LIVING WITH ANGELS

Angels Among Us: Living with Angelic Guidance

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In heaven, they live in human communities where they have husbands, wives, friends, jobs, homes, hobbies, and everything else we have here on earth. Imagine what earth would be like if everyone cared about everyone else, and spent their lives doing good things for other people. That would be heaven!

Can angels talk to people on earth? But this is something God grants us when God sees that we need it for some reason. In traditional Christian lore, angels are higher beings who are separate creations of God, and who have inhabited heaven since it was first created.

Based on visions of celestial beings seen by the ancient prophets, they are usually pictured as looking like humans with wings. In recent centuries that view of angels has begun to fade—in part because of the reports of Emanuel Swedenborg — in his most popular book, Heaven and Hell. Swedenborg tells us that angels are not alien beings at all. They are human beings just like you and me who have lived out their lives on earth and then gone on to live in heaven.

Angels are not some higher order of being. Twice in the Bible when the apostle John was about to worship the angel who was speaking to him, the angel forbade him, making himself equal to John, the prophets, and all those who obey God Revelation And though there are visions of winged beings in the Bible, they are never identified as angels. In fact, when angels appear in the Bible, they are identified as people. See, for example, Daniel 9: All of this leads to the conclusion that angels are not some higher order of being created separately by God.

They are people who have lived loving, thoughtful, and useful lives on earth, and are now living in heaven. Do angels sit on clouds playing harps for all of eternity? Now that would be tedious. Even harpists need a break now and then! In fact, heaven is not as different from earth as many people think. As poets through the ages have sensed, a tree, a cloud, the sun, the moon, the stars, a deer, a spider all express human states of mind and heart. In other words, they express spiritual realities in a material form.

What we see around us on earth is a reflection of what exists in heaven. Because of this, the scenery in the spiritual world looks very much like the scenery in the material world. There are mountains, hills, streams, lakes, oceans, trees, plants, fish, birds, animals, and yes, towns and cities just as there are here on earth.

Living with Angels

In short, everything that exists in the material world exists in the spiritual world also. Angels live in tents, houses, mansions, or palaces, all according to their spiritual state. They can take a walk in the woods, swim in the river, or play a game of tennis at the local tennis courts. They can go to the theater, attend an outdoor concert, or host a party. It is all very familiar from scenes and experiences on earth. In heaven, everything is brighter, more colorful, more beautiful, and more alive than the corresponding things here on earth.

In heaven, everything we see around us reflects what we are thinking and feeling within us. Imagine the scenery that would correspond to the spirits of the most warm, loving, thoughtful, and kind people you know, and you will be imagining the scenery of heaven. Just as the scenery around us in heaven is very familiar, but more beautiful, so is the daily life of the angels. They live in towns and cities, each by their households, each in their neighborhoods. Some live apart in remote areas, while others live surrounded by a sea of humanity in densely populated cities.

Every angel also has an occupation and daily work. That work is just as varied as the different jobs and careers here on earth—in fact, far more so. There are teachers and scholars, greeters and guides for newly arrived people, parents for infants and children who have died and gone to heaven, governors and town officials, spiritual health care workers, and yes, even prison guards to keep evil spirits from breaking out and harming innocent people.

There are also artisans, craftspeople, and other types of workers. Every occupation here on earth has a corresponding occupation in heaven. One difference in heaven, though, is that everyone works because they love their work, not because they have to work. In heaven, all the necessities of life are provided. This is often done through the hands of other angels and spirits. Angels willingly contribute without thinking about their own needs, and those needs are freely fulfilled by everyone around them, and by God.

That would be just as fatiguing there as it would be here. One common schedule is to do the daily work in the morning, and have the afternoon and evening free for other activities. There are also regular meals with delicious food and drink. After a day full of intense activity, they need that down time for rejuvenation just as we do on earth. It never gets fully dark in heaven, but there is a time of twilight when angels retire to their homes and beds. We humans have both physical senses and spiritual senses.

