just and power that that comes from it like uh something you'd read in, you know, fantasy or sci-fi or something. If you want to get weirded out, he says that you can take the book of the Bible and rub it on yourself or on your sleeve and your sleeve will glow for a little while, make your clothes glow. And so they take things where they cut a a verse from the the Bible and they hang it up and it'll actually be like a a light like an LED in there or something. And the reason for that, crazy as it sounds, is because spiritually truth is light. Yeah. So the reason the Bible shines like that is it's got a bunch of truth in it. So that's a real portrayal. That's you seeing this thing has truth in it. Whereas that guy making his books that were full of falsities glow is he's trying to imitate that. But even seeing that wouldn't help you, right? Like when you took somebody off the street, here I'll show you heaven here. Here it is. Uh it wouldn't help. Now so tell me again why why not? Okay. Well, because we kind of dived so deep into this demonic vision and true vision. However, I before we get to you're saying how do we get back on track? Before we get back on track, if you're ever reading Swedenborg and he says to you, "This is how it is. There's this and there's this." And you think to yourself, "Oh, no. I wish there was something. That's the only two options. That doesn't fit for me." You've got to understand he will make sweeping generalizations. Yes. Don't take it too seriously. And this passage is a great example of that because he says, let me I'll just back up and read a there are two kinds of visions. two kinds, divine and demonic. Divine visions are given by means of portrayals in heaven, while demonic visions are affected through magical events in hell. That's two. We're done. Except the next sentence is there are imaginary visions as well. Okay? Visions that are the illusion of a mind that has lost its bearings. The third category, you can literally have hallucinations when when you're in a fever or taking drugs or what you all kinds of different reasons. getting super super tired just just just not sleeping for a few days. Absolutely. you. So, so just saying ride loose with Swedenborg, he he'll he'll say there's only these two. There's meaning in that statement. I mean, these are the two main ones. These are the two that have meaning and consequence. But yes, it does happen.

Well, okay. So, you can have those visions from the afterlife or maybe you see and talk to people who have died in those. But this is what that all leads to. Conversations with the dead may lead to the same results as miracles that I have just described. That is we may be convinced and be constrained to worship for a short while. However, because oh, you came back from the dead and told me I had to do this. Wow, that must be real. Okay. However, since this deprivives us of our rational functioning and at the same time it hems in our evils, this spell or inner restraint is released and the pentup evils erupt in blasphemy and profanation. Still, this happens only when spirits have imposed some religious dogma. No good spirit, let alone any angel of heaven, would ever do this. Yeah, that's so interesting. So, it becomes pent up. It's funny the the mental image that came to mind is that often when you go for a walk in the woods sometimes you see deer, you know, running away from you, especially if you're in the evening or the early morning or something like that. And uh I always thought, gosh, those deer just love running, you know, they're always running. They hate running. And what they do is they'll just run and then they'll circle right back because they liked where they were. They don't want to leave where they were. They'll they'll just circle back. You know, if you move along a bit, they'll run run. Okay, let's go back to where I was cuz I liked what I was doing before. Yeah. And and we're a little bit that that way, you know? So, you see something that's sort of overwhelming and overpowering and constrains you, but actually part of you is mad about it, don't you think? you know, you're sort of angry that this thing's kind of forced you to believe in the existence of God and the afterlife because you didn't really want to and you there was no buy in. It just got shoved in your face, you know. Yeah, dude. That's great. That's a great comparison. We we circle back. You eventually get back to the life you had. Same thing when you have some kind of scare or something and you think, I better reform my life. But then once the pressure's off, we kind of get back into our old habits. But I feel like this is incredibly valuable the explanation here. Why if a if you had some conversation with a dead that forced you to believe in life after death and force you to believe in a certain picture of the afterlife, what does it disrupt? Two things. Your rational functioning. So you no longer are figuring things out for yourself, which is a default mode of life that God intends because that's what a free being needs to do is go and figure out life for themselves. And it hems in our evils. So part of what's going on interesting through divine providence is we have tendencies toward evil and also throughout our life, things we've glombmed on to that we love and have practiced that are evil. God wants us to be in heaven. So heaven is the rejection of those evils and the the love instead of what's good. When you're in this state of compulsion and shock from some kind of miracle or something, you you're you no longer can have your evils reformed because you're not choosing in freedom to reject those. Yeah. It seems like an atmosphere of freedom is needed for these things to come up to the surface and then you in a state of peace. I mean, it's horrible, isn't it, to be all rattled like if somebody forces you to make a decision immediately, you got got to decide right now. You know, uh what you want is the time and the peace. You notice when when judges are are making their decisions, it always amazes me that they say, "Okay, I'll make a decision in four months." You know, right? This is, wow, how about this afternoon? I mean, that would be handy. There's two things. Yes or no? I've got to weigh these things. I'm going to think about I'm going to give myself plenty of time to think about it and and peace to kind of reflect on it in myself and make a decision about that. And so without that freedom for things to sort of bubble up and for you in a state of peace in your in your own heart and not under any kind of outside force just just I like that or or I don't I don't like this. I I think I'll move away from this. I don't think it's so good. I I like this. I I I know we can't just keep pointing to movie plots as an authority. I don't know why not. There's millions of them. People just think of movie plots, but I think one one filter that movie plots have to go through is they have to resonate with audiences. Yes. So, you have to see something true about life in them. So, let's It It seems to me like there often is a scene in some heroic journey that we're on where the hero, yeah, you're you you're on the good team and you got to battle the evil, but then there's this individual moment where the dark side tries to entice them and they have to reject it. So, Star Wars, get them off the Yes. There's Luke Skywalker and there's the whole rebel alliance that is saying, "We got to go fight this Empire. come on, you you become a pilot and you do this and we're this team and we're we're compelling you to go that way. But there's also this moment when the Emperor Darth Vader is like, "Do don't you know the power if you joined us?" Apart from the Rebel Alliance, apart from your team, you've

