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to eternity will be. This is described in the following passage from Heaven and
Hell:
People who [have a knowledge of correspondences] can recognize and know their
state after death provided they know their love and how it relates in its nature to the
dominant love to which all love goes back.
However, people who are involved in self-love cannot know what their dominant
love is because they love whatever is theirs and call their evils good. They also call
false things true, the false notions that support them and that they use to rationalize
their evils. If they were willing, though, they could still know [their dominant love]
from other people who are wise, but these latter see what they themselves do not.
This does not happen, though, in the case of people who are so enmeshed in their
self-love that they have nothing but contempt for any teaching of the wise, and who
see what they themselves do not see. This however, is impossible with those who are
so enticed by the love of self that they spurn all teaching of the wise.
On the other hand, people who are in heavenly love do accept instruction and do
see the evils into which they were born when they are led into them. They see them
from truths because truths make evils obvious. Anyone can in fact see what is evil
and the distortion it causes by seeing from the truth that arises from what is good;
but no one can see what is good and true from an evil standpoint. This is because
the false notions that arise from evil are darkness and correspond to it. So people
who are caught up in false notions [concepts and prejudices], that arise from evil
are like blind people who do not see things that are in the light, and they avoid them
the way owls avoid daylight. (Heaven and Hell 487)
This quotation speaks about learning about oneself from people who are
wise. Many of us talk with good friends, even a small group of them, who can
help us get insight into what we have been thinking and doing. At times, all
we need to do is try to explain our state of mind and how we react to the daily
spiritual challenges we face. As soon as the vague and shadowy ideas in our
thoughts get put in words, we often see them in a clearer light.
Whether we see things on our own or with the help of others, it is not
enough just to acknowledge that we all have spiritual faults and flaws. This
acknowledgment can be utterly worthless and is so described in the True
Christian Religion:
Cannot anyone understand, from the reason given him, that the mere lip-confession
of being a sinner is not repentance, or the recounting of various particulars in
regard to it . . . ? For what is easier for a person when he is in trouble and agony,
than to utter sighs and groans from his lungs and lips, and also to beat his breast
and make himself guilty of all sins, and still not be conscious of any sin in himself?
Do the diabolical horde who then occupy his loves, depart along with his sighs? Do
they not rather hiss at those things, and remain in him as before, as in their own
house? From this it is clear that such repentance is not what is meant in the Word;
but repentance from evil works, as is said. (True Christian R eligion 529)
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