677. About very inward things
What "very inward things" are, no one among men or spirits, scarcely anyone among the angels of the inward heaven, 1as yet knows. For, something very inward, those who are inward cannot understand, thinking that [what is more inward] would dissolve them, and they would become as nothing, because of regarding inward things as everything - just as a person living [on earth] does in bodily things.
But there is as great a difference between them as between what is vile and what is precious, or between a cottage and a very large city. But that which they cannot see, they think to be nothing, when yet it is the ineffable, which "no eye has seen, nor any ear has heard" [Is. 66:4, 1 Cor. 2:9]. And it is that from which everything comes that is harmonious and inwardly or more inwardly delightful within the symbolic displays of the inward heaven, 1while the inward heaven itself sees only the outside, or the shapes.
Footnotes:
1. See 262 and footnote 3.
677. CONCERNING THE MORE INTERIOR THINGS
What the more interior things are no man, nor spirit, nor scarcely any angel of the interior heaven as yet knows, for that which is more interior cannot be understood by one who is interior; he supposes that thus he would be dissolved and become as it were nothing, because he places everything in interiors, as a man who lives in corporeal things [places everything in them]. But the difference is as great as that between what is vile and what is precious, or between a cottage and a great town. And what they are unable to perceive, they suppose to be nothing. Nevertheless, what is more interior is ineffable, and is that which no eye hath seen nor ear heard; and from it comes everything harmonic, and everything interiorly and more interiorly delightful in the representations and similar things of the interior heaven. The interior heaven sees only things external or the figures.
677. De intimioribus
Quid intimiora nullus adhuc hominum, nec spirituum, vix ullus angelorum interioris coeli novit, nam quod intimius est, id intelligere nequit is qui interior est, putat sic dissolvi eum 1
, et fieri quasi nihil 2
, quia in interioribus ponit omne, sicut homo in corporeis, qui vivit, sed tanta est differentia, quanta inter vile, et pretiosum, seu casam et maximam urbem, quodque percipere nequeunt, putant esse nihil: cum tamen id est, quod est ineffabile, et "nullus oculus vidit, nec auris audivit" [Esaj. LXVI: 4, I Cor. II: 9], et est id a quo venit omne harmonicum, ac interius seu intimius delitiosum, in repraesentationibus ac similibus, quae sunt interioris coeli, interius coelum videt modo externa seu figuras.
Footnotes:
1. hoc est se dissolvi
2. sic in J.F.I. Tafel's edition: "nihil pro nihic"