got to in that moment say, "I don't want this because I've I've seen what you are. I don't want to do this." That's what gets ruined. That, and that's when you really make the break. That's when you've really chosen the light side over the dark side. Yes.

You can't do that in your life because you've come to the opposite point of view. There's this compulsion coming at you, and then you sift it through and you decide, "No, I refuse." Where does that happen? It's just you and them in the room. Yeah. It's just Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in the room. Yeah. And very much like uh Jacob doing that journey, and then he ends up wrestling with the angel. Such an amazing scene, you know, and it's just it's just him and the angel, and they're and they're wrestling. And uh, it's a lot like that. It seems like some dark moment in this otherwise story full of other people, you know, he's got all these children and, you know, uh, huge family and everything. So you can't, it disrupts not only your rational processes but your ability to keep doing the work of being regenerated because it's no longer you in the sanctum of your freedom saying no to the appeal of evil, which that's how the process, that's how you go from hell to heaven. That's how regeneration happens. So we can't, even if you could have a conversation with the dead, and it might compel you to do rituals and to pray and to believe, what it won't do is get you to, in freedom, when evil is there saying, "Join us," for you to say, "I won't do that." Because once you do that, you have a different heart. Your heart has changed, and that creates this space, and then love can come in, and then you start to feel the happiness of heaven. Also, just he just tags on the end that uh, no good spirit, let alone any angel of heaven, would ever impose a religious dogma through a vision. It would never say, "Here's what you have to believe." Isn't that amazing? Cuz so many people seem to feel that that has happened or should happen or will happen. You know, that no, that why don't they just come, come right down and tell you? Or, "I had this this vision, so you have to believe me," or "You have to accept my vision that I had." Yes. You know, because I had this vision, it showed me how things are elsewhere. Swedenborg, who sure, he talks to a lot of spirits, he talked to some angels, seemed to get some good information, but he says, "The theology that I present was not there. No, no angel told me this. This was only when only by the Lord when I was reading the word." So when he's not having all these experiences. Yeah. Right. Yes. This is just corroboration. He's just in his quiet time in the morning, or whatever. He's reading his chapter for the day, whatever it is. And and uh, and that's when it speaks to his heart. Yeah. They're actually not allowed to. And they understand the reasons. I mean, it must be weird for them because they would probably love to, "Oh, the stuff you think you, you're so wrong about everything, you know? I'd love to fix you and think this instead." Against the rules. Can't do it. We have to go through our our process.

I've sometimes wondered why, you know, it's sort of heartbreaking that that people struggle with these diseases forever. Then you imagine, let's say at some point, you know, in another 20 or 30 years, there's an absolute cure for cancer and cancer just wiped out. Then you think, well, what was all that suffering, all that death? Why didn't God just sort of wind the clock back and say, "Here, here's how to fix that and and not have all this all this suffering." But there has to be an orderly process where these thoughts happen. It has to be someone's idea. Someone has to have an insight. Someone has to see, "Oh, I think we could fix it this way." "Oh, I'm working away on my research." It would take all that away if that was just revealed in a heartbeat. And then you, "Okay, well, we have to do it this way because God says so." You know, the next category we want to get to is that so we said you can't have miracles and signs compel people to believe. You can't have conversations with the dead compel people to believe because that both of those, while you might get some temporary belief out of people, would destroy the process of reformation, which is like the actual game that's going on. The third thing that cannot reform people is threats or punishments. Oh, now this is a favorite one. A mainstay of religion, threats or punishments. You're talking about how many movies uh are built around the idea that well, the if all else fails, just torture somebody because that'll then you can get the information or then you can persuade them. You know, the the torture or the threat of torture is like it's in so many, in so many movies. So to so many people, it's just like that's that's how you solve that problem. Just threaten to torture them, threaten to kill somebody they love, or do you know. And this also claps back at a lot of Christianity and other religions try to compel people into membership with the threat of hell. True. Yeah, that's been a major, that's a, that's a pretty good incentive structure in the time past. That was definitely a very big, big way of con, you know, when you went to some new island with with, you know, native peoples or something like that. Yeah. You you threaten them with with hell and eternal damnation and try to get them all baptized.

