INSTRUCTED FOR HEAVEN

The third state of a man after death is a state of instruction. This

is a state in the experience of those who enter heaven and become

angels.

Instruction in heaven differs from instruction on earth, in that

knowledge is not committed to memory, but to life; for the memory of

spirits is in their life, inasmuch as they receive and become imbued

with everything that agrees with their life, and they do not receive,

still less do they become imbued with, anything that disagrees with

it; for spirits are affections, and are in a human form like their

affections. Being such, they have inspired in them continually an

affection for truth for the sake of the uses of life; for the Lord

provides that every one may love the uses which suit his genius, a

love that is exalted, too, by the hope of becoming an angel.... With

every one, therefore, the affection of truth is united to the

affection of use, so fully that they act as one. Thereby truth is

planted in service, so much so that the truths which angelic spirits

learn, are truths of use. Thus are they instructed and prepared for

heaven.

--_Heaven and Hell, nn._ 512, 517

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