The Reality of the Spiritual World

by Rev. Robert S. Jungé

If you look at a chair, you see its shape and its color. You can touch it. No one would have to convince you that the chair was real. If they argued about it, you'd say, "Open your eyes, look!"

And if I close my eyes and think of people I love very much who are not physically present, I can picture how they look. I can imagine the color of their clothes. I can even "hear" the tone of their voices. I can't reach out my hand and touch them, but no one can convince me that the thought is not real. And, even more important, no one is going to tell me that the love I feel is not real.

The fact is, the deeper the thought and affection, the more real it is, not less. For example, if I say that I like a candy bar and also love my mother, not only is my love for my mother deeper, but it more clearly shows what I'm really like. We see this with friendships based on a few external likes and dislikes compared with friendships based on deep and genuine loves. The deeper the love that is shared, the more the real person is involved.

Now, the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Church tell us about a world of thought and affection - the spiritual world. This is the world to which we will go when we die. They carefully explain that we have to live in the natural world in order to feel life as our own, to make choices, and to prepare for spiritual life. We have to learn through our five senses, in order to choose what we want to think about and what we will love for ourselves. But the spiritual world must become real to us if we are going to make really wise choices.

Actually, right now we are living in both worlds, even though consciously we only sense this natural world. After all, we don't get a spirit when we die. We have one right now. In fact, we are spirits now. The real you and the real me is our spirit, not our body. I'm explaining some thoughts to you right now, but my body may be hundreds of miles away. Yet, in a certain sense, you are getting to know me - in fact, a whole lot better than if you only saw my body but didn't speak to me.

Some people feel kind of funny if you tell them they are a spirit, but that's because they think of spirits as vague and ghostly. But if you think of people's characters, what they believe and what they love as their eternal spirits, then it's not weird at all. It's far weirder to think of friends in respect to what they look like, rather than to what they think and care about. Right now, we all are developing an eternal character, or spirit, which will live forever. Our natural bodies allow our character to be exactly what we choose to make it. But that character is much more real than the body. When we talk about a person's spirit, we're talking about the real you and the real me. So when we talk about the spiritual world, we're talking about a world that is even more real than this one.

Today there is a lot of talk about character development. But when we think about character development from the Heavenly Doctrines, we think about the developing personality which will last forever. Out character will determine the kind of work we do in heaven, our eternal use. Our character will determine the genuine and eternal friendships we will have. It will include that most precious friendship of all, the love we each feel for our married partner-conjugial love. In short, it will determine the very nature of the happiness we feel to all eternity.

One of the reasons the Heavenly Doctrines were given is to make the other world real for us, so that we can learn how to work to get to heaven. If we know where we want to go, and what it is like, we can plan and work hard to get there. Without the Heavenly Doctrines our lives would be like planning a trip to another country, totally different from our own, without knowing anything about its climate, language, etc. But the Heavenly Doctrines make it possible for us to get ready and to really be prepared to enter into the life of heaven when we get there.

Now, the first thing that happens when anyone dies is a very gentle transition or "passing over" from this world to the next. The celestial or highest angels are with dying people and keep their thoughts centered on the Lord and eternal life. They feel a sense of peace, like that sphere many people feel when a person dies quietly in bed. Then, the Heavenly Doctrines explain, as people desire, the spiritual angels come and, as it were, roll a veil off their eyes so that they can see in the other world. Very carefully, so as to shock the newly arrived spirits as little as possible, the angels explain that they are now in the other world and show them around. Even the natural angels come and render every service, so that they will really feel at home.

In the beginning of life in the spiritual world, what the Heavenly Doctrines call the first state after death, things seem very like life in this natural world. There are houses, cities, even streets with the same names as there are here. People are still in the world of spirits, between heaven and hell, just as their spirits had been, unconsciously, during life in this world. Their natural memory is still active. So things seem natural. In fact, it is hard to convince some spirits that their bodies have died. Remember, of course, that spirits have spiritual bodies with all the parts that our natural bodies have, so it is hard for some of them to even recognize the difference.

But a tremendously important change awaits all spirits as they gradually come into a state of internals - the second state after death. This is the state where the real person shows itself. Here people become as they really are inside. If they are evil, gradually that evil comes out, and they can no longer pretend. Their faces take on a more and more horrid expression. They begin to carry out all those evil desires that they didn't do in the world because they were afraid of getting caught or being punished. More and more, such spirits find themselves associating with those who will make their life in hell.

But for those who are good, the way to more and more happiness opens up. As good spirits enter more and more into their internals, their faces, even their clothing, express what they really think and feel. Others see them for who they really are. And they are able to express their loves more and more, as they rarely were able to in the world. You know how sometimes it is hard to tell people what you really feel? It often seems particularly difficult if we are trying to explain something we care a great deal about. But in the spiritual world good people feel understood by others. They can share with others all the thoughts and affections that they have received from the Lord. They are able to really do the things they had always wanted, for they are good things and will not harm others. So, after a period of instruction, good spirits enter the life of heaven, a happy life of doing what they love. If you think about it, we are happiest when we are doing those things we really love to do.

In barest outline, this tells us what happens when we die. The Heavenly Doctrines give quantities of details to make these things so real that people all over the world can gradually believe in the life after death again.

If we really understand the life after death, then everything we do can be a preparation for it. Everything can then be seen to have a purpose. It will still be up to us to live up to that purpose, but life will not be something cut off by death. The work we choose, the married partner we choose, even the things we do every day, will have meaning (even if we are unconscious of it) as a part of our continuous preparation for heaven. We will gradually see our lives in relation to things that really last, things that are more real than anything we have ever known before. This is the promise that a real belief in the life after death can open for us.

-New Church Home 1977;91:127-129

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