Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. But why is meditation such a central spiritual practice, anyway? In a word: reflection. This month, Chelsea deviates from the normal structure of this column to share some reflections on the importance of reflection itself. As usual, we welcome your insights, too, in the form of comments or even your own article. —Editor
There are several passages in Swedenborg’s works in which he writes of the importance of reflection: self-reflection, reflection from others, and reflection on our surroundings and our experiences. In fact, he writes that “without reflection, there is no life” (Spiritual Experiences 2228). Without self-reflection we have no way to witness our thoughts, no ability to reflect on what we are sensing in our lives beyond just feeling it. Actually, our spiritual development depends on reflection.
Here’s some of what Swedenborg writes about it:
In one passage from his spiritual experiences, Swedenborg gives a very simple example. He noticed that when he was in a place where a bell sounded every hour, when he was not reflecting on it or paying any attention to the sound of the bell, he could not tell that it had rung at all, or even that he had heard it, since he didn’t reflect on it (Spiritual Experiences 2248). How often is this the case? I think of the experience of a kid, saying, “Mom, Mom, Mom, MOM!!!” Or how I can say a whole paragraph to my husband and he has no recollection of it if I don’t specifically ask for his attention first! In short, we don’t notice what’s going on without reflection.
Swedenborg says that he learned from spirits that even while they lived in the body it was the spirit that “sensated”—weird word (Arcana Coelestia 322). Even though the faculty of sensation manifests itself in the body, it is not “of the body” (ibid). So it’s the spirit that senses in the body even though the body manifests the experience of sensation. It sounds so simple but “life consists in the exercise of sensation…[and] without it there is no life” (ibid, emphasis added). There is an element of engagement that is needed if we are to make anything of our constant sensation.
So this is true about our physical experience but also our inner experience. Swedenborg writes that it’s “only reflection that causes spirits and angels to know that they are of such and such a quality…and that it constitutes the essence of thought” (Spiritual Experiences 2221). Without reflection, we know that we are but not what we are (Spiritual Experiences 734). How often can we be just chugging along not recognizing “how we are thinking, what we are thinking, what we are doing, what is motivating our actions” (ibid)? On the other hand, when we reflect on ourselves, with self-reflection or with the help of reflection from others, then we begin to know ourselves. Otherwise we never learn, but instead “remain in our own illusions, and from them, reflect upon others” (ibid). Tara Brach, a psychologist and Buddhist teacher, gives a fabulous remark about this that I’ve quoted before because it really hits home for me: “when we’re suffering, if we start investigating, we’ll find out we’re suffering because we’re telling stories in our mind and we’re believing them” (Podcast episode, “When We are Lost,” Feb 23, 2011). The investigating is reflection. How often do we not take a moment to reflect? We’re just in it, blaming others and shaming ourselves.
To tie these concepts down to the Bible, I think the importance of reflection shows up in how the word “behold,” translated as such, is one of the most common words in the King James Version (in the top 100 out of 14565 unique words). The word for “behold” also can mean “see,” “look,” “consider,” “discover,” or “perceive.” I read it as if we’re being told: reflect!
Now with a foundation about what reflection is, I want to go over the structure of our minds which will add another dimension to the topic of reflection. Swedenborg writes about how we have three levels in our mind. In Secrets of Heaven 1015 he lists these three levels as an internal self, an intermediate self, and an external self: “The heavenly and spiritual traits in us, which belong to the Lord alone, supply us with an internal self…Our rational processes, [read: our ability to reflect] supply us with an intermediate self, or one midway between internal and external…And our responses to goodness, and the facts in our memory, create an external self for us.” He says, “We do not feel the operation of the internal self except in a very general way, at that intermediate level” (ibid, emphasis added). So we have an internal self, but we only ever feel the reality of it in our “intermediate self” at this middle level.
One take away from this is that if I’m having good thoughts, true ideas or good feelings, that’s not me experiencing the internal self—that’s me receiving influx from it into my intermediate self, where I feel it. If I’m feeling these things, then the goodness and truth that live in the internal self actually have already made the trip to my intermediate self! And then get this: the internal self is actually heaven! We each have this connection to heaven, but we need reflection to make any use of it! It is when we notice something, like our suffering in a particular instance that we begin to have some freedom in it by way of our connection to heaven—we can then do something about it and something can change (Spiritual Experiences 733).
