Logopraxis

The Third Round
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Christianity
  • Updated Bi-monthly

Seeking to make the Lord God Jesus Christ visible in our midst... "Where two or three are gathered together in My name there am I in the midst of them." (Matt. 18:20)

  1. 4 days ago

    ACV10 S01 8033-8070

    CLICK TO PRINT READING CLICK TO GO TO COMMENTS 8033 THE BOOK OF EXODUS CHAPTER 13. THE DOCTRINE OF CHARITY. What Charity is, and what Faith is, with man, must now be told. Charity is an internal affection which consists in a heartfelt desire to do the neighbor good, and in this being the delight of life; and this without any reward. 8034 On the other hand, Faith is an internal affection which consists in a heartfelt desire to know what is true and what is good, and this not for the sake of doctrine as the end in view, but for the sake of life. This affection conjoins itself with the affection of charity through the desire to do according to the truth, thus to do the truth itself. 8035 They who are in the genuine affection of charity and faith believe that from themselves they do not desire anything good, and that from themselves they do not understand anything true; but that the will of good and the understanding of truth are from the Lord. 8036 This then is charity, and this is faith. They who are in these have within them the kingdom of the Lord and heaven, and within them is the church; and these are they who have been regenerated by the Lord, and from Him have received a new will and a new understanding. 8037 They who have the love of self or the love of the world as the end in view, cannot possibly be in charity and faith. They who are in these loves do not even know what charity is, and what faith is, and do not at all comprehend that to will good to the neighbor without any reward is heaven in man, and that in this affection there is happiness as great as is that of the angels, which is unutterable; for they believe that if they are deprived of the joy arising from the glory of honors and of wealth all joy ceases to be possible; when yet heavenly joy, which infinitely transcends every other joy, then first begins. EXODUS 13 1 And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, 2 Sanctify to Me all the firstborn, that which openeth every womb among the sons of Israel, in man and in beast; it is Mine. 3 And Moses said unto the people, Remember thou this day, in which ye went out from Egypt, out of the house of servants; because in strength of hand Jehovah led you forth from hence; and what is leavened shall not be eaten. 4 This day ye go forth, in the month Abib. 5 And it shall be when Jehovah shall have brought thee unto the land of the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, which He sware to thy fathers to give thee, a land flowing with milk and honey, that thou shalt serve this service in this month. 6 Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened things, and in the seventh day is a feast to Jehovah. 7 Unleavened things shall be eaten seven days; and that which is leavened shall not be seen with thee, leaven shall not be seen with thee in all thy border. 8 And thou shalt tell thy son in that day, saying, It is because of that which Jehovah did for me, in my going forth out of Egypt. 9 And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the law of Jehovah may be in thy mouth; because with a strong hand hath Jehovah led thee forth out of Egypt. 10 And thou shalt keep this statute at the set time from year to year. 11 And it shall be when Jehovah shall have brought thee in to the land of the Canaanite, as He sware to thee and to thy fathers, and shall have given it thee: 12 That thou shalt cause to pass over to Jehovah all that openeth the womb; and all that openeth of the offspring of a beast, which shall be to thee males, shall be for Jehovah. 13 And all that openeth of an ass thou shalt redeem with one of the flock; and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break its neck; and every firstborn of man among thy sons shalt thou redeem. 14 And it shall be when thy son shall ask thee tomorrow, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say unto him, In strength of hand Jehovah led us forth from Egypt, from the house of servants. 15 And it was that Pharaoh hardened himself against letting us go, and Jehovah slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of man and even to the firstborn of beast; therefore I sacrifice to Jehovah all that openeth the womb, being males; and all the firstborn of my sons I redeem. 16 And it shall be for a sign upon thine hand, and for frontlets between thine eyes; because in strength of hand Jehovah led us forth out of Egypt. 17 And it was in Pharaoh’s letting the people go, that God led them not by the way of the land of the Philistines, because that was near; for God said, Perchance the people will repent when they see war, and will return to Egypt. 18 And God led the people about, by the way of the wilderness, the sea Suph; and the sons of Israel went up armed out of the land of Egypt. 