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The Second State: The State of Interiors (HH 499-511)
The second state of awakening builds on the first. The first state is introductory and provides us with a framework for thinking about the spiritual life, as it unfolds within the human mind. It moves through a process of stripping away those exterior aspects of our sense of self that does not align with interior aspects. This then creates conditions that open the way for these interior aspects to be brought into conscious awareness and hence examination.
Two classes of interiors are dealt with in this state of the awakening series. There is a need to distinguish between them so that they don’t get confused.
The first class are states in which the exteriors are said to be separated from interiors. What characterises these states is that the exteriors project a life of moral and civil good that conceal interiors that look solely to self-interest from the loves of self and the world or the infernal proprium. This class consists of states in which the Lord is not acknowledged.
The second class is made up of those states in which the Lord is acknowledged. These states are characterised by the presence of spiritual and heavenly loves ruling in the interiors. It is the presence of these loves that provide the basis for a new sense of self or a heavenly proprium.
For both classes, the process brings to conscious awareness the quality of the love that rules the more interior aspect of our active states. If we are to become conscious to our own awakening process, then the ability to discern the interior quality of an active state is essential. This discernment allows evils to be acknowledged and shunned and heavenly loves affirmed as the basis for one’s life.
The second state of awakening coincides with a growing conviction of the need to work with the Word to access these more interior states of the human mind, so that they can be brought forward into conscious awareness. As the Word is worked with, with this end in view, there begins to develop a deepening trust in the Word and in its ability to carry us through the processes it initiates to regenerate the human mind.
The second state of man after death is called the state of his interiors, because he is then let into the interiors of his mind, that is, of his will and thought; while his exteriors, which he has been in during his first state, are laid asleep (HH 499).
Of the second state after death, we read that both the good and the evil spirits undergo a process of having their exteriors brought into a true correspondence with their interiors. We are told that no one in the other life is allowed to speak or act in a way that doesn’t perfectly match their interior affections and thoughts. So, where exteriors don’t match interiors, the second state of awakening describes the process by which the quality of interiors, or of the love, or life, can be seen and acknowledged.
The end result of the state of interiors for those whose states of minds are receptive to what is good and true is a heavenly state of life. This is due to the presence of the Lord as the goods and truths that compose their life. In contrast, those states that are opposed to what is good and true come into a hellish state of life in keeping with the evils and falsities that compose their life. We see then that the process results in the orderly separation of good and evil states of mind or a separation of what is of the Lord from what isn’t of the Lord.
Distinguishing Between Higher and Lower Levels of Mental Activity
The section dealing with the state of interiors opens with a key teaching designed to support this phase of the awakening process. The teaching is that we have two levels of thinking and intending (see HH 499). One belonging to our more outward nature and one belonging to our more inward nature. Anyone, we are told, through a little self-reflection can confirm the truth of this teaching in his or her direct experience.
All this makes clear that there are two kinds of thought, one exterior and the other interior; and that there are those who speak from exterior thought, while from their interior thought they have other sentiments, and that these two kinds of thought are kept separate, since the interior is carefully prevented from flowing into the exterior and becoming manifest in any way (HH 499-2).
This is a core principle in Logopraxis where people are asked to work with truths from the Word. As we enter into states of a more interior quality, where the focus is on our affections and thoughts, self-examination is recognized as an essential spiritual literacy skill. The development of this skill through practice, enables us to read and thereby distinguish between these two levels of mental activity.
Working with the Word initiates a shift in focus. It involves the attention moving from a focus on the more outward aspects of life, belonging to the state of exteriors, to the more inward aspects of life, belonging to the state of interiors. This leads to a growing awareness that all is not well within. We begin to become more sensitive to qualitative differences between the affections and thoughts belonging to the inner and outer levels of the mind. The ability to hold levels and contrast them is what moves the process forward. Through gaining insight into just how active the loves of self and the world are, beneath the moral and civil face we present outwardly, opens up the possibility for the kind of spiritual work required to bring the different levels of the mind into alignment.