This is what Swedenborg says about it. No one is reformed by threats or by punishment because they compel. Can anyone be forced to believe and to love? We can no more be forced to believe than we can be forced to think what we do not think. We can no more be compelled to love than we can be compelled to intend what we do not intend. However, what is inside can be compelled from the outside not to speak maliciously against the laws of the realm, the customs of everyday living, and the holy values of the church. What is inside can be compelled in this regard by threats and punishments. So you can, you can regulate behavior. Yes, you can get outcomes. That's why we have laws. I mean, the most basic murder is illegal. That's a threat that compels people to not do it. But what that can't do is change what you really believe and what you really care about. And so cannot change your heart. It can't actually reform you. Because as soon as, if your only reason you're not murdering is because there's a law not to murder, then as soon as that law, the murder is still there in your heart, as soon as the law goes away, if it's advantageous to you, you'll do it. This reminds me of a sign that was on somebody's cubby in in grad school that said, "The beatings will continue until morale improves." Yeah. What, what that means, that's hilarious. What that means is the beatings will continue till people don't complain. But morale will not have, morale will never improve as long as the beatings are going on. It's completely the wrong way to affect a morale problem is to beat everybody.

Listen to the complexity of what goes on in us. You don't understand why, why can't you just do this? Why can't you just do that? Till you understand how complex what's going on inside you is. It's just the same as like, well, why can't you just run 40 miles right now? Yeah. And that would be so healthy. Yeah. That would be so healthy. You'd feel so great until you understand your ATP levels, your respiratory, like there's so much going on in there. This is Divine Providence 136. Second, what is inside us resists compulsion from the outside so definitely that it turns the other way. This is because our inner nature wants to be in freedom and loves its freedom. As I have already explained, freedom is a matter of our love or our life. So when something free feels that it is being controlled, it withdraws into itself, so to speak, and turns in the opposite direction. It looks at the compulsion as an enemy. This is involuntary. This is the part. This is your very like core root of consciousness. Deep-seated. And you see it in manifesting in one and a half and two-year-olds. Like it's it's already there. It's it's deep-seated. "I will not do what you told me to do. I would actually like to do the opposite of what you told me to do." The love that is the substance of our life is irritated when this compulsion happens, which makes us think that we are not in control of ourselves and we that we are therefore not living our own life. The reason our inner nature is like this is found in the law of the Lord's divine providence that says we should act in freedom and in accord with reason. We can see from this that it is harmful to compel people to worship God by threats and punishments. Oh, it makes it worse if you tell, if you say, "You better believe in God and you better love God because if you don't, you're going to hell and you're going to get punished there." That makes it worse. It makes people not like the idea of God and want to not believe in God. Yeah. And almost anything to in down in there in the other direction. It plants a dislike of that idea. Yeah. And if that's, and I I dare say that to a number of people on our dear planet, uh, religion kind of equates to control. It isn't it thought control? Isn't it making people walk in lockstep? Isn't it kind of coercion of of some kind? Uh, you know, it, it, which is the absolute opposite of what what Swedenborg's talking about. There's a lot of it religion that's not that. Yes. But there's a lot, a lot that is that. And the, is that part, the compelling, controlling part, is so destructive to the goals of religion that that's what people come away with. It ruins the reputation of the whole thing. It has successfully turned off, I would say, billions of people. And we learn here, unbeknownst to us, that there is this inner part of our life that when it's told it has to do something, just naturally, uh, naturally identifies that as that's the enemy. I won't do that because that's the core of what a human is is something that acts in freedom. And the last thing you want to do, if you're, again, go back to like a romantic comedy, and it's like, "Oh, this guy really falls for this girl and he's trying to woo her." If he goes out on a date and says like, "You have to do this and you have to love me." What's what's his what's it do to his chances? What's that do to his chances? You know, that's a great pickup line, isn't it? I'm not saying romantic comedies always know what they're talking about. And I'm not even saying I've seen that many of them. But what I am saying is things like that you viscerally feel the truth in in that that you, yeah, you you can't be pushy about love. Yeah. Can't be pushy about love. You can't. Same thing with your kids. Same thing with, that's not how it works. Doesn't, that'll backfire. You can get, you can sometimes get u you know, forced behaviors, but you can't force love. Yeah. Yeah. And inside there would there would be such a a resentment, you know, if somebody sort of forces you in a long term, like you're kind of enslaved to this thing or or whatever it is, you just have this resentment of like, if I, you know, I'll wear a smile on my face, but if I had half a chance, I would throw this whole thing over. If I, as soon as I win the lottery, I'm going to come back into this office, curse everyone out, right?

