An Awakening to Spiritual Life: Part 1 – The State of Exteriors- #3 of 3

Working with Spiritual ‘Friends’ The state of man's spirit that immediately follows his life in the world being such, he is then recognized by his friends and by those he had known in the world; for this is something that spirits perceive not only from one's face and speech but also from the sphere of his life when they draw near. (HH 494) Because the exterior affections and memory of newly arrived spirits is still active, they can recognise and hence connect with those they knew as friends in the world but who, like them, have passed into the spiritual world. We are told that these friends take on the function of addressing the spirit’s curiosity about heaven and hell, what each is like and where they are located.  They take the newly arrived spirit to various places and introduce them into various companies of other spirits and instruct them as to the state of eternal life.  This process causes the newly arrived spirit to reflect on the beliefs they had held about such things while in the world. These friends, when seen as something related to the experience of awakening to spiritual life through the practice of the Word, can be thought of as those ideas about the spiritual matters that we relate to and have come to trust and rely on. From our first contact with the spiritual teachings found in the Word, these “friends”, some old and some new, are a vital support to being led deeper into the practice of truths and our exploration of what the Word teaches regarding the interior life. … their friends tell them about the conditions of eternal life, and take them about to various places and into various companies, and sometimes into cities, and into gardens and parks, showing them chiefly such magnificent things as delight the externals in which they are. They are then brought in turn into those notions about the state of their soul after death, and about heaven and hell, that they had entertained in the life of the body, …. Nearly all are anxious to know whether they will get to heaven (HH 495). We need to be able to recognise that these “friends” assist us to explore “places” and “companies” and “cities” and “gardens” that belong to the inner world of the mind, this being the spiritual world.  These “friends” or concepts may be somewhat sensually or naturally orientated, or they may be of a purely historical or persuasive faith.  They may be drawn from other spiritual traditions both traditional and contemporary. They may even be opposed to the deeper perspective the Word offers.  Whatever they are or whatever their quality, they remain an important starting point from which we can be led into a more genuine sense of what living a spiritual life entails. One aspect of being in a state of exteriors is that newcomers to the spiritual world believe that entry into heaven is based on a person’s outer conduct.  The strength of their attachment to this idea means that it is difficult to break. This is particularly the case for those who believe that because they have lived upright moral and civic lives in the world they qualify for entry to heaven.  They fail to reflect on the fact that everything done in outer life by the good, can also be done by the evil, so that if the outer actions or speech are viewed alone, one is unable to draw any distinction (HH 495) between the good and the evil.  There is, as yet, a lack of understanding that it is the quality of a spirit’s interior life that makes the difference and not their outer behaviour.  A spirit’s true nature always comes back to the quality of the affections and thoughts they live from and to what degree these are centred in a love for what is genuinely spiritual or not. Still less is it known that outward acts are such as the intentions and thoughts are, and the love and faith in these from which they spring. And even when taught they fail to comprehend that thinking and willing are of any avail, but only speaking and acting. (HH 495). When a spirit comes to see what's actually involved in a heavenly life, they then have what’s needed to be able to draw a comparison between this and what they thought in the world.  For those who thought that entry to heaven was based on outer behaviour and so hadn’t paid a lot of attention to their intentions and thoughts... . . . they feel indignant at their total ignorance of such things, and at the ignorance of the church also (HH 495). The feelings of “indignation” and the concern about making “it into heaven” also often reflects states that are experienced in Logopraxis work. Through the practice of the Word, we start to understand the disparity that exists between what we project as our self-image to the world and what goes unexpressed at the level of our intentions (affections) and thoughts. As we come to examine our inner mental life we begin to see, sometimes for the first time, the true quality of the hellish proprium.  In the struggle to acknowledge this, any confidence held in what formed our historical faith starts to be called into question as new insights based on the actual practice of truths from the Word become established. This is often accompanied with a sense of lost years or even, a wasted life. There is the perplexing question of why, given its essential importance, there wasn’t this emphasis on the inner application of the Word to the life of the mind. What is clear is that the insights that arise from a more interior life focus can present a challenge. This challenge occurs when we look to reconcile the understanding we have inherited from others, which is typically called a historical faith, with the new insights gained through the direct experience that arises from the practice of truths from the Word. We see that the spirit’s friends also provide instruction regarding what heaven and hell are. That what is experienced as a heaven or hell reflects the quality of a spirit’s inner state of life, that is, the affections and thoughts that make up the life of the mind. Essentially the inner state of life is projected out to form a spirit’s experience of an outer world. The instruction provided emphasises the importance and therefore the impact, the interior life has on the state or quality of life a spirit comes into upon awakening in the spiritual world. The instruction provides the basis for new ways of thinking about heaven and hell. It is given to assist the movement of thoughts away from the natural idea that heaven and hell are places people go to after they die, towards the idea that the experience of heaven or hell is directly tied to the quality of the thoughts and affections a spirit habitually lives from and finds delight in. This leads to the dawning realisation that it is actually the quality of our interior life that matters. Depending on what a spirit focused on and so cultivated as their life in the world, there is the potential for states of significant disruption as they grapple with whether they will make it into heaven or not. Similar states of disruption arise for those involved in Logopraxis work.  They arise from the fact that once the inner life begins to be emphasised, any reliance we have on outer conduct as the basis for getting into heaven begins to be challenged. This could include things like religiously orientated activities, or a sense of security found in belonging to a particular religious group, or subscribing to a specific form of doctrinal understanding.  The process of awakening brings us to see that a historical faith where the emphasis for “spiritual” life is focussed on engaging in rituals, or “good/moral behaviour” or in belonging to a church organisation, doesn’t constitute a saving faith. As this realisation dawns, so we also come to see that it is the state of the church within, the inner life of our thoughts and affections, that really matters. The following quote is telling in this regard... Most of them [new comers] believe that they will [get into heaven], because of their having lived in the world a moral and civil life, never considering that the bad and the good live a like life outwardly, alike doing good to others, attending public worship, hearing sermons, and praying;...And [so they are] wholly ignorant that external deeds and external acts of worship are of no avail, but only the internals from which the externals proceed...There is hardly one out of thousands who knows what internals are, and that it is in them that man must find heaven and the church.  (HH 495) Just as the spirits are instructed upon arriving in the spiritual world, so we also through the practice of truths from the Word, come to experience heaven and hell as states or exterior projections that mirror the interior quality of the state of the mind that rules in our life. Understood in this way, we see that what we live in mentally, so far as its heavenly or hellish quality is concerned, isn’t something limited to some “other world” off in the future somewhere. Instead, through reflection, we see that it is an ever-present reality to be accessed in the present moment. Once it is understood that heaven and hell are the product of internal states of mind and are not places, the importance of needing to work on the inner life whilst living in this world, becomes all the more apparent.   Honouring Spiritual Freedom Despite the natural, sensual and historical nature that “friends” can often embody, care must be exercised to honour them wherever we find them, whether that’s within ourselves or within others engaged in inner work. It is these ‘friends’ that serve to bring us into a state where we are ready to accept new ideas from the Word and this process cannot be rushed or circumvented. It takes a certain level of trust to accept that challenging states that arise in awakening to spiritual life are a necessary part of the process. The temptation to somehow make things easier for ourselves or others is ever present....