The First Class of Interiors in which the Lord is Not Acknowledged
A self-image that appeals to moral and civil conduct as an indicator of its own inherent goodness, is perhaps one of the most difficult challenges to living a genuine spiritual life. It is true that an exteriorly ordered moral and civil life is the ground from which one can become spiritual. It is, however, equally the case that such an exteriorly ordered life can serve to conceal, not just from others but also from ourselves, the darker aspects of the hellish proprium tied to the loves of self and the world. It is all too easy to confuse a moral and civil life with a spiritual life. The process of awakening to spiritual life involves coming to see that the quality of exteriors is determined by the quality of interiors. It is a spiritual law that exteriors take their quality from interiors.
Works and deeds of moral and civil life, when they are done from heavenly love, are heavenly; for what is done from heavenly love is done from the Lord, and everything done from the Lord is good.
…But the deeds and works of moral and civil life when done from infernal love are infernal; for the things that are done from this love, which is the love of self and of the world, are done from man himself, and everything that is done from man himself is in itself evil; …for man regarded in himself, that is, in regard to what is his proprium, is nothing but evil. (HH 484)
When left to ourselves in moments of quiet, our thinking is unfettered and free from exterior moral, civil, or social constraints. It’s a state in which thoughts form a unity with the ruling affections (HH 502) so that we are held in the delight of our life. It seems that we seldom reflect on the thought stream that is one with our true affections, preferring to be carried along in the pleasures and delight of our love while this state is active.
However, the situation changes once we are led into the second state of spiritual awakening where our interiors are progressively opened up and seen.
All men without exception are let into this state after death, because it is their spirit’s own state. The former state is such as the man was in regard to his spirit when in company; and that is not his own state. That this state, namely, the state of the exteriors into which man first comes after death …is not man’s own state or the state of his spirit is evident from the fact that when he is in company in the world he speaks in accord with the laws of moral and civil life, and at such times interior thought rules the exterior thought, as one person rules another, to keep him from transgressing the limits of decorum and good manners. …It is evident also from the fact that when a man thinks within himself, he thinks how he must speak and act in order to please and to secure friendship, good will, and favor, and this in extraneous ways, that is, otherwise than he would do if he acted in accordance with his own will (HH 504).
We can see from this, that the state of interiors involves being led into an awareness of the actual state or quality of the affections and thoughts that are based in the hellish proprium.
In states that find their delight in evil there is no conscience at work and so at heart they constitute a denial of the Lord or of all that is genuinely good and true. These make up the hellish proprium.
… the state of those that have lived an evil life in the world and who have had no conscience, and have in consequence denied the Divine, is the direct opposite of this. For everyone who lives an evil life, inwardly in himself denies the Divine, however much he may suppose when in external thought that he acknowledges the Lord and does not deny Him; for acknowledging the Divine and living an evil life are opposites. (HH 506-2).
This describes the states that dominate the life of the mind prior to it being awakened to spiritual life. Before truths from the Word are used to reflect on the quality of our inner lives, we remain unconscious of just how pervasive the loves of self and the world are in our life. We act one way externally in keeping with moral, civil, and social expectations, while just below the surface there can be a stream of negative emotions giving rise to anger, envy, jealousy, contempt, desires for revenge, and a host of other unacknowledged or unrecognised states that are opposed to heavenly life. Prior to awakening to what truths teach concerning the hellish proprium, we are hardly even conscious of the detrimental impact that the love of self and love of the world have on our quality of life. In this state of ignorance, we do little to quell these negative forces, preferring to justify their ongoing possession of our mental faculties.
Many people do not know that they are impelled by evils because they do not do them in outward deeds. For they fear the civil laws and also the loss of their reputation, and so out of custom and habit they learn to refrain from evils as harmful to their honor and material gain. However, if they do not refrain from evils in conformity with a principle of religion, because they are sins, and sins against God, then lusts for evil with their delights remain in them, like polluted waters stopped up or stagnant. Let them examine their thoughts and intentions and they will discover these lusts, provided they know what sin is. (DP 117)
It is truths from the Word that form the basis for a genuine spiritual conscience.
