3885. On another occasion also when I was led away from ideas formed from sensory impressions in the body a heavenly light appeared to me. That light led me even further away from those ideas, for the light of heaven holds spiritual life within it, see 1524, 2776, 3167, 3195, 3339, 3636, 3643. While I was surrounded with this light bodily and worldly interests looked to be underneath me. I was still aware of them, but it seemed as though they were more remote from me and did not belong to me. At this time it seemed to me as though I was present in heaven with my head but not with my body. In this condition I was also allowed to observe the general breathing of heaven and also the nature of it. It was interior, relaxed, spontaneous, and corresponded to my own breathing in a ratio of three breaths to one. In a similar way I was also allowed to observe my heartbeats complementing those of heaven. At this point the angels told me that the beating of the heart and the breathing of the lungs in each individual being on earth sprang from those corresponding actions in heaven. They also said that the reason why one heart beats or a pair of lungs breathes at a different rate from another is that the beat of the heart and the breathing of the lungs in heaven is spread out into a kind of continuum and so into an endeavour whose nature is such that it gives rise to those varying motions in living beings, the variations in each one depending on its particular state.