So, we spent this entire show so far asserting that nobody can force you to love heaven. You can't go into heaven without loving heaven. And nobody can force you, not even God can force you to love heaven. That if he used the most impactful tools that could possibly be at his disposal, visions from the dead, miracle signs, God even himself cannot force you to love heaven. Nobody can force you to. Except there is actually one person. Oh, there's one exception. You, you can force yourself, force yourself to love heaven. And actually, you have to start by forcing yourself because in the beginning, there's a whole part of you that's going kicking and screaming. If you try to take it all away from selfishness and materialism, which is what hell is. It's so weird because you would think forcing yourself would be the same as someone else forcing you. Isn't it the same? It's force. And yet there's something about forcing yourself and the way that your inner part and your outer, because I guess the only way to force yourself is that your inner self has to force your outer self. So you're in the right part. You haven't shut that outer part and block the inner part. If you want proof that you can do that to your, "Come on, man, don't do that." "You say that to yourself." Like, "Get it together. You're forcing yourself right then." Yeah. "Don't, don't do that." "Why did I do that?" "Don't say that again." Yeah. Yeah. Right. That's forcing yourself. Look it up in your idioms and things. Divine Providence 145. Self-compulsion is not inconsistent with rationality and freedom. Self-compulsion is not inconsistent. Not inconsistently worded. Yeah. I have already explained that we have inner and outer thought processes. I have explained that because they are so distinct, they can act separately as well as together. Meditate. People say meditate. Observe your thoughts. Oh, then who's observing your thoughts? You have an inner and an outer part of yourself. Yes. And they can act in concert, but they can be at odds with each other where you can say, "Well, I don't want to be having that thought." Just that sentence, which everyone knows is true, shows there's two separate parts of you that don't have to be on the same page. I know someone who once said, um, was laughing really hard and then instantly got sad the next second and said, "Oh, I wish I felt fully involved with my laughter." You know, I'm involved with that. I'm involved with that. You know, as a human experience. Okay.

I have already explained that we have inner and outer thought processes. I've explained that because they are so distinct, they can act separately as well as together. They act separately when we talk and act on the basis of our outer thought in ways that differ from our deeper thought and intent. Oh, no, that that looks lovely. Uh, no, I really enjoyed going to dinner. We would love to come. We would love to [Laughter] come again. Um, but more seriously, no, you can trust me. Oh, yeah. Every scammer, right? I just got, Oh, no, ma'am. It's, you know, it's it's fine. Just I just got an email from one of these freaks that was like, "Here's your PayPal invoice for $755. Thanks so much for your business and supporting us. Your email address like as as my name. If you know this was an error, call this number." Liars. Liars. Liars. Scam. Pretend to be your friend. Pretending to be like and not at all interested in revealing. Like who would send you a scam and say, "This is a blatant scam, and why don't you just send me your money?" Scum. Let's not fool around and scum. Give it to me. And they act together when we say and do what we think and intend inwardly. Okay. So the the way for them to be in alignment is that the outside reflects the inside. Yeah. Yeah. If it's doing something else, and some of those are are like for polite society, it it's built on manners and self-discipline and and restraint and so on. That that's a very important part of life to to keep your lower self on a short leash is the way I I think. You know, it's like it's like having a rather hyperactive dog or something and and just needing to kind of, "Okay, we're going into a crowded room here, you know, stay with me here, keep keep it under control." Um, but when that outside is doing exactly what the inside wants, when the inside wants some good thing and the outside gets gets to to do the thing, that's that's a a fun day for the quote unquote team. Since the inner and outer processes of our minds are distinct, then the inner can even fight against the outer and forcibly make it consent. Yeah. And that battle, the Bible talks about that, that the there's a war in your members kind of thing. Uh, it it talks in several places in the epistles about this this tension between the what it calls the inner man and the the outer man kind of thing that there's different levels to you and they can even be at war with each other. And that's the only time when you're trying to force someone to do something that people will actually applaud you for. Yes. Oh, to take up, take up your cross and try to reform yourself and fight against your own negative impulses. That's great. That's actually the work of life.

This is where he says uh the specifics of how that starts. The struggle starts when we think of evils as sins and therefore try to refrain from them. M. Since to the extent that we do refrain, a door is opened for us. Once this door has been opened, the Lord expels the compulsions to evil that have kept our inner thought processes penned in. In their place, he plants desires for what is good again in the inner levels of our thought. So, how do, where does the compelling begin? Before regeneration, when we're without form and void, you just go through life and whatever you want to do, you're into it. You have, I want to say these things. I want to act this way. I want to do this. Whatever. I just do whatever I want to do. There's a certain point at which you're looking at that and you're starting to filter it and through some external, you learn something maybe in your religious texts that gives you a basic education about morals, and then you start looking at what you're doing and saying, like, "Is that is that nice? Is that fair? What impact did me having that have on this? Doing that have on this person? Would I want them to do that to me?" Oh, I should not do that. Yeah. And and I don't like that thing enough that even though there's a part of me that still wants to, this other part is saying, "I'm going to actually, at cost to myself, fight to not do that. I will, I will fight you on this." Yeah. To yourself. Yeah, that's right. I had a mentor who said it starts with um just taking a series of of uh mental photographs of yourself in different states and just realizing, wow, some of those photos are not so great. Like what you see in there, I have this story about myself that I'm this way. Oh, but here I am raging and tearing up the furniture. Oh, you know, take a picture of that. There it is, you know. Um, yeah, don't don't like that picture and look at the But you start to see that, yeah, no, I I have a range of these different things in there and some, some of what's in my kingdom is is not good. Shouldn't happen. Look what happens on the inside. So as soon as you do that, the first time that you like the first like internal protest you ever do against your own compulsions, when that happens, then enter the Lord. He peaks his head through the door. He's like, "Now that you on your own in your freedom have said, I don't want to be ruled by this anymore." That's like you're changing who you're voting for, and suddenly the Lord can come in, opens this door, ex, and not all at once, but starts to get rid of the compulsions to evil, and then in their place comes the compulsions to good. This is that sacred process of regeneration where we are starting to change who controls our life. Does their compulsions to selfishness and materialism control our life? Or are we going to have heaven and through heaven the Lord, which is the love of goodness and truth and honesty and fairness and justice and kindness and all that? Are they going to be the ones controlling our life, and we right along with them, wanting that to happen?