In Spiritual Experiences 1905 ½ Swedenborg writes, “When the door of the mind is open toward heaven, then indeed a certain continuous reflection is given, bringing with it communication of spirits with the person.” It’s not that we start having conversations with spirits like Swedenborg did but we start to have a versatility of mind; my knee-jerk reactions can start to change. I begin to have the option of different responses. I think it’s ME the whole time. Instead of griping at my husband the second he walks in the door, I notice how I do that and then the next time I have THE THOUGHT to have a softer approach. “I have the thought” is the inflow of heaven from “the internal self” into the part of the mind that I experience as myself that Swedenborg calls “the intermediate self.”
One other point that is useful to make is how Swedenborg emphasizes in many passages that God is the source of our reflection (Spiritual Experiences 2221, 2107, 2596). So there is an active element in reflection; we open ourselves up to God’s leading by consciously engaging reflection. But there is also an element of surrender: ultimately we are not in control of the outcome. That’s something to reflect on!
So a couple thoughts and take-away ideas from all this: when we begin to consciously practice reflection in our lives, one gift of this is we begin to have a clearer sense of what we really love. Reflection serves to help us to come into a keener sensitivity of who we feel ourselves to be (Arcana Coelestia 3980).
Also in one passage about reflection, Swedenborg writes of the flip side of all this, so to speak (Spiritual Experiences 3624). He describes how his reflection could become fixed on certain things by spirits “which caused a great deal of trouble” (ibid). These “fixed reflections” usually consisted of worry and anxiety about things in life, money matters, responsibilities, things to come, etc. He says, “whenever I was kept reflecting on them for a long time, spirits would straightway throw in troublesome, worrisome and evil things, together with supporting thoughts and desires” (ibid). So reflection also can have a negative side to it. But here’s a take-away idea from this: when we notice this kind of compulsive reflection going on, we can have a level of detachment from it by recognizing it is not “us” so much as thoughts and worries that are being kicked up in us and causing trouble. It feels like us completely, but we can remember our connection to the spiritual world, that our minds are governed by spirits (Spiritual Experiences 1905 ½). The key is witnessing. There’s a difference between witnessing our negativity and believing it! If we’re stuck in a negative state reflection is pivotal—literally! When we reflect, we are able to pivot away from the negativity. You can take a step back, a step deeper within your mind and ask, “Who’s noticing all this going on?” That level is where freedom resides, and also truth, love, forgiveness. That is how we can open up to heaven’s inflow. And another option is to search out reflection from others—call a friend! Truly, we are not really alone even in our own thoughts and we can seek out connection with others in this physical plane of existence as well. Through others, through their reflection, we can get redirected within, ultimately to the internal self—to the goodness and truth that is available to us in our connection to heaven and the Lord. We find our way back to God through our connection with others, inside and out.
Swedenborg often writes of the importance of physical embodiment, and likewise of the literal level of scripture, how the outermost level serves as a necessary foundation for spiritual growth and relationship with God. And I hear him saying in these passages about reflection that this outermost boundary is important because it is the means, the platform, for reflection: “that which is animated by the Lord in a person is the very thing which makes it seem as though it were from himself. That man does not live from himself is an eternal truth; yet if he did not appear to do so he could not possibly live at all” (Arcana Coelestia 1712). You may have heard the line, “God’s center is everywhere and his circumference nowhere” but how much does that matter if we are not aware of it? The pleasure, the bliss of it is in our ability for reflection. We have the pleasure of being points of reflection within this infinity. In Divine Love and Wisdom Swedenborg writes that “God is the sum and substance of the universe” (198). With this being the case then it stands to reason that each of our lives, with the muck and mess of our unique outer selves, has all the requisite ingredients for connection to the Divine.
As you go about your day, consider that reflection from your particular vantage point, whatever your circumstances, is the beauty and fulfillment of the “divine in-dwelling” (as I’ve often heard Richard Rohr call it). This is the hope of any spiritual contemplation—that our connection to these expansive concepts, when we return to our day-to-day moments, has the power to aerate the soil of our lives.
Chelsea is a writer of poetry and prose, songs and social commentary, with over thirty years of experience in existing; a few of her pieces can be watched here and several can be read here. She is fascinated especially by embodied spiritual life—how we support and engage the life of the spirit through our life and experience in the physical body and world. This interest has led her through a career in massage therapy, training in and ongoing study of yoga practice and philosophy, a degree in English and Biology from Bryn Athyn College, and it sustains in her a ceaseless appetite for studying the works of Emanuel Swedenborg and the sacred texts of the world’s religions, particularly those of Christianity and Hinduism. She works part time as a social media moderator for the Swedenborg Foundation and as a freelance editor. She lives with her husband and three children in Willow Grove, PA.