19 And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him; for swearing he had caused the sons of Israel to swear, saying, Visiting God will visit you; and ye shall bring up my bones with you from hence. 20 And they journeyed from Succoth, and encamped in Etham, at the end of the wilderness. 21 And Jehovah went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them in the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and by night. 22 The pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night, departed not from before the people. 8038 THE CONTENTS. In this chapter the subject treated of in the internal sense is faith in the Lord, and the perpetual remembrance of having been liberated by Him from damnation. Faith in the Lord is signified by the sanctification of the firstborn, and the perpetual remembrance of liberation by the Lord is signified by the celebration of the passover. 8039 In the latter portion of the chapter, and thereafter, the subject treated of is the further preparation of those who were of the spiritual church and who before the coming of the Lord were detained in the lower earth until they could be introduced into heaven, and that for the sake of this end they were first sent through the midst of damnation in safety, and after this underwent temptations, the Lord being continually present. Transmission through the midst of damnation is signified by the passage through the sea Suph; temptations are signified by that life in the wilderness to which they were led; and the presence of the Lord is signified by the pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by night. 8040 THE INTERNAL SENSE Verses 1, 2. And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, Sanctify to Me all the firstborn, that which openeth every womb among the sons of Israel, in man and in beast; it is Mine. “And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying,” signifies an informing by the Divine; “Sanctify to Me all the firstborn,” signifies faith, that it is from the Lord; “that which openeth every womb,” signifies which is from charity; “among the sons of Israel,” signifies in the spiritual church; “in man and in beast,” signifies the good of faith interior and exterior; “it is Mine,” signifies that it is the Lord’s. 8041 And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying. That this signifies an informing by the Divine, is evident from the signification of “speaking” and “saying,” when by Jehovah about the things of the church which are to be observed, as being an informing (see n. 7769, 7793, 7825), and because it is by Jehovah, it denotes an informing by the Divine; and from the representation of Moses, as being truth Divine (n. 6771, 7014, 7382). Hence by “Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying” is signified an informing by the Divine through Divine truth. 8042 Sanctify to Me all the firstborn. That this signifies faith, that it is from the Lord, is evident from the signification of “sanctifying to Jehovah” or the Lord, as being to ascribe to Him, that is, to confess and acknowledge that it is from Him; and from the signification of “the firstborn,” as being faith (see n. 352, 2435, 6344, 7035). When it is said “faith,” there is meant all the truth that belongs to the spiritual church; and as there is meant all the truth of the church, the spiritual church itself is also meant, for truth is the essential of this church. Good is indeed the essential of the church, and is actually the firstborn (n. 2435, 3325, 4925, 4926, 4928, 4930); but the good which those have who belong to the spiritual church is in itself truth; for when they act according to the truth which is of their doctrine, then the truth is called good, having then passed from the understanding into the will and from the will into act, and that which is done from the will is called good. That in itself and in its essence this good is nevertheless truth, is because to them the doctrinal things of the church are truths, and the doctrinal things in churches differ, consequently so do the truths; and yet although they are so various, by willing them and doing them they become goods, as just now said. [2] While a man is being regenerated, he is led by means of faith in the understanding, or in doctrine, to faith in the will or life, that is, by means of the truth of faith to the good of charity; and when a man is in the good of charity, he has then been regenerated, and then from this good he produces truths, which are called the truths of good. These are the truths which are the veriest truths of faith, and which are meant by “the firstborn;” for it is with the begettings or births of truths from good, as it is with the begettings or births of sons and daughters from a parent, and afterward of grandsons and granddaughters, and thereafter of great-grandsons and great-granddaughters; and so on. The first or immediate begetting or birth, which is that of sons and daughters, is what is signified by “the firstborn,” however many these may be; but not the second and the third begettings or births, except relatively to their own parents. The reason why these are sanctified to Jehovah or the Lord, is that all derivative or descending truths an

