Church of the Holy City

Spiritual Journeying

Spiritual Journeying
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
October 18, 2009

Genesis 35:1-15 Matthew 2:13-23

We rarely reflect on our psychological states—the various moods we feel or our mental processes. Yet the states of mind we go through are what make up our spiritual life. Actually, when Swedenborg talks about our states, he means more than the passing emotions we go through throughout the day. I think he means more like the general personality we have and how it changes through our lifetime. And this general personality is what our spiritual life is made out of.
Our Bible readings are all about journeys. The stories in Genesis are filled with journeys. I picked a segment out of Jacob’s journeys. In our reading this morning, God tells Jacob to go to Bethel and settle there. This journey is cyclical. Jacob had been living in Bethel earlier, then he traveled all the way to Paddan Aram in Mesopotamia, where present day Iraq is. Then he returns to Bethel, where he has a vision of God, just as he also had a vision of God during his first visit. But with all the experiences Jacob had between visits, when he came to Bethel for the second time, he was a different person that he was at his first visit.
Likewise in the New Testament story, we hear of Jesus’ family leaving Israel to go to Egypt. They remain in Egypt until Herod dies, whereupon they return to Israel. So in the New Testament story, too, we have an account of a cyclical journey. And no doubt spending however long they spent in Egypt must have had a profound effect on the family. They must have returned changed from when they left.
I chose these travel stories, because our spiritual development is a kind of journey. In Swedenborg’s Bible interpretation, all the journeys of the Biblical people and the places they go are symbolic of spiritual states. In life and in the afterlife, our states will undergo changes. Our souls are on a journey through different spiritual states. Swedenborg writes,
The changes of state in the other life are as the times of day in the world, morning, midday, evening, and night, or twilight, and again morning. It is to be known that in the spiritual world there are perpetual changes of state, and all who are there pass through them (AC 8426).
So in our spiritual development, we will be led through various states.
By journeying through different psychological states, we learn and develop as individuals. Swedenborg tells us that the states we go through perfect us. So the leading idea here, is that we are constantly being perfected. Heaven is not a static place, we continue to grow and develop there, as we do here on earth, too. Here is where Swedenborg’s theology is so different from traditional Protestants. He really emphasizes the perfection of the soul. And in this, he may be closer to those yoga traditions of the East that emphasize clarification of the spirit through meditation. Swedenborg’s system is not one of meditation, but his emphasis on the real project of spiritual perfection is just as radical and rigorous.
It is to be known that in the spiritual world there are perpetual changes of state, and all who are there pass through them. The reason is, that they may be continually perfected, for without changes of state, or without variations continually succeeding one another in order, they who are in the spiritual world are not perfected. . . . When it is morning, then they are in love; when it is midday, then they are in light or in truth; but when it is evening, then they are in obscurity as to truths and are in the enjoyment of natural love (AC 8426).
The changes of state that we go through in our spiritual journey reflect the levels of our soul. As we have seen just a few Sundays ago, we have inner and outer aspects to our personalities. We have actually three levels, in Swedenborg’s system. The lowest level is called natural, and concerns life in this world and the cares of the body. Then there is the spiritual level, which is internal. Finally, there is the heavenly level which is the highest and inmost. We are brought through these levels in succession. We find our consciousness sometimes in spiritual heights and sometimes in worldly concerns. The best part about this process of alternating states, is that all the levels we find ourselves on are things we love. We love God and heaven, but we also love the world and the things of the body. So the changes we go through reflect these differing aspects of what we love. Notice that in the quote I just cited, in the lowest state we are in the enjoyment of natural love. Through this cyclical journey from the spiritual heights to the natural lows, we become more and more keenly aware of the delights given by God and more and more keenly aware of the negativity of pleasures of ego.
The different states we have gone through remain impressed upon our soul’s memory. And in the next life, they all return. We will experience the innocence of childhood, the excitement of learning from youth, the adult desire to make a contribution to society, and old age’s calm and serenity.
. . . every state of a person, from his infancy to extreme old age, not only remain in the other life but also returns, and this just as they were when he was living in the world. Not only do the goods and truths of memory thus remain and return, but also all states of innocence and charity (AC 561).
The return of these states and their alternation are how we are perfected. Swedenborg does not just assert that we are perfected, he also describes the process. Our states of evil return too, but they are modified and softened by the states of good that we have been through.
And when states of evil and falsity or of malice and fantasy recur—which also remain and return, every one of them to the least particulars—then these states are tempered by the Lord by means of the good states (AC 561).
As an interesting aside, Swedenborg describes the theological terms evil and falsity as malice and fantasy. This leads me to think we can replace some of the perhaps outworn theological terms in his writings with more contemporary ones. Malice and fantasy sound more descriptive and are perhaps more acceptable to the modern ear than the terms evil and falsity.
We can’t really control this process. And it’s a good thing. God leads us imperceptibly through the different states of our spiritual journey. We can’t see where we are going all the time, but God’s Divine Providence can see just what our spiritual growth requires.
Providence continually regards what is eternal and continually leads unto salvation, and this through various states, sometimes glad, sometimes sad, which a person cannot at all comprehend: but still they conduce to his life eternal (AC 8560).
Borrowing Paul’s terminology, Swedenborg describes the process by which we die to the old self and are resurrected into the new self. Paul writes,
Put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new iun the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:22-23).
The purpose behind the states we go through is to break up the passions of the world and ego and let in heavenly affections. So like Paul, Swedenborg talks about the old self dying and the new self being born,
The new man is altogether different from the old; for the new man is in affection for spiritual and heavenly things, and these make its enjoyments and blessedness; but the old man is in affections for worldly and earthly things, and these make its enjoyments and pleasures. . . . When a person, therefore, from the old man is made new, that is, when he is regenerated, it is not done in a moment, as some believe, but during many years, and indeed, during the man’s whole life, even to its end. For his lusts are to be extirpated, and heavenly affections to be implanted; and the man is to be gifted with a life which he had not before, and of which indeed he scarcely knew anything (AC 4063).
We are led out of worldly passions into heavenly affections by God’s Divine Providence. It is a journey that will be glad at times and sad at times. But we need to trust in God, that what we are living through will conduce to our spiritual progress. I like that phrase in Swedenborg that says, “man is to be gifted with a life which he had not before, and of which indeed he scarcely knew anything.” People in AA often say that if they had made a list of what they wanted when they first came into the program, they would have shorted themselves. We have no clue what beauties lie ahead of us in our journey. We can’t know how delightful heavenly affections will feel until we have been brought into them. What we wanted when we were in a lower spiritual condition seemed good to us then. But as we grew into a more elevated condition, those delights paled before the new joys we discover. The road we walk may be at times one of sorrow, doubt, even despair. But those of us who have the gift of years most likely can look back on their life, and see a more profound joy and clearer thinking than they knew in earlier years.
I wish you all well in your spiritual journeys. We all start from different places, we all are different people, and we all have different journeys. But we are all united in this, we are following the steps of Christ Jesus. And we are all, as children of Christ Jesus, striving to live the heaven-bound life.