Charity is like warmth in springtime or summer that causes grass, plants, and trees to grow. Without charity, or spiritual warmth, nothing grows.
Emanuel SwedenborgRead
A person's life from infancy to old age is nothing else than an advance from the world towards heaven, the last stage of which is death; the actual transition from one life to the next.
Interpretation
Life is a journey moving from the physical world towards a spiritual existence, culminating in death.
Emanuel Swedenborg reflects on the journey of life, suggesting that every stage from birth to death is a movement toward a higher, celestial existence. He emphasizes that death is not an end but a transition, indicating that our earthly experiences serve as preparation for a life beyond, one that is more divine and meaningful.
In practice
In a eulogy, to emphasize the view of death as a transition rather than an end.
Charity is like warmth in springtime or summer that causes grass, plants, and trees to grow. Without charity, or spiritual warmth, nothing grows.
It can in no sense be said that heaven is outside of any one; it is within ... and a man, also, so far as he receives heaven, is a recipient, a heaven, and an angel.
I have seen a thousand times that Angels are human form, or men, for I have conversed with them as man to man, sometimes with one alone, sometimes with many in company.
True charity is the desire to be useful to others with no thought of recompense.
Hell and Heaven are near man, yes, in him; and every man after death goes to that Hell or heaven in which he was, or to his spirit, during his abode in the world.
For in every particular of the Word there is an internal sense which treats of things spiritual and heavenly, not of things natural and worldly, such as are treated of in the sense of the letter.
A man may be in as just possession of the truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender.
Because I'm a Karamazov. Because when I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up, and I'm even pleased that I'm falling in just such a humiliating position, and for me I find it beautiful.
It is rational to believe, as it is our very existence that is at stake.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me; For now hath time made me his numbering clock: My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch, Whereto my finger, like a dial's point, Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears. Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is Are clamorous goans, which strike upon my heart, Which is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans Show minutes, times, and hours.
A woman can walk miles without making one single step forward. As a child born in a harem, I instinctively knew that to live is to open closed doors. To live is to look outside. To live is to step out. Life is trespassing.
I went to medical school because I wanted to ask the big questions. Do we have a soul? Does God exist? What happens after death?
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