The True Form Of Man

It should be of note that a person is what he loves, or rather, that he is the form of his love. It should also be known that the inner person, the inner man - which is the same as the spirit that lives within the man - is the form of his love. But this is not so with the outer person in the world, because the outer man has learned from early childhood to hide the desires of his love, indeed, to pretend and feign other desires than his true ones.

Everyone's own love which is the actual form of his inner person, remains in him, even after death for the reason that love is a person's life, and consequently, the real person, the true form of a man. A person is also what he thinks - (PROV. 23:7) - thus what his intelligence and wisdom are, but these are united with his love. For a person thinks because of his love and in accordance to it; in fact, if he is free to do so, he speaks and acts from it. From this it can be seen that love is not just a feeling or emotion that one may have at certain times. Rather, it is the very being and essence of a person's life, and that his thoughts are the resulting expression or manifestation of his life. Speech and action that spring from thought, therefore, do not spring from thought, but from love acting through thought.

I have been granted to know from a good deal of experience that a person even after death, is not what he thinks but what his affection is and what he thinks from that, which is to say that he is what his love is and subsequently his intelligence. I have also been granted to know that after death a person puts away everything that is not in harmony with the true love of his heart; indeed, that he progressively takes on the form, the look, sound, speech, behavior and manners of his life's love. It is for this reason that the whole of heaven has been set in order according to all the varieties in the affections connected with the love of good, and that the whole of hell has been arranged according to all the affections connected with evil.