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I have just
demonstrated that there are marriages in heaven. Now for the
marriage covenant made in the world - whether it will continue and
hold fast after death or not.
This is not a
matter of opinion but of experience, which I have had through
association with angels and spirits, so it is up to me to pass it
on, and in a way that reason accepts. It is one of the things
married people hope and pray to know. For men who loved their
wives, and whose wives have died, want to know if their wives are
all right, and whether they and their wives will meet again, just
as wives who loved their husbands so. And many married people want
to know ahead of time whether they will be separated or will live
together after death. Those with incompatible minds want to know
if they will be separated, and those with compatible minds want to
know if they will live together. Since this will be welcome
information, I pass it on, arranged this way:
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After death
every person's sexual love stays the way it was inwardly in
the world - that is, as it was in his inward desire and
thought.
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The same
goes for marital love.
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Married
partners usually do meet after death, recognize each other,
get together again and live together for a while. This
happens in the first state, when they live, outwardly, as
they had in the world.
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But
gradually, as they shed the superficialities and settle into
what they are like inwardly, the find out what their love
and their attraction for each other was like, and whether or
not they can live as one.
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If they can
live as one they remain married, but if they cannot they
separate, sometimes the man from the wife, sometimes the
wife from the man, and sometimes mutually from each other.
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Then the man
gets a suitable wife, and similarly the wife a suitable
husband.
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Partners
enjoy intercourse with each other just like intercourse in
the world, only happier and richer, though without having
children. Instead of that, or in place of it, they have
spiritual offspring - loves and perceptions.
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This happens
to those who enter heaven. It is different for those who go
to hell.
Now an explanation
follows that will illustrate and demonstrate these points.
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After death
every person's sexual love stays the way it was inwardly in the
world - that is, as it was in his inward desire and thought. Every
love follows a person after death, because it is the essence of
his life. The controlling love, which is the head of all the
others, remains with the person forever, and so do the subordinate
loves. They remain because a love belongs to a person's spirit and
to his body from his spirit. And since a person becomes a spirit
after death, he carries the love with him. Love is the essence of
a person's life, so clearly whatever his life was like in the
world, his condition after death is the same.
As for sexual
love, it is the basic one of all loves, because by creation it is
placed in the person's soul itself, where the person's whole
essence comes from. Sexual love is there to enlarge the human
race. The reason this love especially remains is that after death
men are still male and women are still female, and there is
nothing in the soul, mind, and body that is not male in a man and
female in a woman, and these two are created in such a way that
they seek to be united - united into one person; in fact this urge
is the sexual love that precedes the love for marriage. Now
because the inclination to join is written all over each and every
thing about men and women, this means that the inclination cannot
be erased and die with your body.
Sexual love stays
as it was inwardly while the person was in the world, because
everyone has an inward and an outward side. These two are also
called the inner and outer person. So there is an inner and an
outer will and thought. A person leaves the outer part behind and
keeps the inner part when he dies, because the outer things belong
to his body and the inner ones belong to his spirit.
Now, a person is
his love, and love resides in his spirit, so this means that
sexual love stays with him after death the way it was, inwardly,
in him. For example, if his inner love has been for marriage, or
chaste, it continues to be a love for marriage and chaste after
death. And if it has been inwardly a love for promiscuity, it
remains that way after death, too. But note that sexual love is
not the same with one person as it is with another. There are
infinite varieties of it. But it absolutely stays the same as it
was in each person's spirit.
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Similarly
married love remains just as it was inwardly in the world - that
is, as it was in the person's inner will and thought. I mention
both love for the other sex and love for marriage because they are
two different things. I also say that after death married love
remains with a person just as it was in his inner part while he
lived in the world. But few people know the difference between
love for the other sex and love for marriage, so here at the
beginning of this treatise I shall sketch our something about it
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Love of the
other sex is love for and with many of the other sex, but married
love is only for one and with one of the other sex. Love for many
and with many is a natural love, and in fact we have it in common
with beasts and birds, which are natural. But love for marriage is
a spiritual love, unique and appropriate to people, because people
were created to become spiritual and are born for that reason. So
a person sheds the love of the other sex and puts on the love in
marriage to the extent that he becomes spiritual. At the beginning
of a marriage a love for the other sex seems connected with the
love in marriage, but these separate as the marriage goes on, and
then for those who are spiritual the love for the other sex fades
away and a love for marriage replaces it. For those who are
worldly, the opposite happens.