For some reason, what it's making me think of is uh memories from from youth and where uh if somebody else tries to wake you up at at 5 in the morning, you know, on a Saturday, you're like, oh, you know, just complaining bitterly. But if you realize, oh, some friends and I want to go fishing and to really catch the right moment, we should get up at 5:00 a.m. Then you force yourself to do something you never did. You know, set that alarm and make yourself get when you wake up in the morning, make yourself, you don't feel like it, but make yourself get out of bed and go, you know, or make yourself get into uh, you know, like a a cold tub when you when you don't want to get in. There's there's all sorts of little forms that this takes uh where you're able like those experiments they did with kids where they give them a cookie and they say you can have two cookies if you wait marshmallow, you know, right? Marshmallows, whatever it was. And uh it's amazing just in fairly young children that some of them will have the ability to say, "I want that now, but I'm willing to wait and get to you know." And people who have that self-control, it goes very well for them in their later life because they they learned that self-compulsion early. Look at all these great examples you gave. Waking up in the morning, cold tub, you know, exercise. The This shows when you want to do something that's good, it doesn't come without a fight. It just about everything that changes your trajectory of your life for the better has a struggle attached to it. Same thing with the kind of discipline to get you to get different results in all areas of your life. So it is with this letting the Lord in.

Says, "However, since the pleasures of our compulsions to evil that have been besieging our outer thought processes cannot be expelled at the same time, a fight starts between our inner and outer thinking. The inner thinking wants to expel those pleasures because they are pleasures in evil deeds and are incompatible with the desires for goodness that the inner thinking now enjoys. It wants to replace the pleasures of evil with pleasures in goodness because they are in harmony with it. The struggle begins with this disagreement. And if it becomes more severe, it is called a temptation." Temptation. A word that Swedenborg used a lot in his transition that we read in Journal of Dreams in another episode, isn't it? Where, oh, then the temptation came and that. Yeah. So this is cool because often with Swedenborg, like, wait, what exactly do you mean? Can you, can you give an example? And here in the next number, he says, "An example may help." Oh, goodness. Yes, it may. Here we go. Let's get really granular. Suppose we have felt pleasure in cheating and in undetected theft. Mhm. You just do that. You go in your life enjoyable. There's there's there's ways that you might do that and that's still a fairly sort of sneaky and smart figure out. Yeah, nobody caught on. It's a pretty obvious evil, but this is something that some people struggle with and okay, so here it is. Say we have, suppose we have felt pleasure in cheating and an undetected theft. But we see and inwardly admit that these are sins and therefore want to refrain from them. So somewhere we hate it if somebody did that to us and you you start understand the damage it caused. You see that it's com, you're commanded not to do it in the Bible, but something about that glows to you in a different way and you think, "Oh, I better not do this." The fact that you want to be deceptive about it, because of course you don't want to tell somebody you're doing it. When we refrain, a battle between the inner self and the outer self begins. The inner self is full of a desire for honesty while the outer self still enjoys cheating. That's a little bit of a conflict. There's two kinds of fun. There's two kinds of fun. There is fun and gain in this theft and cheating. There is also joy and satisfaction and understanding of the dignity and nobility of honesty. Yeah. And your inner self knows, I want my life to be like that. I don't want to be participating in this stuff that I wouldn't even want someone else to do to me, that's out of integrity, that causes this harm that I don't want to, I don't want that. I want to be in this. And the outer self is still wrapped up in, "I want that dopamine rush." And it doesn't understand that there could be any satisfaction or pleasure, just the outer self on its own. Doesn't understand that there could be what delight would be like in not taking it. Like, I don't even know what you're talking about. You know, I don't I don't understand how that would be delightful. But there is a delight in just even if you have the opportunity and not doing it. It's like there's self-control. It feels peaceful. It it it feels orderly and it and it's good. It's good for society and you're happy that that evil spirit was defeated. Well, and the fruits that that bears is trust. And you get to live in a high trust society where you can you can leave when you go rock climbing, you can leave your wallet and keys and stuff in a little bag just by the bench. You don't have to put them in a locker. Yeah. And you can trust the emails and calls that you get. Yeah. That that's what we could have. And then you begin to love the welfare of your fellow citizens. And that becomes the point of life that you start to understand, oh, the greatest thing you can be involved in is to seek the joy of others as they seek your joy. And you realize you risk that whole thing by this stupid pleasure that you used to get out of just nicking something and getting away with it. It's like, why? So so much is lost.