  2. 11 June

    What is the human form? (5 mins)

    True Christian Religion (Ager) 20{2}. This One God is Substance itself and Form itself and angels and men are substances and forms from Him, and so far as they are in Him and He in them are images and likenesses of Him. As God is Esse He is also Substance; for unless Esse is substance it is a figment of the reason; for substance has subsistent being. Moreover, one who is a substance is also a form; for unless a substance is a form it is a figment of the reason. Wherefore both substance and form may be predicated of God, but in the sense that He is the only, the very, and the primal Substance and Form… this Form is the verily Human Form, that is, God is verily Man, infinite in every respect … angels and men are substances and forms created and organised for receiving what is Divine flowing into them through heaven. For this reason they are called in the Book of Creation “images and likenesses of God” (Genesis 1:26, 27); and elsewhere “His sons,” and “born of Him.” … so far as man lives under Divine direction, that is, suffers himself to be led by God, so far he becomes an image of God more and more interiorly. Unless an idea is formed of God as the primal Substance and Form, and of His Form as the verily Human Form, the human mind may easily involve itself in spectral fancies about God Himself, the origin of man, and the creation of the world. It would then have no other conception of God than as the nature of the universe in its first principles, that is, as its expanse, or else as emptiness or nothingness; nor any other conception of man’s origin than as a flowing together of elements into that form by mere chance; nor of the creation of the world than that its substances and forms originated in points, and afterwards in geometrical lines, which are essentially nothing, because nothing can be predicated of them.  Heaven and Hell 60. People who do not have an appropriate concept of spiritual and heavenly realities cannot grasp the fact that heavenly and spiritual realities are arranged and connected in this form and image. They think that the earthly and material elements that make up their outmost form really make them what they are, and that without them they would not be human. Let them know, though, that they are not human beings because of these elements but because they are able to understand what is true and will what is good. These are the spiritual and heavenly realities that make them human. Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) 9503. So it is that the Lord is heaven, for Divine Truth which emanates from Him and is received by the angels makes heaven. Consequently the more perfect the manner in which angels receive Divine Truth that comes from the Lord and accordingly receive the Lord, the more perfect the human forms they possess. Eventually they become so perfect that their beauty surpasses belief; anyone who sees them, as I have done, will be dumbfounded. For in their outward form angels are manifestations of heavenly love and charity, and that is the truly human form. The reason why angels possess human forms is that the Divine in heaven is the Lord, and those who receive Divine Truth within good from Him are images of Him.   Arcana Coelestia (Potts) 8988 . The angels themselves appear in a human form in the heavens absolutely according to the truths which pertain to them in good, with a beauty and brightness according to the quality of the good from truths. Use is how it manifests Conjugial Love (Gladish) 16. Into our souls three things flow as one from the Lord, and these three as one, or this ‘trine,’ are love, wisdom, and use. But love and wisdom do not emerge except as an idea, because they only reside in affection and thoughts of the mind, but in use they become real, because then they are in the action and work of your body. And where they become real they also become substantial. And because love and wisdom emerge and become substantial in doing things, it is use that excites us, and use is doing the work of your calling faithfully, sincerely, and industriously. “A love of use, and the devotion it brings to usefulness, keep the mind from branching out and wandering around soaking up all the desires that seep in enticingly from your body and the world through the senses, and that scatter to all the winds true religion and true morality, and the benefits of them. But a devotion to use wraps up religion and morality, binds them together, and puts the mind in a state to receive wisdom and its truth. And then it puts aside the illusions and mockeries of both falsities and aimlessness. True Christian Religion 67.  Previous to creation God was love itself and wisdom itself and the union of these two in the effort to accomplish uses; for love and wisdom apart from use are only fleeting matters of reason, which fly away if not applied to use. The first two separated from the third are like birds flying above a great ocean, which are at length exhausted by flying, and fall down and are drowned. Evidently, therefore, the universe was created by God to give existence to uses; and for this reason the universe may be called a theater of uses. And as man is the chief end of creation, it follows that each and all things were created for the sake of man; and therefore each and all things belonging to order were brought together and concentrated in him, to the end that through him God might accomplish primary uses. Love and wisdom apart from their third, which is use, may be likened to the sun’s heat and light; which, if they did not operate upon men, animals, and vegetables, would be worthless things; but by influx into and operation upon these they become real.  For there are three things that follow each other in order, namely, end, cause, and effect; and it is known in the learned world that the end is nothing unless it regards the effecting cause, and that the end and this cause are nothing unless an effect is produced. The end and cause may indeed be contemplated abstractly in the mind, but still only on account of some effect which the end purposes and the cause secures.  It is the same with love, wisdom, and use; use is the end which love purposes, and through the cause accomplishes; and when use is accomplished love and wisdom have a real existence; and in the use they make for themselves a habitation and foundation where they rest as in their home.  It is the same with the man who has in him the love and wisdom of God when he is performing uses; and to enable him to perform Divine uses he was created an image and likeness of God, that is, a form of Divine order. We are not human Conjugial Love (Chadwick) 315{10,11}. Is there anyone who does not believe the soul to be the most intimate and subtle essence of a person? But what is essence without form but a figment of the imagination? The soul then is a form, but what sort of form, I will tell you. It is the form of all the parts of love and all the parts of wisdom. All the parts of love are called affections, and all the parts of wisdom are called perceptions. The perceptions as a result of and so together with the affections make up a single form containing countless parts, but arranged in such order and so coherent that they can be called a unity; and they can be called a unity, because nothing can be taken away from it or be added to it, if it is to remain a unity. What is the human soul but such a form? All the parts of love and all the parts of wisdom are the essentials of such a form, and in the case of a person these essentials are in his soul, and from his soul in his head and body. ‘You are called spirits and angels; and you believed in the world that spirits and angels were like puffs of wind or particles of ether, and so were minds and characters. Now you see clearly that you are truly, really and actually people, who in the world lived and thought in a material body; and you knew that it is not the material body that lives and thinks, but the spiritual substance in that body. This you called the soul, whose form you did not know; yet now you have seen it and go on seeing it. You are all souls, about whose immortality you have heard, thought, talked and written so much; and since you are forms of love and wisdom coming from God, you cannot ever die. The soul then is a human form, from which nothing can be taken away, and to which nothing can be added, and it is the inmost of all the forms throughout the body. Since the forms which are outside receive from the inmost both essence and form, you are therefore souls, just as you appear to be to your sight and to ours. In short, the soul is the real person because it is the inmost person; its form therefore is the human form in full perfection. But it is not life, but it is the nearest receiver of life from God, and so God’s dwelling.’  Fractal idea of the repeating pattern of the human form Heaven and Hell (Dole) 73 . Therefore Every Angel Is in Perfect Human Form…as a whole reflects a single individual and that the same holds true for each community in heaven. From the chain of causes presented there, it follows that each single angel reflects the same as well. As heaven is a person in greatest form and a community of heaven is a person in lesser form, so an angel is a person in least form; for in the most perfect form, like the form of heaven, there is a likeness of the whole in the part and of the part in the whole.  Conjugial Love (Searle) 92. V. FROM THE INFLUX OF THE MARRIAGE OF GOOD AND TRUTH That good and truth are the universals of creation, and thus are in all created subjects ; and that they are in created subjects according to the form of each; and that good and truth proceed from the Lord not as two but as one, was shewn above, nos. 84 to 87. From these considerations it follows, that the UNIVERSAL CONJUGIAL SPHERE proceeds from the Lord, and pervades the universe from its primes to its ultimates, thus from angels ev