Now it is clear
from what I have said that love for the other sex has to do with
many and is natural, even animal in its own right, so it is impure
and unchaste. And since it wanders without limits it is
fornication. But married love is completely different. It will be
obvious in the things that follow that marriage is spiritual and
appropriate to people.
Two married
partners usually do meet after death, recognize each other, get
together again, and live together for a while. This happens in the
first state, when they live outwardly as they had in the world.
The states that people enter after death are two - external and
internal. First they enter their external state and then their
internal. In the external state, if either has died earlier,
spouse meets spouse, they recognize each other, and if they had
lived together in the world they get together and live together
for a while. While they are in this state one does not know the
other's disposition toward himself, because this is hidden within.
But later when they do come into their internal state their
disposition makes itself obvious, and if both dispositions are of
the same mind and are sympathetic they continue married life. But
they dissolve it fi they are in discord and feel different.
If a man had
several wives he joins them one by one while in his external
state. But when he enters his internal state and can tell the
particular tendencies of love, he either chooses one or leaves
them all, for in the spiritual world, just as in the natural
world, they do not let any Christian have more than one wife,
because this disturbs and profanes the religion.
It is the same
with a woman who had several husbands. But women do not attach
themselves to their husbands. They only appear on the scene, and
the husbands take the wives to themselves.
Note that husbands
rarely recognize their wives, but wives know their husbands well.
The reason is that women have an inner grasp of love and men have
only an outward one.
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But gradually, as they shed the superficialities and settle into
what they are like inwardly, they find out what their love and
attraction for each other was like, and whether or not they can
live as one. There is no need to explain these things further,
because they follow from the things explained in the last
article. Here I will just illustrated how people shed what they
are outwardly and put on what they are inwardly.
After
death everyone is first introduced to the world called the world
of spirits, which is between heaven and hell. There they are
prepared - the good for heaven and the bad for hell. The intent
of the preparation there is for your internal and external parts
to agree so you are integrated, not disagree so you are
fragmented. In the natural world the external and internal parts
are two things and unite only in people with sincere hearts. We
know they are two from cunning and deceitful people, especially
hypocrites, flatterers, frauds, and liars. In the spiritual
world you are not allowed to have a divided mind like this, but
the inwardly bad people will also be bad outwardly, and
likewise, the good will be good both inwardly and outwardly. In
fact, after death every person becomes what he was inwardly and
not what he was outwardly. For this purpose he is made to live
outwardly and inwardly by turns. Every person, even an evil one,
is sensible while in his outward life - that is, he wants to
appear sensible. But inwardly an evil person is a fool. By the
changes back and forth the person can see his folly and come to
his senses. But if he did not come to his senses in the world he
cannot afterward, for he loves his irrationality and wants to
stay that way, so he drives his outward self into the same
insanities, as well. The integrates his internal and external
self, and when that has been done he is ready for hell.
But
a good man is the opposite. He looked to God in the world and
became sensible, so he has better sense inwardly than outwardly,
because outwardly the attractions and deceptions of the world
sometimes made him act crazy, too. Therefore his outside also is
brought into harmony with his inside, which I already said is
sensible. When this is done he is ready for heaven. This
explains how you shed your external qualities and put on your
internal qualities after death.
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If they can live as one they remain married, but if they cannot
they separate, sometimes the man from the wife, sometimes the
wife from the man, and sometimes mutually from each other.
Separations happen after death because unions made on earth are
rarely made from any inner sense of love, but from an outer one
that hides what is inside. Our external concept of love has it
cause and source in the kind of things that have to do with
worldly and bodily love. Wealth and possessions particularly
belong to worldly love, while status and honors go with bodily
love. And in addition there are the different attractions that
entice you, such as beauty and a façade of acting fashionably.
Sometimes
even lewdness is an attraction. Moreover, marriages are set up
within your district, city, home town, or household with only a
narrow choice, limited to familiar families and those of similar
status. This is why marriages entered into the world are mostly
external and not internal at the same time, and yet an internal
union - a union of souls - makes marriage itself. That union
goes unnoticed until a person sheds his external part and puts
on his internal, which happens after death.
So,
under the circumstances, separations do take place after death,
and then new unions with those of likeness and similarity -
unless it has already happened on earth. This does happen for
people who from their youth have loved a legitimate and a loving
relationship with one, have longed for it and prayed to the
Lord, and have kept away from roving desires, holding their
noses.
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Then the man gets a suitable wife and the wife a suitable
husband. The reason is that no married partners can be accepted
into heaven to stay there unless they are united inwardly, or
can be united as if they are one. For they do not call two
partners there two, but one angel. The Lord made this known in
His words that they are "no longer two but one flesh."
