By Julia Fernandes

Marriage is seriously heavenly business – is what I can sum up after reading Love in Marriage or Conjugal Love - a translation of Emanuel Swedenborg's the Sensible Joy in Married Love, and the Foolish Pleasures of Illicit Love.

It’s a treasure trove of deep wisdom revealing what real love ought to be between a husband and wife from a heavenly perspective. It talks of the fascinating dynamics between a husband and wife in the heavenly realms.

The whole book has one line of wisdom constant – that TRUE MARRIED LOVE is an INTERNAL UNION – of souls and minds. It’s deep and lasting.

Even though this book was written in the 17th century, its relevance and light can guide us even today in our life and relationships.

All knowledge is sacred and should always be approached with a certain level of respect and reverence as well as with an open mind – willing to learn.

Do read this book and share the link of this book with anyone who is genuinely interested in creating and building a meaningful and spiritually fulfilling marriage.

You can read and download the book from here.

https://swedenborg.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/SF_LoveinMarriage.pdf

Reproduced below are some quotes from Emanuel Swedenborg book: Conjugal Love

Woman

Woman was created from Man hence the inclination to reunite with what she was first part of.

Man and woman

God took the beauty, grace and refinement of life from man and assigned it to the woman, so without a reunion with life's beauty and refinement in a woman, a man is wild, rigid, dry, and repulsive.

Women are not created beautiful for themselves but for men-to soften up men's own harshness, mellow their serious intellects, and warm their cold hearts.

Women are born loves

Women are born loves, while the men they unite themselves with to be loved in return are receivers. Also, love is always at it. It is like heat, flame, and fire, which go out if their activity is shut off. This is why wives' inclination to unite themselves with men is constant and perpetual.

Pairs for married love are born

All the joys of heaven well up from the joys of married love like sweet waters pour out of a flowing spring. This is why it is provided that the pairs for married love are born.

They become One

When God first allows a man and woman’s path to cross, they both feel marriage take fire in their hearts, and they can tell that she is his and he is hers.

For love meets love and makes itself known and joins both souls together at once, and then their minds join, and from there it goes into their heart, and this is how it becomes a complete love.

It joins them together more every day, to the point where they are not two anymore, but just like one.

Real married love - marriage of one man with one wife

Real married love is a union of souls, minds joined together, a drive to join together in their breasts leading to a drive to join bodily.

Real married love joins the minds and hearts of two together, uniting with friendship. It towers above all other kinds of friendship - just as this love is the love of loves, this friendship is also the friendship of friendships.

The attributes of this love are innocence, peace, tranquility, deep friendship, full confidence, and a desire in heart and soul to do everything good for each other.

And from all these things come blessedness, happiness, joy, passion, and from the eternal enjoyment of these, heavenly bliss.

These things are not to be had in any way except in a marriage of one man with one wife.

Marital love

Conjugal love is the parent of all other loves & friendship of friendships.

Respect marital love and its heavenly delights.

When you love only your wife, the love is concentrated. It stays strong, is steady, and lasts, because it is on a high plane.

Levels of married love

In heaven we call the highest level of the mind heavenly, the middle level spiritual, and the lowest natural.

The highest part where the turtledoves entered represents the highest level of the mind, where married love resides in the love of good and its wisdom.

The middle part, where the birds of paradise entered, represents the middle level, where married love resides in love of truth with its intelligence.

And the lowest part, where the swans entered, represents the lowest level of the mind, where married love resides in the love of what is just and right with its knowledge.

The pair of turtledoves stands for married love in the highest level,

The pair of birds of paradise stands for married love in the middle level

The pair of swans stands for married love in the lowest level

Ultimate Freedom

And I have heard from angels that the freedom of true married love is the ultimate freedom, because that is the love of loves.

If Love is forced

Our husbands have told us that the Lord wants a male human being to act in freedom, following reason. Moreover, if love is forced it changes its essence and does not become this kind of love.

United in soul – human completeness

The married have an inner charm in their faces, for the man receives from his wife the beautiful flush of her love, and the wife receives from her husband the sparkling luster of his wisdom, for two married partners there are united in soul.

And more than this, a human completeness appears in both of them.

This is in heaven, because there are no marriages anywhere else. Below heaven, though, there are only civil marriages, which are made and broken.

Married partners

They were a husband and his wife. And they said, “We are married partners. From the first age, called by you the Golden Age, we have lived blessed in heaven; and always in the same flower of youth in which you see us today.”

When I had observed these things they spoke with me again,

And when the husband was speaking he spoke as if at the same time from his wife; and when the wife was speaking she spoke as if at the same time from her husband; for such was the union of minds whence the speech flows.