Speaking of that pleasure, he goes on because this pleasure is diametrically oppo opposed to the pleasure of honesty. It does not go away unless it is forced to. And the only way it can be forced is through fighting against it. Once the battle is won, the outer self comes into that love-filled delight and honesty that is true caring. Gradually thereafter, our pleasure in cheating becomes distasteful to us. Here's how you tell the difference between good and evil. So you have this part of yourself that's wrapped up in evil and it's, I I have fun stealing in this example, and I and then you have this inner, and that's the bad part. That's the evil part. So it, it, there's this thing that's destructive both to our own psyche and to the people we do it to, but it feels good. So I just want to keep doing it. It's kind of a thrill. And the inner self has this pleasure and honesty and goodness that it wants to pursue, that is good and looks good and feels good and everything about it is good. So there's this battle, and in the battle, the outer self, the evil part, is trying to extinguish the good, deny it its pleasure, take over, destroy everything. The inner self with the goodness, when it wins, the outer self wins too because now the outer self, which is just kind of like a sort of like it's like a dog or something like it doesn't know, it's just got its bone in its mouth, it it's not, it should not be leading the human mind, but it is, and that causes problems. Once the inner self wins, actually the outer self is, "Oh, oh, this is what this kind of joy feels like. Never mind. This is great." Yes. Right. And that other jangly, terrifying thing. And then you lie and thinking, "Was there a security camera?" And you know, yes. And you can never really feel feel peaceful. Or every time there's a knock on the door, you wonder, "Is this thing coming back to bite me?" And yeah, uh, that's right. It's better for the outer self, but the outer self does not want to go there. And it's not going to go there without a fight. And it really is going to be a struggle where one or the other has to have the upper hand. You. Interesting that he says gradually thereafter, our pleasure in cheating becomes distasteful to us. So not right away. He says, you can't, from the position of evil, when we're engaged in evil, we don't really get what's wrong with it. We just, you just can't. When you're in there, you just can't. Like you can maybe hear it, but it just seems good because it's pleasure. It gives you pleasure. Yeah. But after you move out of it, and after you get into the opposite, not right away, but as your life starts to change, then when you're in good, you can see evil for what it is. And eventually, not only are you, the battle's over, you're not fighting inside yourself, you genuinely detest, right, that thing that you used to love because you understand it for what it is. You don't, not even a temptation anymore. No, that's right. It actually is possible to get to that place with the Lord's help. And uh, and I know in the steps of repentance, it's got an element in there that talks about praying to the Lord for the strength or the power to resist the evil, you know, because it is, it is difficult. Some of these things are, you really get hooked, you know, if if you've done it a bunch of times and you've felt that it's, it's almost in your bloodstream, you know, that pleasure. It, it's hard to avoid it. It's in your brain chemistry. And uh, but the Lord can give you the strength to, you'll get there. You get to the point where it doesn't do anything for you anymore. No, you don't actually, disgusted by it. And it's really, really great to see some of these things in the rearview mirror, so to speak, to real, "Wow, that used to fill my life and it's it's somewhere else now." Now it's just, Yeah. It's not dumb, cheesy. We don't want it. Right.

Let's talk a little bit more about the human urge to be free. That this is just something that is inhuman nature. We want to be free. Beyond this, we all want to be free. We want to get rid of non-freedom or servitude. As children subject to teachers, we want to be on our own and therefore free. All the people who decide to go into service in order to gain their freedom are compelling themselves. And when they compel themselves, they are acting freely and rationally. So there's an example of, "I want to be," he's talking about going into servitude, which I think would be like an indentured servant, maybe becoming an apprentice for seven years or something to get a position, and that that's like a picture of compelling. Yes. Let's say I want to, I want to run my own, it's Swedenborg's day. So I want to run my own blacksmith shop. I really want to do that because I have this inherent desire to just run my own life. That's what I want to do. So, I know I have to go and listen to what this other blacksmith guys, right or wrong, you might be a great guy, but I have to go in there and humble myself and learn because I know that's what the goal is. That's self-compulsion. You can compel yourself into a state that feels less free, which is the battle between the good and bad within you because you know there's real freedom. There's there's the yoke is easy and the burden light from the Lord on the other side of that. So much schooling is is good for for children and and teenagers and so on, but uh, there's these great songs, but school's out for, you know, like you you can't wait till it's over, you know, burning the books and all that stuff and you just want to be rid of the of the compulsion of it because a teacher's telling you what you have to do and you, Yeah. Your life is kind of regimented and and you want to be free. And this is why kids who are little want to be teenagers and they want to be grown-ups. And I'm thinking because I want to drive. I want to, yeah, like no, no, no, you don't understand what you have right now is better. Yes, it is better. It looks better over here. It's not as good, right? But they just want it. They just want it because there's that urge toward being free.

