4529. A certain person who had been famous and renowned in the learned world because of his expert knowledge in botany heard in the next life, after he had died, that flowers and trees were to be seen in that life also. At this he was astounded, and because botany had been the delight of his life he was burning with the desire to see whether what he had heard was true. He was as a consequence taken to the paradise gardens where he saw very beautiful plantations of trees and very lovely flower-beds extending very far. Because he had now entered into his heart's desire he was allowed to wander through those grounds and not only to see each thing growing there but also to pluck it, hold it up to his eye and examine whether it was really what it appeared to be.
[2] He spoke to me from there and said that he had never believed anything such as this, and that if people in the world were to hear of such things they would regard them as absurdities. He went on to say that the flowers visible there were far more abundant than those he had seen at any time in the world and were scarcely able to be appreciated by any worldly kind of discernment, and that each one sparkled with unimaginable brightness because it was a product of the light of heaven. He was not as yet able to perceive that that sparkling had a spiritual origin, namely that in every one there existed some measure of intelligence and wisdom - the attributes of truth and good - as the source of their sparkling. He said in addition that people on earth would never believe this because few believe in the existence of any heaven or hell; and those who do believe may know merely that there is joy in heaven, few among these believing that things exist there such as the eye has never seen, the ear has never heard, and the mind has never been able to contemplate. Such unbelief exists in spite of their knowing from the Word that amazing scenes were seen by the Prophets, like the many seen by John, as described in the Book of Revelation, which however were nothing other than representatives which occur continuously in heaven and which were seen by him once his internal sight had been opened.
[3] But these things are comparatively unimportant. People who possess true intelligence and wisdom, in which those representatives originate, dwell in a state of happiness which is such that the things which have been mentioned belong among those that are not so important. There have also been others who have said when in the paradise gardens that these surpass every degree of happiness. They were therefore taken into a heaven further over to the right whose radiancy was brighter still, and at length to that heaven where they experienced the blessedness of intelligence and wisdom which those representatives hold within them. While they were there they spoke to me, saying that the things which they had seen previously were as nothing compared with what they experienced now. At last they were taken to that heaven where they were scarcely able to bear the bliss of interior affection, for that bliss pierced them through to the marrow; and when their marrow so to speak was dissolved into bliss they began to sink into a holy swoon.
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