  3. 1 June

    Our work: Recognise the ‘Misattribution Error’ and Trust the Lord in This (5 mins)

    The sense of self is a finite form of reception of what is Infinite True Christian Religion (Chadwick) 25{3}. The Divine Being, which is in itself God, is the same; not the same in a simple way, but infinitely the same, that is, the same from eternity to eternity. He is the same everywhere, the same with each person and in each person; but all the changes and differences occur in the person who receives Him, and it is his state which causes this. Divine Love and Wisdom (Ager) 124. The Lord is not in a greater and lesser degree of love and wisdom, that is, as a sun He is not in a greater or lesser degree of heat and light with one than with another, for He is everywhere the same. But He is not received by one in the same degree as by another Arcana Coelestia (Potts) 4206. That such various things of the Lord are represented, is not because various things are in the Lord, but because His Divine is variously received by men. This is like the life in man, which flows in and acts upon the various sensory and motive organs of the body, and upon the various members and viscera, and everywhere presents variety. For the eye sees in one way, the ear hears in another, the tongue perceives in another; so the arms and hands move in one way, and the loins and the feet in a different way; the lungs act in one way and the heart in another; the liver in one way and the stomach in another, and so on; but nevertheless it is one life which actuates them all so variously, not because the life itself acts in different ways, but because it is differently received; for the form of each organ is that according to which the action is determined.  True Christian Religion (Ager) 366. What flows in from the Lord is received by man according to his form. Form means here man’s state in respect both to his love and to his wisdom, consequently in respect both to his affections for the goods of charity and to his perceptions of the truths of faith. That God is one, indivisible, and the same, from eternity to eternity, not the same simply but infinitely the same, and that all variableness is in the subject in which He dwells… That the recipient form or state induces variations, can be seen from the life of infants, children, youths, adults, and aged persons; in each there is the same life, because the same soul, from infancy to old age; but as one’s state is varied according to age and what is suitable thereto, in like manner is life perceived.  Misattribution is part of the process True Christian Religion (Dick) 330. It has been stated that so far as a man shuns evils he wills good, because evil and good are opposites; for evil is from hell, and good from heaven; therefore, so far as hell, that is, evil, is removed, heaven is approached, and man looks towards what is good. TCR 331. Evil and good cannot exist together; and so far as evil is removed, good is regarded and felt as good. For in the spiritual world there emanates from every one the sphere of his love, which diffuses itself around, causing itself to be felt, and gives rise to sympathies and antipathies; and by means of these spheres the good are separated from the evil. Many illustrations can be given from the affairs of the natural world to show that evil must be removed before good is known, perceived and loved. For example, no one can visit a man who keeps a leopard and a panther in his room, and who lives in safety with them because he feeds them, until those wild beasts are removed. Divine Love and Wisdom (Ager) 4​. The Lord, who is the God of the universe, is uncreate and infinite, whereas man and angel are created and finite. And because the Lord is uncreate and infinite, He is Being [Esse] itself, which is called “Jehovah,” and Life itself, or Life in itself. From the uncreate, the infinite, Being itself and Life itself, no one can be created immediately, because the Divine is one and indivisible; but their creation must be out of things created and finited, and so formed that the Divine can be in them. Because men and angels are such, they are recipients of life. Consequently, if any man suffers himself to be so far misled as to think that he is not a recipient of life but is Life, he cannot be withheld from the thought that he is God.  Love to the Lord from the Lord Heaven and Hell (Dole) 72. The reason each community appears in human likeness when it is seen all together as a unit is that heaven as a whole has this likeness, as may be seen in the preceding chapter; and in the most perfect form, like the form of heaven, there is a likeness of parts and whole, of lesser and greatest. The lesser elements and parts of heaven are the communities of which it consists, each of which is a heaven in lesser form, as may be seen above in 51-58. The reason for this constant likeness is that in the heavens all the qualities stem from a single love and therefore from a single source. The single love that is the origin of everything good in heaven is love for the Lord from the Lord. This is why all heaven is a likeness of him on the grand scale, every community a likeness on a less grand scale, and every angel in specific. See what has been said on this matter above in 58. Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments in online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to maintain a focus on understanding the Text’s application to the inner life while reinforcing key LP principles highlighted in the exchanges.