The
reason no others are accepted into heaven is that no others can
live together there - that is, be together in the same house,
and in the same bedroom and bed. For everybody in heaven
associates according to relationships and kinships of love, and
they have their homes according to these. For there is no
distance in the spiritual world, but something that seems like
distance, which depends on the condition of your life. The
condition of your life depends on the condition of your love. So
no one there can live anywhere but in the home provided and
assigned him according to what his love is like. Anywhere else
his chest heaves and he has trouble breathing. And two people
cannot live together in the same house unless they are alike -
and certainly not married partners, unless they are mutually
including. If there are external inclinations and not inner ones
too, the house itself, and the very place, separates, rejects,
and expels them.
This
is why those who are ready and are accepted into heaven are able
to marry a partner whose soul is so much inclined to unite with
the other person that they do not want to be two lives but one.
This is why, after separation, a man gets a suitable wife and a
woman a suitable husband.
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Partners enjoy intercourse with each other just like intercourse
in the world, only happier and richer, though without having
children. Instead of that, or in place of it, they have
spiritual offspring - loves and perceptions. Partners enjoy
intercourse in the same way as they do in the world, because
after death men are still male, and women are female, and from
conception both have an implanted tendency to join together.
This human tendency is in your body because of your spirit, so
after death, when people are spirits, the same mutual
inclination remains, which is not possible without the same
intercourse. For people are people as before, with nothing
missing from a man nor a woman. They stay the same in bodily
form as well as in feelings and thoughts. So what else can
follow but that they have the same intercourse? And because love
for marriage is chaste, pure, and holy, the intercourse is
complete.
Intercourse
is happier and richer than because when that love becomes
spiritual it becomes deeper and purer and therefore more fully
appreciated. All joy grows with awareness, and it grows to the
point where you can feel the blessedness in the joy of it.
Marriages
in heaven do not produce children, but spiritual offspring
instead (loves and perceptions) because for those in the
spiritual world an ingredient is missing - the material level.
This provides the vessel for spiritual things, and without their
containing vessel they do not take a physical form the way
offspring conceived in the natural world do. And spiritual
things, seen for what they are, trace back to love and
perceptiveness, so these are the offspring that spiritual
marriages conceive. I say conceive because married love fulfills
an angel. It unites him with his partner to make him more and
more human, for, once again, two married people in heaven are
not two but one angel. So it is through marital union that they
fill themselves with humanity - which is wanting to be wise and
loving what belongs to wisdom.
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This happens to those who enter heaven. It is different for
those who go to hell. Those who are received into heaven and
become angels are spiritual, and marriages are spiritual in
their own right and therefore holy, so after death a man gets a
suitable wife and similarly a wife a suitable husband, and they
enjoy happy and rich intercourse, though without having
children. This applies to those who go to heaven.
However,
those who enter hell are all worldly, and merely worldly
marriages are not marriages but liaisons derived form unchaste
desire. Later, where the subject is chastity and unchastity, and
further when love of fornication is discussed, I tell what these
liaisons are like.
The
following things should be added to what I have mentioned so far
about what happens to married people after death.
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All
the couples who are merely worldly are separated after
death. The reason is that their love for marriage cools off
and their love of adultery warms up. Yet after separation
they sometimes still form relationships like marriages with
others, but after a short time they separate themselves from
one another. This often happens repeatedly. And finally the
man is left to some prostitute and the woman to some
adulterer. This takes place in prison in hell. They are both
forbidden promiscuous lechery.
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When
one partner is spiritual and the other worldly, they too are
separated after death, and the spiritual ones gets a
suitable spouse, but the worldly one is banished among his
own kind in places of promiscuity.
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But
those who were single in the world and kept marriage
completely out of their minds stay single, if they are
spiritual. But if they are worldly they become lechers. It
is different for those who longed for marriage while single,
especially people who tried unsuccessfully to marry. If they
are spiritual they are provided with happy marriages, but
not until they are in heaven.
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People
who have been shut up in monasteries in the world, virgins
and men, are released and set free after their monastic life
ends (it goes on a while after death), and they gain the
freedom to do things they wanted to, whether they wanted to
be married or not. If they did, they do get married. If not,
they are taken to the celibates, to one side of heaven. But
those who constantly smoldered with lust are expelled.
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There
is a reason why the celibates are to one side of heaven. The
aura of complete celibacy disturbs the aura of marriage
love, which is the very aura of heaven. It is the very aura
of heaven because it comes down from the heavenly marriage
of the Lord and the church.
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