Continuing Divine Providence 149. One reason people do not make a similar effort to move from spiritual slavery to spiritual freedom is that they do not know what spiritual slavery and spiritual freedom are. How are you going to get out of being trapped if you don't even realize that you're trapped? A little confused about the road signs. We don't know where we are. They do not have the truths that would teach them. And in the absence of truths, they think that spiritual slavery is freedom and spiritual freedom is slavery. Like, I, what do you mean? I'm not enslaved by my desire to steal things. I love stealing things. That's when I feel free. Not realizing that that is hell running your life, restricting you, capping your potential for happiness, destroying your ability to be in heaven. I love that lyric. It's, "I'm as free as a bird," and that bird you cannot change. Should we do the solo? A second reason is that the Christian religion has closed the door on intelligence. Zing, church's fault. And the and the theology of faith alone. We should have that alert go off when it's, but here's the damage. This is why Swedenborg was such a refor, like a reformer, why he wanted to go after certain doctrines in the Christian church is because he could see this is the damage, damage those doctrines are doing. Is that Christianity has, the Christian religion has closed the door on intelligence, and the theology of faith alone has sealed it shut. A third reason is that not many people look into themselves and see their sins. And if they do not see them and refrain from them, they are in the freedom of their sins. A hellish freedom that is essentially slavery. Looking at heavenly freedom, which is freedom on its in its essence, from this perspective, is like seeing daylight in darkness while looking under a black cloud at what comes from the sun overhead. So in, if you don't, this is why you need religion is you need it to be able to give you the ability to discern the difference between heaven and hell. If we're referencing classic rock songs, you think you can tell heaven from hell, blue skies from pain. Without the right teachings, you really don't know. You really can't suss it out for yourself. And this idea of faith alone, which Swedenborg would say is a deterrent to people ex doing self-examination and repentance, it is a deterrent to, "Why do I need to look at myself and find out where my evils are? Which I just have faith and so now I'm saved." That halts this process as well. There are lots of good people who who accept the the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, but they're still living good lives. And Swedenborg talks about that. Yes. But as a concept, that idea of faith alone is very dangerous because it takes away the one remedy. It's like, let's just not have medicine. Why do we have medicine? Let's get rid of it. Yeah. You're just, you're taking the thing that religion is supposed to do to fix you, you know, to help you be better and get you into this heavenly beautiful state. Taking that off the table. It just, it drove him crazy to think about how did we get here to where we undid the thing that you absolutely need to do, the repentance to be a more heavenly person.

Let's close by talking about the freely chosen path to heavenly goodness. What does that look like? How do you, how do you walk that path? This is back in Divine Providence. Our outer self has to be reformed by means of our inner self and not the reverse. The inner and outer self means the same thing as our inner and outer thought processes. The inner self is not reformed simply by gaining knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. That is not, not that is simply by thinking. We are reformed inwardly by intending to do what our knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom tell us. M. When our knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom tell us that there is a heaven and a hell, that everything evil comes from hell and that everything good comes from heaven. Then if we do not intend evil on the grounds that it is from hell and instead intend good on the grounds that it is from heaven, we are on the first step of reformation. M. When we take the next step and intend to stop doing wrong, we are on the second step of reformation. Still we are not reformed until both the outer and the inner self are reformed. The outer self is reformed by means of the inner self. When the outer self refrains from the evils that the inner self intends not to do because they are from hell. So you can't just think about it, change your your impulses. You got to then actually not take the actions. The thing is an important part, but it doesn't do it by itself, it doesn't do the job. This is the proper order of operations. Everything we're talking about in the beginning, if you had a vision or a miracle or a conversation with the dead that said, "Don't do evil." The outer self would stop doing evil, but it's not doing so at the request of the inner self. So, there's not self-compulsion. The freedom and rationality is not engaged, and you're not really changing who you are. You're just trying to avoid some unpleasantness. Some powerful force came in from the outside and rattled you enough to to make you change your ways on a temporary basis. We are more completely reformed when for that reason we abstain from them and fight against them. In this way, what is within is intending and what is outside is acting. For unless we do what we intend, there is a lack of real intention inside that eventually becomes unwillingness. [Music] That's that's a key. So yes, you could have it that you can force these actions but by some external overwhelming show of a miracle or something. But the clock is ticking because if there wasn't this um real intention coming from your own heart to not do this, eventually that's going to go sour. You're going to rebel against this law that you're like, "This law is taxing me without representation." Yeah. And I'm struck by those words about abstaining. And that's a big deal to abstain, not to to have the opportunity and not to do it. Swedenborg even talks at one point, I think, about uh having an opportunity to do something that you used to love and not even wanting to do it. As you said, you know, it's not that, "Oh, I'm so tempted, but I guess I won't." You you even get to the point where, "I don't even want to do that." And then fighting against was the other thing I heard in there that there are times when it's going to be, if you make a change in your life, I've often found you, you make some sort of change like this, like I'm going to move away from hell. Often I'll have like a three-day sort of little honeymoon where where things go well with that thing, but the fourth day, hell remembers where I live and comes back to try to get back in, you know, and and then you're fighting. Uh, so so you may have a few days like a grace period, but then later you will have to try to reassert that dominance over that thing in yourself.