Angels: Aliens or Earthlings?

Under ordinary circumstances, as long as we are living in our physical body our physical senses are open and our spiritual senses are closed. When we die and leave our physical body behind, we will continue living in our spiritual body see 1 Corinthians Our spiritual senses will then be opened, and we will see the angels and spirits of those who have died before us, as well as all the scenery of the spiritual world.

However, it is possible for our spiritual senses to be opened while we are still living in the physical body. We can know this from the Bible. Physical eyes cannot see spiritual things. So whenever people in the Bible saw angels or saw visions of heaven, they were seeing them with their spiritual eyes, not their physical eyes.

Most of them were not aware of this. In other words, what he described in that book, he saw and heard with his spiritual senses. Now, the people of Bible times were not made any differently than we are today. So if it was possible for them to talk to angels, it is possible for us also. And many people today have had the experience of receiving messages from spiritual beings.

First of all, it would be very distracting! Personally, I need my attention right here in the material world most of the time just to make sure the hammer hits the nail not my thumb and the car stays on the road not in the ditch. And some people simply have no interest in anything beyond this material world with its activities, relationships, and pleasures. It would be nice if angels were the only spiritual beings out there. But as we know from the Bible and from human experience through the ages, if there are angels, there are also devils—otherwise known as evil spirits. And while angels want to help us on our journey toward heaven, evil spirits love nothing more than misleading us, tripping us up, and sending us stumbling down toward hell.

We might get lucky and get a real angel. Or we might get an evil spirit pretending to be an angel—which they are perfectly capable of doing see 2 Corinthians There are hundreds, even thousands of people making statements and writing books based on what angels and spirits have told them. All of them believe they have the real, honest-to-goodness truth. And many of them contradict each other. Spirits are just people who have passed on to the other life. Entering the spiritual world does not automatically fill us with all knowledge.

In particular, people who cling to false ideas here will continue to cling to them after they die. What it amounts to is this: Does this mean we should avoid all contact with the spiritual world? If God sees fit to send us an angel at some key turning point in our lives, we can accept it with gladness, and let the angel do his or her healing work in our lives.

Further, according to Swedenborg, angels do not wish to teach us things about heaven. And we can all use a little inspiration from time to time! Heaven is the human community that we choose and build when we love to do good and useful things for other people. If we love God and our fellow human beings, and devote our lives to serving them in our own unique way using our own unique skills and talents, we are building a life of heaven for ourselves and for those around us even while we are living here on earth.

That life of heaven simply continues after we die, only in a nicer neighborhood. Depending on our life choices here on earth, we will each be sorted into our own place after death. That place will be in a community of people who share similar loves, beliefs, and interests—and we will live the life we love with those people to eternity. But consider the life of a devoted scientist or a dedicated teacher. Does either of them ever run out of new things to discover or new joys in sharing knowledge and understanding with others?

Remember, God is infinite, while we humans are finite. No matter how much spiritual progress we have made, no matter how much we have learned, no matter how deeply we have loved, if our sights are set on God there will always be infinitely more. Every morning when we wake up in heaven there will be new love, new learning, and new things to accomplish awaiting us. And that will keep us excited and invigorated in the activities and discoveries of each new day forever.

Lee Woofenden is an ordained minister, writer, editor, translator, and teacher. He enjoys taking spiritual insights from the Bible and the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and putting them into plain English as guides for everyday life. Reblogged this on Triam Press. As always, a well constructed and thought-provoking article, thanks for that.

Hopefully my repentance has been sincere enough to deserve the right to serve all of my new peers in the New World. I am dedicated to become totally aware of. This is far more exciting than my former belief in reincarnation. It is also Biblical and makes so much sense. Thanks for stopping by and expressing your good thoughts. I hope this article was helpful to you on your spiritual journey! If you set your heart, mind, and hands to the task of repentance and spiritual rebirth, you will reach your home in heaven. About rebirth, you may be interested in the article: I agree with you that this view of human life here and hereafter is far more exciting and satisfying than a belief in reincarnation.