  4. 29 May

    S7 Overview – The Word is the map to our heavenly home (9 mins)

    Heaven and Hell 306. I have been told from heaven that the earliest people had direct revelation because their inner natures were turned toward heaven, and that this was the source of the Lord’s union with the human race at that time. After those times, though, there was not the same kind of direct revelation, but an indirect revelation through correspondences. All their divine worship consisted of these; so the churches of those times were called symbolic churches. They knew what correspondences and representations were and that everything on earth answered to spiritual things in heaven and the church (or represented them, which amounts to the same thing). In this way, the natural elements that constituted their outward worship served them as means for thinking spiritually and therefore thinking with angels. Once all knowledge of correspondences and representations had been lost, then a Word was written in which all the words and the meanings of the words are correspondences and therefore contain that spiritual or inner meaning in which angels are engaged. So when we read the Word and grasp it in its literal or outward meaning, angels grasp it in its inner or spiritual meaning. In fact, all the thought of angels is spiritual, while ours is natural. These two kinds of thought do seem different, but they are one because they correspond. This is why, after we had moved away from heaven and broken the connection, the Lord provided that there should be a means of union of heaven with us through the Word. The Word is pedestrian 310. I have talked with angels about the Word on occasion, and have told them that it is looked down on by some people because of its pedestrian style. They know absolutely nothing about its deeper meaning and therefore do not believe that this kind of wisdom lies hidden within. The angels have told me that even though the style of the Word may appear pedestrian in its literal meaning, it is qualitatively incomparable because divine wisdom lies hidden not just in the overall meaning but in every word, and that this wisdom shines out in heaven. They have wanted to declare that because it is divine truth, it is heaven’s light, since divine truth in heaven is radiant (see above, 132). They have added that without this kind of Word there would be no light of heaven among the people of our earth and consequently no union with heaven for them; for the amount of heaven’s light there is among us determines the union and therefore the extent to which we have any revelation of divine truth through the Word. The reason people do not know this union exists (through the spiritual meaning of the Word corresponding to its natural meaning) is that the people of our earth do not know anything about angels’ spiritual thinking and conversation. They do not know that this is different from our natural thinking and conversation; and anyone who does not know this cannot possibly know what the inner meaning is and therefore cannot know that it can make this kind of union possible. They have also said that if we knew that this kind of meaning existed and when we read the Word did our thinking with any knowledge of it, we would come into a deeper wisdom and be more closely united to heaven, because in this way we would have access to concepts like those of angels. Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments in online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to maintain a focus on understanding the Text’s application to the inner life while reinforcing key LP principles highlighted in the exchanges.

