Readings
“You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Psalms 16:11)
“I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” (Habakkuk 3:18)
“Then the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people."” (Luke 2:10)
“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:11, 12)
“Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. ” (John 16:24)
“These things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.” (John 17:13)
“All experience in heaven testifies to the Divine going forth from the Lord, which affects the angels and makes heaven, being love. For all who are there are forms of love and charity, and appear in ineffable beauty with love shining forth from their faces, their speech and every particular of their life.” (Heaven and Hell 17)
“People of similar quality all recognize each other there just the way people in this world recognize their neighbors and relatives and friends, even though they may never have seen each other before. This happens because the only relationships and kinships and friendships in the other life are spiritual ones, and are therefore matters of love and faith.” (Heaven and Hell 46)
“The reason each community is a heaven in smaller form and each angel a heaven in smallest form is that the activity of love and faith is what makes heaven. This good activity is in every community of heaven and in every angel of a community.” (Heaven and Hell 51)
“It can never be said that heaven is outside anyone. It is within, because every angel accepts the heaven that is outside in keeping with the heaven that is within. ... Unless heaven is within an individual, nothing of the heaven that is outside flows in and is accepted. ” (Heaven and Hell 54)
“Since everyone accepts the heaven that is outside according to the quality of the heaven that is within, angels accept the Lord in the same way, because it is the Lord’s divine nature that constitutes heaven. Consequently, when the Lord renders Himself present in any particular community, His appearance depends on the nature of the good activity that community is engaged in. It is therefore not exactly the same in one community as in another. ” (Heaven and Hell 55 )
“Peace in the heavens is the divine nature intimately affecting everything good there with blessedness. So it is the source of all the joy of heaven. In its essence, it is the divine joy of the Lord’s divine love, arising from His union with heaven and with every individual there. This joy, perceived by the Lord in the angels and by the angels from the Lord, is peace. It flows down from there to provide angels with everything that is blessed and delightful and happy — what is called "heavenly joy." ” (Heaven and Hell 286)
“By its very nature, heaven is full of pleasures, even to the point that if we see it as it really is, it is nothing but bliss and pleasure. This is because the divine good that emanates from the Lord’s divine love constitutes heaven both overall and in detail for everyone there; and divine love is the intent that everyone should be saved and should be most profoundly and fully happy. This is why it is all the same whether you say "heaven" or "heavenly joy."” (Heaven and Hell 397)
“We may gather the magnitude of heaven’s pleasure simply from the fact that for everyone there it is delightful to share their pleasure and bliss with someone else; and since everyone in the heavens is like this, we can see how immense heaven’s pleasure is. For ... there is in heaven a sharing by everyone with each individual, and by each individual with everyone. This kind of sharing flows from the two loves of heaven, which as noted are love for the Lord and love for our neighbor. These loves by nature want to share their pleasures. The reason love for the Lord is like this is that because the Lord’s love is a love of sharing everything it has with everyone, it intends the happiness of everyone. Much the same love exists in individuals who love Him, because the Lord is in them. So there is a mutual sharing of angels’ pleasures with each other. We shall see later that love for our neighbor is like this as well. We may gather from all this that these loves by nature want to share their pleasures.” (Heaven and Hell 399)
“All the pleasures of heaven are united to forms of service and dwell within them, because forms of service are the good effects of the love and thoughtfulness that angels are immersed in. Consequently, the nature of each individual’s pleasures depends on the nature of that individual’s service, and its intensity depends on the intensity of the affection for service.” (Heaven and Hell 402)
“Some spirits wanted to know what heavenly joy was, so they were allowed to feel it to the point that they could not bear any more. Still, this was not angelic joy, but only the slightest trace of the angelic quality that they were allowed to observe and share. It was so slight that it was almost cool, yet they called it most heavenly because it was so deep within them. I could tell from this not only that there are levels of heavenly joy, but also that the deepest level of one individual barely touches the outmost or some median level of another. I could also see that when we do reach our own deepest level we are in our own heavenly joy and that we could not bear anything deeper because it would become painful for us.” (Heaven and Hell 410)
“Since heaven comes from the human race, then, and since heaven is living with the Lord forever, it follows that this was the Lord’s goal for creation. Further, since this was the goal of creation, it is the goal of the Lord’s divine providence. The Lord did not create the universe for His own sake but for the sake of people He would be with in heaven. By its very nature, spiritual love wants to share what it has with others, and to the extent that it can do so, it is totally present, experiencing its peace and bliss. Spiritual love gets this quality from the Lord’s divine love, which is like this in infinite measure. It then follows that divine love (and therefore divine providence) has the goal of a heaven made up of people who have become angels and are becoming angels, people with whom it can share all the bliss and joy of love and wisdom, giving them these blessings from the Lord’s own presence within them.” (Divine Providence 27:2)
“The church is said to be where the Lord is acknowledged and where the Word is, for the essentials of the church are love and faith in the Lord from the Lord; and the Word teaches how people must live that they may receive love and faith from the Lord.” (The New Jerusalem 242)
“Those who receive heaven from the Lord are the ones who have heaven in themselves, for heaven is in people, as the Lord also teaches: The kingdom of God is in you (Luke 17:21).” (The New Jerusalem 233)
“Eternal happiness, which is also called heavenly joy, is imparted to those who are in love and faith in the Lord, from the Lord. This is because this love and faith have that joy in them. The people who have heaven in them come into it after death. Meanwhile it lies hidden in their internal level. In the heavens there is a communion of all goods. There the peace, the intelligence, the wisdom, and the happiness of all are communicated to each; yet to everyone according to his or her reception of love and faith from the Lord. Hence it may appear how great the peace, intelligence, wisdom and happiness in heaven is.” (New Jerusalem 236)