For more on that, see the article: The Bible, Emanuel Swedenborg, and Reincarnation. I hope I can be an angel in a community close to God, and of course I hope my family and friends will be there as well. Hello I always have this question in my mind,When my husband pass away it was very painful to me and still missing him very much every day where the angels where whern I was suffering so much? Please answer me and thank you. Losing someone we love is one of the most difficult and painful experiences we go through. Though I do believe the angels are with you, they cannot take away the pain and grief of separation.

They can only help you from within to move through it. But you still have to take those difficult steps yourself. Perhaps it would help to know a little more about what your husband went through after he died, and where he might be now. It is because we chose not to remain in a very good state that hell became an option. And even now, it is only when we actively choose selfishness and greed over love and understanding that we go to heaven rather than hell. So the choice between good and evil is thrust upon us in a different way than it was faced by the ancient people represented by Adam and Eve before they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Thanks for your comment and question. Different people will face challenges and tough times differently. However, here are some articles that might help:. I have been reading Heaven and Hell myself to gain a deeper understanding. However, I am having trouble understanding the structure of heaven. Well, less the actual structure and more the purpose of it.

Swedenborg had written that Heaven as a whole is divided into the celestial, spiritual and natural part, depending on how deep one perceives the love and wisdom of God. On top of that he wrote that the communities are based on our own good and made up of people who think similarly.

He also stated that those with more wisdom are placed in the center of those communities and those communities that have a deeper understanding and perception of good are higher and more central and as such closer to God.

This… strikes me as rather odd. This struture feels limiting and more akin to a prison where people are puppets of God. First, I thought that Heaven would finally be the place where we reach universal understanding and are unified. This is the case, as Swedenborg mentions that we are all connected through love and remote communication, seeing as something that is not connected would cease its existence. However, one can not leave their community without feelings of deprivation. As such, one is technically cut off from the vast majority of other being apart from remote communication.

In fact, our pool might even be smaller than in this world. Sure, I may not have a perfect understanding with most of them, but even the worst among my friends can bring be joy. This can not be, for the Bible states that God has no partiality. Second, the structure seems like it is structurally enforced. What if you community is based in a landscape you dislike, but you are the only one? You can not leave it, but staying is also a deprivation. Or what if you are the only one in a community who has a certain interest, despite all being very similar in our perception of good?

Will such things as preferences, hobbies and other opinions washed away so that only our perception of good remains?

What About Them Angels?

Having mere lifeless puppets? A lot of things are I do are a huge part of who I am and how I perceive things. Or do those things become inconsequential because we are filled with the love of God? As for the location, what if one wants to go out and explore? What if one would go to another community to learn? Yet due to this structure we are limited to staying who we became at the point of death. I am sure I am missing a whole lot here, but to me Heaven sounds like a labour camp.

Obviously, I know this to be untrue, as a loving God would not limit us, but I have a hard time understanding Swedenborgs description of Heaven as a place of divine love and good where we do not feel limited, regardless of preferred hobbies, activities and interests. But my, oh my, you do have a lot of worries! There is no coercion there.

No one is a puppet. We are free to do the things we want to do, and go to the places we want to go to. Swedenborg traveled to many different parts of the spiritual world, often accompanied by spirits from our earth who were also interested in traveling. Swedenborg assures us that when we die and leave this world behind, the only thing we leave behind is our physical body, because it is of no further use to us. We have a much better spiritual body in the spiritual world. We take with us everything that makes us the person we are: We are exactly the same person as we were here on earth.

That is the person we are in heaven. Nothing is taken away that is a real part of who we are as a person. Not even the smallest little idiosyncratic quirk. In fact, if anything our uniqueness as a person will be enhanced in heaven, because there will be no external confining social forces suppressing the full expression of who we truly are. That is the person we will live as in heaven.