  5. 26 May

    Variety and Diversity: Wholeness through Use vs. Fracturing through Self (10 mins)

    The Human form is love and wisdom in use 60. People who do not have an appropriate concept of spiritual and heavenly realities cannot grasp the fact that heavenly and spiritual realities are arranged and connected in this form and image. They think that the earthly and material elements that make up their outmost form really make them what they are, and that without them they would not be human. Let them know, though, that they are not human beings because of these elements but because they are able to understand what is true and will what is good. These are the spiritual and heavenly realities that make them human. The arrangement of the parts into a whole through the common good – the Lord 62. Actually, angels do not see heaven in a single overview in this kind of form, since the entire heaven does not lie within the scope of any angel’s sight. However, they do consistently see particular communities that are made up of many thousands of angels as single units in this kind of form; and from the community as a sample they draw their inference about the totality that is heaven. This is because in the most perfect form the greater elements are arranged like the parts, and the parts like the greater elements. The only distinction is between what is greater and what is lesser. Therefore they say that the entire heaven looks like this in the Lord’s sight, because the Divine sees everything from the very center and summit. 63. Since heaven is of this nature, it is also governed by the Lord as though it were a single individual and therefore a single unit. We ourselves consist of countless different things, both overall and in our parts. We are made up overall of our limbs, organs, and viscera, and in our parts of series of nerves, fibers, and blood vessels — made up of members within members, then, and parts within parts. Still, we do of course recognize that when we do anything, we do it as whole individuals. This is what heaven is like, too, under the Lord’s guardianship and guidance. 64. The reason so many varied elements act as one in an individual is that there is nothing whatever there that does not contribute something to the common good and do something useful. The inclusive body serves its parts and the parts serve the inclusive body because the inclusive body is made up of parts and the parts make up the inclusive body. So they provide for each other respectively, they focus on each other mutually, and they are united in the kind of form that gives every single component a relationship to the inclusive entity and its well-being. This is what enables them to act as a unit. [2] It is the same with assemblies in the heavens. People there unite in this kind of form in pursuit of any worthwhile activity. As a result any individuals who do not serve some use for the larger body are cast out of heaven because they are misfits. To “serve some use” is to intend well to others for the sake of the common good, while “not to serve some use” is to intend well to others not for the sake of the common good but for the sake of oneself. People who act in this latter fashion are people who love themselves above all, while people who act in the former fashion are the ones who love the Lord above all. This is why people in heaven act in unison not from themselves but from the Lord. Variety and Diversity and Perfection HH 71. It is worth noting that the more members there are in a single community and the more united they are in action, the more perfect is their human form. This is because variety arranged in a heavenly form makes perfection, as explained above in 56; and variety occurs where there are many individuals. Every community in heaven is growing in numbers daily, and the more it grows, the more perfect it becomes. In this way, not only is the community perfected, but heaven in general is perfected as well, since the communities constitute heaven. Since heaven is perfected by its numerical growth, we can see how mistaken people are who believe that heaven will be closed to prevent overcrowding. Actually, it is just the reverse. It will never be closed, and its ever increasing fullness makes it more perfect. So angels long for nothing more than to have new angel guests arrive there. Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments in online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to maintain a focus on understanding the Text’s application to the inner life while reinforcing key LP principles highlighted in the exchanges.

  6. 24 May

    Acceptance is an expression of trust in the Lord (2 mins)

    Heaven and Hell 18. The reason the Lord’s divine nature in heaven is love is that love is what is receptive of every heavenly quality — that is, of peace, intelligence, wisdom, and happiness. Love is receptive of everything that is in harmony with it. It longs for such things, it seeks them out, it absorbs them spontaneously because it has the constant purpose of uniting itself with them and being enriched by them. 1 People actually recognize this fact, since the love within them surveys memory, so to speak, and draws out from it the items that agree with it. It gathers these together and arranges them within and beneath itself — within itself so that it may possess them and beneath itself so that they may serve it. It discards and eradicates, though, the items that do not agree with it. I have been able to see very clearly that love has a full, intrinsic ability to accept elements of truth that suit it and has also a desire of uniting them to itself. This has become clear from observing people who have been transported into heaven. Even people who were simple folk in this world have arrived at angelic wisdom and heavenly happiness in the company of angels. This was because they loved what is good and true for the sake of what is good and true. They had grafted these qualities into their lives and had thereby become capable of accepting heaven and all its indescribable riches. People caught up in love for themselves and for the world, however, have no such receptive ability. They turn away from such things, discard them, and at their first touch or inflow try to escape them. They ally themselves with people in hell who are caught up in loves like their own. There were some spirits who doubted that love was so full and wanted to know whether this was really true. In order that they might find out, they were let into a state of heavenly love with all obstacles removed and were brought forward a considerable distance to an angelic heaven. They talked with me from there and told me that they felt deeper happiness than words could express, sorrowing that they would have to return to their former state. Other people as well have been raised into heaven, and the deeper or higher they have been taken, the deeper and higher they have penetrated into intelligence and wisdom, becoming able to grasp things that were incomprehensible to them before. We can see from this that the love that emanates from the Lord is open to heaven and all its riches. 19. We can conclude that love for the Lord and love for our neighbor embrace within themselves everything that is true from the Divine because this follows from what the Lord himself said about these two loves: “You shall love your God with all your heart and with all your soul: this is the greatest and first commandment. The second, which is like it, is that you should love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40). The Law and the Prophets are the whole Word, which means all divine truth. Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments in online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to maintain a focus on understanding the Text’s application to the inner life while reinforcing key LP principles highlighted in the exchanges.

