To Live in Eternity
Swedenborg was regarded as one of the greatest scientists if his age. From the age of 56 he began work on an enormous series of weighty tomes that he claimed were the fruits of direct experience. Either he was delusional, or else his work is well worth taking seriously. He certainly did not have any other features of mental illness, so I go for the latter: he’s worth taking very seriously…
“Man is so created that as to his internal he cannot die; for he is capable of believing in God, and thus of being conjoined to God by faith and love, and to be conjoined to God is to live to eternity.”
–Emanuel Swedenborg (Swedish Scientist, Mystic and Philosopher, 1688-1772)
The True and the Sublime
“In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment and will never be more divine in the lapse of the ages. Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it, but when I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away but eternity remains.”
–Henry David Thoreau (American Essayist and Philosopher, 1817-1862)
Eternal WIsdom
“Eternal Wisdom: ‘I go forth to meet those who seek Me, and I receive with affectionate joy such as desire My love. All that you can ever experience of My sweet love in time is but as a little drop to the ocean of My love in eternity.”
–Henry Suso (a.k.a. Amandus, a.k.a. Heinrich Seuse, German Mystic, c.1300-1366)
“The Soul Afire: Revelations of the Mystics: an Anthology” (H. A. (Editor) Reinhold)