A member of the church has his conscience formed by the truths of faith he learns from the Word, or by teaching from the Word, depending upon how he receives them in his heart. (NJHD 131)
But it is not until truths are applied to the work of self-examination that they begin to form a genuine spiritual conscience that is able to serve to guide our spiritual practice. The spiritual discipline of using truths from the Word to examine our interiors, effectively shines light on the quality of the hellish proprium, exposing its hellish nature. The very presence of truths from the Word operating within the mind in this way causes states of disruption. The experience is that inner work causes states belonging to the hellish proprium to increase in intensity. It needs to be remembered that this increase in intensity isn’t a sign that things are necessarily getting worse. If conscious spiritual work is taking place, then such states are indicative of spiritual processes opening things up. What was unconscious is now becoming conscious, or what was hidden is now being brought into the light.
When such in the other life enter into the state of their interiors, and are heard speaking and seen acting, they appear foolish; for from their evil lusts they burst forth into all sorts of abominations, into contempt of others, ridicule and blasphemy, hatred and revenge; they plot intrigues, some with a cunning and malice that can scarcely be believed to be possible in any man (HH 506-2).
Remembering that the “other life” is the spiritual life, this then describes the experience of those engaged in the inner work of self-examination. This examination exposes the insanity of the states of the hellish proprium that are made open to view, when truths shine their light on the activity of the loves of self and the world. The process needs these states to become active if they are to be revealed…
For they are then in a state of freedom to act in harmony with the thoughts of their will, since they are separated from the outward conditions that restrained and checked them in the world. In a word, they are deprived of their rationality, because their reason while they were in the world did not have its seat in their interiors, but in their exteriors; and yet they seemed to themselves to be wiser than others (HH 506-2).
If this process of exposing the true nature of the hellish proprium does not occur, then the resulting state of life is under the relatively unconscious influence of the hellish proprium. This state is simply a greater or lesser degree of denial of the Lord as the Word because to acknowledge the Lord is to act and so live from truths from the Word, which is the basis for receiving a new heavenly proprium.
If ye shall ask anything in My name, I will do it. If ye love Me, keep My commandments (John 14:13-15).
To know and ‘not do’, is what denial means from a spiritual perspective.
the man who teaches what ought to be done, and does not do it, is not willing to know truths, because they are contrary to his life; and that which is contrary to his life he also denies. (AC 3420)
Without seeing the true quality of the hellish proprium in the light of what truths teach, there will be no incentive to practice a life of charity, which is to shun evils as sins against the Lord (Charity 11). If there is an unwillingness to acknowledge evils, as a first step, no change is possible because it is not seen as necessary. This phase of the awakening process places a light on interiors so that any self-deception that exists, due to a belief in our own inherent “goodness”, can be acknowledged as false and all good returned to the Lord who is acknowledged as its source.
Let it be understood that man is wholly such as his interiors are, and not such as his exteriors are separate from his interiors. …. because of this such as a man’s interiors are such he continues to be to eternity…This makes evident what is man’s own and what is not his own (HH 501).
Through Logopraxis work, the deeper and more hidden aspects of the hellish proprium are gradually revealed to us. As a new heavenly sense of self emerges, all pretenses, denials, rationalisations and distortions that we have developed to conceal the activity of the loves of self and the world are exposed and stripped back. If our sense of self is to be freed from the hellish proprium and shifted into a heavenly proprium then what is not heavenly has to be seen before it can be removed. Seeing the evils of the hellish proprium laid bare and then having to acknowledge our investment in the sense of self it offers us, is a difficult process. It often leads to a feeling of being naked and exposed. When brought into…
…this state the spirit thinks from his very will, thus from his very affection, or from his very love; and thought and will then make one, and one in such a manner that he seems scarcely to think but only to will. It is nearly the same when he speaks, yet with the difference that he speaks with a kind of fear that the thoughts of the will may go forth naked, since by his social life in the world this has come to be a part of his will (HH 503).
When we are confronted with the truth that we are not the mask we present to the world, the fallout can be devastating. It is often a spiritual crisis point. And while it will vary from individual to individual in terms of its intensity and characteristics, all must pass through it if they are to be set free from the hold the hellish proprium has over their sense of self. What we need to recognize, is that those who choose to engage in self-reflection in the light of the truths the Word offers, will encounter personal spiritual difficulties as the process of awakening to spiritual life unfolds.