  7. 21 May

    Moving the idea of ‘person’ to the side is a deeper way to love (3 mins)

    Article to accompany the audio: Removing Person — A Deeper Way of Loving One of the things that can arise when we first encounter the practice of removing person, place, time, and space and matter (PPTSM) from the centre of our thought is a sense of unease. It can feel as though we are being asked to become less human in our relating, colder, more distant, as though the particular person in front of us no longer matters. That unease is worth taking seriously, because it points to something genuine: a care for others, a desire not to reduce them to an abstraction. But the teachings for Spiritual Christianity invites us to look more closely at what we are actually doing when we hold tightly to “person” in our thinking and listening. When we stay fixed on the surface personality of someone, their history, their manner, the particular things they’ve said or done, we don’t necessarily see them more clearly. We see them through the accumulated filter of our own associations, our own proprium, our own familiar ways of relating. The heavenly teaching is that this kind of fixed thinking limits love rather than deepening it. Perception concentrates onto something finite, and the channel through which a fuller sense of divine love is able to be received begins to close.¹ What the practice offers instead is something closer to what the Text describes as angelic perception: in the heavens, it is not the person but the use or function they embody that is perceived. To see the “use” of a person is to begin to perceive the specific role they fulfil within the Divine order, their unique contribution to the whole. The teaching puts it this way: “persons limit the idea, and concentrate it upon something finite; whereas things do not limit and concentrate it, but extend it to the infinite, thus to the Lord.”² Far from reducing the person, this is the discovery of what is most real and most essential about them. There is a striking image in the doctrinal writings for what abstract thought actually does: it is like “the sight of the eye when it looks up into the sky without intervening objects.”³ Thought fixed on person, by contrast, “is fixed and stays”: it cannot move, cannot expand, cannot receive. The moment we release person from the centre, the mind opens in every direction. This reframes what it means to love the neighbour. When we love someone as person, as the particular, familiar self we have constructed from our history with them, we are in some measure loving our idea of them, the image the proprium has formed. But when we attend to the good and truth the Lord is working in them, we are loving something infinitely more real: the divine life seeking to be born through their struggles, their growth, their unique use in the Grand Man. A profound and simple definition of heaven is that it is the state of loving what is other. To genuinely perceive the ‘other’ requires the loves of heaven to be active in us. This is not merely a humanistic focus on the person, but the spiritual capacity to see and love the Lord in another. In practice, removing person is less an act of subtraction than an act of clearing, like cleaning a window. The glass is still there. The person is still there. But the distorting layers of accumulated association, judgment, and self-reference begin to fall away, and something truer comes into view. The angels, we are told, are unwilling to speak of persons precisely because to do so “would avert the ideas from a universal view of things, thus from the comprehension of innumerable things together.”4 The question the practice quietly poses is not whether we love others, but whether the love we are extending is as free, as rich, and as genuinely for them as it could be. Or whether it is still, in some measure, shaped by what is ours: our comfort, our familiar patterns, our sense of connection as we experience it. Removing person doesn’t ask us to love less. It points toward a love that, no longer fixed on the finite, extends, as the heavenly doctrine says, to the infinite and to the Lord. References for Contemplation ¹ Arcana Coelestia 6040[2] — On how spiritual language draws thought away from persons and fixes it on spiritual realities, enabling a broader and more universal perception; and how thought fixed on persons “diminishes the light of truth.” The reason why the expression ‘a perception by the truths in the natural’ is used and not a perception by people in possession of those truths is that spiritual language employs that kind of expression. For such a usage draws the ideas composing one’s thought away from persons and fixes them on spiritual realities; and those realities, which are truths and forms of good, are what possess life in a person and cause him to have life. For those realities are derived from the Lord, the Source of life in its entirety. That kind of usage also leads one’s mind away from ascribing truths and forms of good to a person. Such spiritual language also enables one to form an overall idea that extends further and wider than when the idea of a person is tied up with it. If for example one speaks of perception by people in possession of truths in the natural one’s ideas become fixed at the same time on people like that – a common occurrence – and so one’s ideas are drawn away from the overall idea, with the result that the light of truth is diminished. Furthermore, in the next life thought about persons disturbs such persons, for in that life all thought is communicated. These are the reasons why impersonal expressions like the one here – ‘a perception by the truths in the natural’ are used. ² Arcana Coelestia 5225 — On how in the spiritual world, persons limit and concentrate an idea onto something finite, while things extend it to the infinite and to the Lord; and why no person named in the Word is perceived in heaven, only the reality they represent. …in the spiritual world, or in heaven, not persons but things come into view, for persons limit the idea, and concentrate it upon something finite; whereas things do not limit and concentrate it, but extend it to the infinite, thus to the Lord. For this reason also, no person named in the Word is perceived in heaven, but in his stead the thing that is represented by that person; so also no people or nation is perceived, but only its quality. Nay, not even is any historic statement of the Word about a person, nation, or people, known in heaven; and consequently it is not known who Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the Israelitish people, and the Jewish nation were, but it is there perceived what Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the Israelitish people, and the Jewish nation denote; and the same in all other cases. Thus the angelic speech is without limitation, and is also relatively universal. ³ Apocalypse Explained 405 — On how the idea abstracted from persons and places “extends itself into heaven in every direction,” compared to the sight of the eye looking into an open sky; and how the idea tied to persons is proper to the natural mind. [2] The good of love to the Lord is meant in an abstract sense by “mountain,” because all things in the internal sense of the Word are spiritual, and spiritual things must be understood in a sense abstracted from persons and places; consequently, because angels are spiritual they think and speak abstractedly from these, and thereby have intelligence and wisdom; for the idea of persons and places limits the thought, since it confines it to persons and places, and thus limits it. This idea of thought is proper to the natural, while the idea abstracted from persons and places extends itself into heaven in every direction, and is no otherwise limited than the sight of the eye is limited when it looks up into the sky without intervening objects; such an idea is proper to the spiritual. 4 Arcana Coelestia 7002 — On why angels are unwilling to speak of persons — because to do so averts ideas from a universal view and from the comprehension of innumerable things together. Angels… are unwilling to speak of persons, because speech about persons would avert the ideas from a universal view of things, thus from the comprehension of innumerable things together. See also: AC 8985 (abstract thought diffuses through the whole of heaven; thought fixed on person or place is fixed and stays); AE 625 (the idea of person limits and confines thought, rendering it natural; abstraction from persons gives angels their ineffable intelligence and wisdom). AC (Elliott) n. 8985 The reason for saying that ‘the slave’ means truth and not a person imbued with such truth is that when angels speak they do so in the abstract, that is, without envisaging actual persons. For in heaven they think about matters without envisaging persons, because when their thought involves persons it brings to mind a community associated with the matter they are thinking about; and when this happens their thought is narrowed down to and becomes fixed on that community. [2] In heaven thinking about a place leads to being present in that place, and their presence in that community would attract towards itself the thoughts of those within the community, and so would disrupt the inflow from the Divine there. It is quite different when they speak in the abstract about some matter; their thought then spreads out in every direction in accord with the heavenly form which the influx emanating from the Divine produces, without causing disruption in any community. For it reaches into communities’ general spheres, yet without having an effect on or unsettling anyone within the community, and so without impairing anyone’s freedom to think in accord with the inflow from the Divine. In short, abstract thought can pass through the whole of heaven without hindrance anywhere; but thought narrowed down to persons or places becomes fixed and static. AE n. 625 …ang

