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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. In Logopraxis work there is always the potential for discomfort and disruption. It is never easy to be a witness to states of suffering and it is only natural to want to alleviate them, whether it be our own or others. But in Logopraxis our trust must be in the Word’s ability to guide and direct us. This is only possible from having the experience of engaging with the Word as the Lord Himself and accepting that the states that arise as a result, are under His Providence and therefore must be a necessary part of the process.

Interventions that seek to try to ‘correct’ the thinking or beliefs that are held can result in making things even more difficult. Placing our own judgement and agendas on what ideas should or shouldn’t be introduced, risks offending those “friends” that are relied on and who, at this stage of the process, may well constitute the practitioner’s greatest ally. Everyone engaged in inner work needs to be left in freedom to navigate whatever states of mind the Word is bringing into their awareness as a result of their practice. We constantly need to remind ourselves that the best support we can give to spiritual processes, whether it be our own or others, is to maintain our connection with our work with the Word and to keep redirecting the attention back to what the Word is offering us and others to work with.

The processes involved in reorganising the exterior mind so that it can form a plane into which interior things can be held, can be difficult at times. The spiritual life is one in which we are empowered through the practice of the Word to accept that the regeneration process comes with its challenges.  The severing of attachments to the exterior sense of self that has the loves of self and the world at its root, is not achievable without suffering and a sense of loss. However, through being willing to enter into the processes of awakening consciously and as we look to practise what the Word offers us to work with, we come to see that the Word can be relied upon to carry us through whatever states arise for us.

We are reminded that through all of this, it is the Lord who fights for us, to provide us with a new sense of self grounded in higher heavenly loves. When we act from truths from the Word, we act from the Lord and Love itself, for truth is the very form love takes to inspire and motivate us to live a spiritual life. In a very real sense, we see that all motivation to engage with truths is from the Lord. That He alone is the doer that gives us the ability to act as if of ourselves. As we experience truths from the Word supporting us in these processes, we come to see firsthand that the Word is indeed the Lord and that He is perpetually working towards the best possible end for the life of all, such is the nature of the Lord’s love.

Preparation and Movement into the Second State of Awakening

The primary work in spiritual life is centred on inner realities that have to do with human mind and its thoughts and affections. Attending to the life of the mind is the “core stuff” of Logopraxis work, everything else is secondary. This statement from the work Heaven and Hell provides a clear statement regarding the status of the exterior aspects of a religious life so far as a person’s salvation is concerned…

outward behaviour and outward worship accomplish nothing whatever… (HH 495)

As we awaken to spiritual life, this realisation can come as a real shock. This is especially so if we have placed a lot of emphasis on outer religious activity as something essential for a spiritual life. This phase of the process of awakening, that of “a state of exteriors”, is designed to place the things that make up our outer sensual and corporeal life and the exterior images and concepts we have formed from them, into their proper perspective in relation to what is more internal.

We now arrive at a point in the awakening process that corresponds to the experience in the spiritual world when good spirits examine the new arrivals to determine their nature.  Good spirits are those that do the examining in order bring about a state of self-awareness.  They do this through the removal of any deceptive reliance on merit that is associated with exterior moral and civil behaviour or external religious practices.

Such, however, are explored by good spirits to discover what they are, and this in various ways; since in this the first state the evil equally with the good utter truths and do good acts (HH 496).

We are told that evil and good spirits can be distinguished from each other by what they attend to in conversation.  Their nature is also evident in that they consistently turn toward certain regions and, when left to themselves, they follow paths that lead to them.  This orientation reveals where their love lies and hence its quality.

… that the evil give eager attention to whatever is said about external things, and but little attention to what is said about internal things, which are the truths and goods of the church and of heaven. These they listen to, but not with attention and joy (HH 496).

Once we begin consciously engaging in the life that Logopraxis asks of us, we find that our work is to take truths from the Word and use these in the process of self-reflection to examine the quality of our mental life, with a view to shunning evils as sins against the Word and a life of repentance.  The good spirits that examine those in the spiritual world represent the process by which truths of Word within the human mind actively examine our thoughts and affections, as we make an effort to engage with them for this very purpose. It is these truths being worked into our lives that give us the ability to reflect on more interior concerns that belong to the life our mind. It is in this way that…

The Lord brings us out of that hellish freedom that is really slavery and into the heavenly freedom that is truly, inherently free. (DP 145)

The core work of this state of exteriors, involves the struggle to see that it is a focus on the inner life and not the outer that is primary in living the spiritual life. The level of difficulty in coming to appreciate this can’t be underestimated as the following quote shows…

And even when taught they fail to comprehend that thinking and willing are of any importance, but only speaking and acting.  (HH 495).