So let's end here by talking about Jesus. And Swedenborg has this whole theology that we're going through here, right? And you can say, "All right, is that is that in the Bible?" But here you can see how in the world does the Bible make sense unless you have this theology backing it up. Here's a famous saying of Jesus to Peter. Swedenborg quotes it here. These few observations show how our outer self is reformed by means of our inner self. So that's where we were. The outer self has to be reformed from inside by means of the inner self, or it doesn't work. This is what the Lord's words to Peter mean as well. Jesus said, "If I do not wash you, you have no part in me." Peter said to him, "Lord, don't wash just my feet. Wash my hands and head as well." Jesus said to him, "Great. Yes, you went the extra mile." No, he doesn't. He says, "Those who have been washed need only to have their feet washed, and they are wholly clean." How do you possibly make sense of that? What a bizarre interaction. Yes, because Peter is surely thinking, I would be thinking if I were Peter there. Oh, he's, I'm not even saying yes. He's going to love it when I say, "Yeah, do my my head. I'm giving myself into your care, Lord. You wash that head. Whole deal." Let's, let's. And Jesus has this rebuke that says, "Listen, no, you don't need that. I just need to wash your feet." What, how does that make sense? What is that talking about? What it's talking about according to Swedenborg fits in line with this whole thing is that he's describing how the process of regeneration works. Your outer self needs to be reformed by your inner self. The feet are the symbol of the outer self. They're the closest to the earth. And and it's only through this process that it works. That's why yoga. They're the the last thing. And I also think about the fact, okay, so maybe you bathed in the morning, and then you're walking around in the dusty world, and and so your your feet are dirty, but the rest, you, you're you're essentially clean. And I, I love that image of of the Lord washing the dirt, you know, that accumulates in our outer self as we walk through this this world. It's we, we get, we get dirty because you're not, I'm really going to get in shape and not only I'm going to go and lift weights and stuff, and then also I'm going to, you know, think inside myself and have the molecules from my fat cells get transferred to this, and I'm going to build up these micro fissures in my. You don't do that. That's not your part. You, I'm going to release endorphins and then I'll release that hormone. Change into ketosis. I don't know. That's not what you do. You go and do the, you, you do the feet part. You get your inner self to comp, you compel yourself to do that, and then the Lord is going to change you. That's enough for the Lord to change you. Yeah. You can't, you can't replace your corrupt desires with heavenly ones. All you can do is get your inner self to recognize them and tell your outer self, "We ain't going to do this." I'm really struck by that door in that one quote. It says, "This is when the Lord, this this door opens. Something divine comes in." So that I think the message is the takeaway is why doesn't God just force you to believe? Why doesn't it just just give you the obvious indicator that this is how things are? Why doesn't he use miracles, conversations with the dead, threats of punishment to just get you to do what he wants you to do? Is because there's a much more complex, delicate, purposeful process here. The Lord wants to bring you into heaven. That's why the universe exists is for heaven from the human race. The way in which you go to heaven, the only way is you come to love what's in heaven. You come to love what composes heaven, which is everything that's good and true. And the only way you ever come to love something is if you're free to choose whether you love it or not. So the Lord and you, and you choose it, and and you work on that. The end goal is not, "Do you believe in me?" The end goal is, "Do you change your heart? Do you repent to come to love me?" And God is inseparable from the na, his own nature, which is to do good. He says to to Peter, right? "Do you love me more than these?" "Feed my sheep." It's about coming to be like the Lord is, and we having something in common with him. That's when you're in heaven. And that tremendous divine wisdom to know the way that we are. Parents know this, teachers know it, people who are trying to run society, uh, realize you, you can't force all the people all the time. They, they have, they have freedom. You got to work within their freedom. And so that divine wisdom of realizing the only way this thing works is if you compel yourself, and it's okay to compel yourself. In fact, it's very good. It's actually is an optimally designed world for that to happen. You might think if the point is to believe that God exists and to do what God commands you to do, there's many better ways you could organize life than this free form, confusing, all stacked against you. But the goal, the actual goal, which is to change yourself from the inside out, this world is perfectly set up to do that. And it's really about making a start. You're not going to finish it in in in this lifetime. He said gradual, right? And he says elsewhere that it continues after we die. You know, if we get into a a rhythm of into a process of improvement that continues forever, we just need to start to develop a taste for it. I think with the whole Swedenborg thing, you could have a knock on Swedenborg as, "Oh, this is some a great source of truth. Not the only source of truth, but it's a great source of truth." If you were trying to discredit that, you might say, "Well, why was it the things that discredit it are like, why is it this weird guy from the 18th century? Why do he just wrote in books? You have to read that. Are you going to believe what he says or not?" And you can look at that as this is not that credible. What would really be credible is if God gave us all the same experiences Swedenborg has. What that would not do is allow you to be reformed in freedom. So Swedenborg is just a book. Let's say that this is one of, you know, a number of sources on the planet that God's put there that gives you the means to do this changing from hell to heaven in your life. It's just a book on the shelf. You can pick up the book next to it or not. But what this does is you can take it and read it, and the ideas are there. And then in your own freedom, with your own rationality, you can start to determine and look in, "Is this really true? Is this really good? Is it could this really be how it is?" And then they can be an aid to this process happening. Yeah, that's why I, I love this this format of these shows in the sense that we're we're kind of trying to part participate in that same thing. Just putting a message out there. People can opt in or not. It may seem nonsensical or demonic or insane to people, whatever. They're they're utterly free to opt in or not. And if you used your freedom to watch all the way to the end of the show, we are very grateful. Jonathan, it's been so fun hanging out with you here. Looking forward to next time. Bye, everybody. [Music]