  8. 18 May

    The ‘good of love’ is the usefulness of practicing truth (7 mins)

    Heaven and Hell 13. In heaven, the divine nature that emanates from the Lord is called divine truth, for reasons that will be given below. This divine truth flows into heaven from the Lord, out of his divine love. Divine love and the divine truth that derives from it are like the sun’s fire and the light that comes from it in our world. The love is like the sun’s fire, and the derivative truth is like the light from the sun. By reason of correspondence, fire means love and light means the truth that flows from it. This enables us to determine the character of the divine truth that emanates from divine love: in its essence, it is divine good united to divine truth, and because it is united, it gives life to everything in heaven the way the warmth of the sun, united to its light, makes everything fruitful on earth in spring and summer. It is different when the warmth is not united to light, when the light is therefore cold. Then everything slows down and lies there, snuffed out. The divine good we have compared to warmth is the good of love within and among angels, and the divine truth we have compared to light is the means and the source of this good of love. Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments in online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to maintain a focus on understanding the Text’s application to the inner life while reinforcing key LP principles highlighted in the exchanges.

See All (499)

About

Seeking to make the Lord God Jesus Christ visible in our midst... "Where two or three are gathered together in My name there am I in the midst of them." (Matt. 18:20)

Information

  • Creator
    The Third Round
  • Years Active
    2016 - 2026
  • Episodes
    499
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Show Website
    Logopraxis