In heaven, the full uniqueness and character of every individual angel adds up to create an almost infinitely complex and beautiful whole. Your interests and the things you do are an integral part of who you are. And though some of them may be changed into their spiritual equivalents, they are still your particular, idiosyncratic likes, skills, hobbies, enjoyments, and so on. And considering that everyone who lives on this earth eventually goes on to the spiritual world—and many, if not most to heaven—it is assured that if you shared those likes and interests with anyone at all here on earth, there will also be people in heaven who share those likes and interests with you.

Basically, heaven is an awful lot like earth, only better. And heavenly communities consist of just as many people as make up the various sizes of communities here on earth, from small towns to big cities. Once again, it is our own loves, interests, and character that determine everything about our life in heaven. Rather, God provides a community in heaven in which we will feel fully at home because it will reflect who we are, and the types of relationships we have built for ourselves here on earth. But as I said earlier, those who do have an interest in traveling are free to do so.

Further, as Swedenborg describes it, people who travel commonly bring a whole community of people with them on their travels, so that they are traveling as a group. I like to think of it as being like a blood cell traveling through the circulatory system of the body, each blood cell consisting of a whole group of people. So traveling does not necessarily mean leaving our own community behind.

It can be like a whole tour group from a particular town visiting another part of the country or of the world together, and sharing the experience with their closest friends. The closest equivalent, Swedenborg says, is the human body—which is a living, organic thing. Similarly, the structure of heaven is not a static, limiting thing but rather a living, organic being in which the unique life of every individual within it adds to the living, dynamic nature of the whole.

As far as our community and surroundings, they will reflect the person we are quite perfectly, because our surroundings in heaven are created by God to reflect our inner self and character, and that of the people around us. We gravitate toward people who do share our loves and interests, and these are the people we live with and interact with each day.

Also, we gravitate toward a position within our community that reflects the type of person we are. Just as organizations here on earth tend to have the most inspired and driven personalities at their center, and less inspired and driven people working more toward the periphery, so it is in the communities in the spiritual world. I could keep going, but I hope this is enough to assuage some of your concerns. Meanwhile, here are a few more articles that might help:. What if those things make up the only life they know and are accustomed to? Many of us certainly try to live our lives here based upon our: And, we often are successful in our attempts.

We do these things willingly and, over time, accept our lives as they are and can be truly happy living them. If we have adapted ourselves to others outwardly because we actually care about them, love them, and want to serve them and give them happiness, then our very adaptation to their character and needs is driven by, and therefore an expression of, our true inner self. What happens in the second stage after death is not the stripping away of our entire outer self, but rather any parts of it that are at odds with our inner self.

When our outer self is acting at the behest of our inner self in order to carry out its loves and desires, then even if the outer self may express some things that are not what we would express within our own home and with our own husband or wife, family, and closest friends, then our outer self is still reflecting our inner self because it is carrying out the will of our inner self.

Rather, our outer self is always carrying out what our inner self wishes it to carry out, and therefore always reflects our own motivations and desires rather than the motivations and desires of others. Even in the spiritual world, we do have both an inner self and an outer self.

I know this may sound as if we can dissemble after all, and is perhaps more confusing than helpful. The difference is that in the spiritual world we cannot put on a false front; rather, our external words and actions always reflect our inner thoughts and motivations even if they may be adapted to the particular situation in which we are.

Their function is to monitor the evil spirits in hell and keep them from getting completely out of control. So if one evil spirit is punishing another evil spirit for something he or she has done, the angel guards prevent the one doing the punishing from punishing beyond what the offense warrants. Now, in carrying out that job, the angel will sometimes have to exert the spiritual equivalent of force in order to suppress the evil desires of the evil spirits in hell from getting out of bounds.

And that force may involve fear and pain inflicted upon evil spirits who are attempting to go beyond allowed limits of malevolence. The fear and pain thus inflicted does not really reflect what that angel desires for the evil spirits he or she is charged with guarding. But since fear and pain are the only things evil spirits understand and respect, it is necessary for the angel guard to inflict them in order to prevent a greater evil from taking place. So although the angel is motivated only by mercy toward the evil spirits he or she is guarding, that mercy may have to express itself in the inflicting of fear and pain on those evil spirits in order to prevent them from damaging one another more than is warranted by the particular evil actions of the evil spirits on the receiving end—and also, of course, to prevent them from breaking out of hell and victimizing good and innocent spirits living outside of hell.

The outward actions of the angel guard therefore reflect pragmatically the inner loves and motives of the angel, even if they must be expressed in ways that the angel would prefer not to express them if it were possible to accomplish the necessary goals in any other way.

The angels of the highest heavens go naked in their own communities. This is an expression of their full innocence and openness with the other people in their communities, who share a similar innocence and openness with them. However, when they travel outside of their own communities, especially to lower heavens, they are clothed along the way in order to adapt themselves to the lower heavens where there is not such full innocence.

This happens, among other reasons, because they do love and care about angels of the lower heavens, and do not want to cause any discomfort or offense. So the act of being clothed reflects their inner self in that it is a matter of love and care for the angels of lower heavens that they are visiting. Another way of saying all of this is that angels are able to most fully express their inner self outwardly only when they are in their own communities. So even our experience and ability here on earth of putting on an outer self that is not a full reflection of our inner self still has its usefulness in heaven.

That is where their outer self fully expresses their inner self. And that is why they breathe easiest there, and always return there as to their own home. I was so eager to learn that I somehow managed to clear it out in a day. It basically said what you have said and it put the majority of my concerns to rest. In fact, it even gave me insight in some thoughts and feelings I have been having but could not explain. It was a very good read.

However, I want to touch on a particular point. These doubt I gained from misunderstanding, it served a great purpose. Because of it, I gained a great insight of my current way of thinking. I found some traces for fears and selfish thinking that I was unaware of. But even more, it truly shocked me to find out how much my inner workings have changed ever since I decided to open myself to Divine truth. When I first interpreted it falsely, my immediate reaction was that if Heaven is truly that unjust and limiting, that I wish to have no part in it. Obviously, Heaven can not be unjust, for it is the works of the Lord we are talking about.

But this is where I understood just how much unity, equality and community matters to me. A sense of justice and what is wrong and right without having studied it. This realization was momentous. This goes in line with something I discovered for myself not too long ago, before finding a confirmation in Swedenborgs teachings. Everything material I do, every situation, every single thought always carries a lesson or deeper spiritual meaning, leading to personal growth.

Whether it is a simple game or a situation in life. I search for a Divine and spiritual meaning in everything. He throws in humor when needed and, at times, has even given a stern word of advice. He will sing a tune or make comments that make me laugh, and the grocery store is always an adventure. He has taught me how Divine guidance works. I found out that it is best to ask before planning and doing, because it saves work and time! It was my plan and it sidetracked me from the Divine plan. Can I refuse to do something?

I still have free will, but I have found there is always a reason that I am guided to do or say something. I may not know it at the time, but often the response from the other person is one of gratefulness — it was something they needed guidance for. He has shown me that there are so many different angels, some are here on Earth all the time, and others come and go as called for. Our guardian angel is with us always and never leaves our side. Metatron relays their messages to me, since I only hear certain angels.

This is a great gift from God, the Father Creator, learning to live in the world with Divine guidance. Do I feel like I am living in two different worlds? I did at first, but now it feels normal to me. It is a world unknown to many, but available to all who desire Divine guidance. It is a concept that is not easily grasped by those who do not give credence to spirit and angels. People fail to recognize that this is not a new concept. Would I go back to a more materialistic life?

I would feel lost without communicating with the angels and I have no desire for accumulating things that have no real value. The rewards of seeing the joy of those who are learning to connect with their angels in our Divine Reiki classes is priceless. They are happy to finally be on the path that they have been searching for.

The room fills with the angels among us. They are with us constantly, whispering in your ears, trying to get our attention. They are always pouring out love to you. They want you to hear them, to connect and ask for Divine guidance.

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