Then I heard also the tone of voice of conjugal love, that it was inwardly simultaneous with, and also proceeding from, the delights of a state of peace and innocence.

Marriages on Earth

Ordinarily marriages are made with superficial motives, in this world. But without deeper feelings that join the minds together, the marriage ties loosen in the home. Unless inward feelings within the surface ones join the minds together, the marriage ties in the home come untied.

Those who love each other inwardly the mind is in the lead and takes over the body.

Marriages on earth are mainly external

An external perception of love has its cause and origin from such things as pertain to the love of the world and of the body. Wealth and large possessions especially are of the love of the world; and dignities and honors are of the love of the body.

And besides these there are various seductive allurements; such as beauty, and a simulated propriety of manners, sometimes also unchastity.

And moreover, marriages are contracted within the district, city, or village of one’s birth or abode, where there is no choice but such as is restricted and limited to the families that are known, and within these limits, to such as are of corresponding station.

It is for these reasons that marriages entered into in the world are for the most part external and not at the same time internal.

Why sometimes a married couple cannot stay under the same roof?

Nor can two live together in the same house unless they have similarities; and especially married partners cannot, unless they are mutual inclinations. If they are external inclinations and not at the same time internal, the very house or very place separates, rejects, and expels them.

Rejection of married love

The more a person lacks or rejects married love, the more that person is like an animal.

Spiritual source of adultery

Evil loves a lie and wants to unite with it, and that they do join together, too, in the way that good loves a truth and wants to unite with it, and they also join together. This makes it obvious that the spiritual source of adultery is a "marriage" of evil and falsity, just as the spiritual source of marriage is a marriage of good and truth.

On adultery with someone else’s wife

“What is more detestable than to commingle your soul with the soul of a husband in his wife? Do you not know that the soul of a man is in his seed?”

A husband's soul is in his fertility, and so is his inner mind, which connects with the soul.

Love for many partners

The love of the sex is the love for many and with many of the sex; but conjugal love is the love for one and with one only of the sex.

Love for many and with many is a natural love, for it is in common with beasts and birds, and these are natural; while conjugal love is a spiritual love and peculiar and proper to men, because men were created and are therefore born to become spiritual.

Promiscuity does not exist

Love truly conjugal is chaste love.

To this the angelic spirits added: “In heaven they do not know at all what promiscuity is, nor that it exists, nor that it can be. Angels are cold throughout the whole body towards unchaste love, or love outside of marriage; and, on the other hand, they grow warm throughout the whole body from chaste or conjugial love.

As to the men in heaven, all their nerves are unstrung at the sight of a harlot, and grow tense at the sight of a wife.”

Having heard these things the three newcomers asked, “Is there a similar love between married partners in heaven as on earth?”

And the two angelic spirits answered: “It is quite similar.”

“There are no natural offspring, but spiritual offspring.”

And they asked, “What are spiritual offspring?”

They answered, “Through ultimate delights married partners are the more united in the marriage of good and truth, and the marriage of good and truth is the marriage of love and wisdom; and love and wisdom are the offspring which are born of that marriage.

For all who come into heaven return into the springtime of their youth, and into the vigor of that age, and remain so to eternity.

Difference between extramarital love Vs Married love

But the angelic spirits answered them, "Think deeper. Consider and you will see that your sexual love is extramarital love and married love is totally different-as different as wheat from chaff, or rather human from bestial!

If you asked women in heaven what extramarital love is, I assure you that the response would be, 'What's this? What are you saying? How can you let a thing that hurts our ears this way come out of your mouth? How can a person invent a love that was not created?'

"If you asked them what real married love is, I know what the answer would be: that it isn't a love for the other sex but a love for just one member of the other sex.

Marriage under the Lord’s watchful eye

Under the Lord's watchful eye the two are continually being educated for their marriage, both the boy and the girl unaware of it. Then, when the time comes, they meet somewhere as if by fate and see each other.

Right away, as if by some instinct they know that they are partners, and as if from some inner voice the young man thinks to himself, "She's mine," and the young woman thinks to herself, "He's mine."

After this has sunk into both their minds for a few days they decide to speak to each other, and they become engaged.

The angels said "as if by fate," "instinct," and "inner voice" even though that means by Divine Providence-because it seems that way while they are unaware. It is actually the Lord who opens their inner similarities for them to see.

What is heavenly joy?

“It is the delight of doing something that is useful to ourselves and to others; and the delight of use derives its essence from love and its existence from wisdom.

“In heaven, as in the world, there are foods and drinks, there are festive meals and banquets; and with the principal persons there are tables spread with sumptuous delicacies, with choice and delicious viands, wherewith they are exhilarated and refreshed in spirit.

And there are also sports and exhibitions, and entertainments of music and song; and all these in the highest perfection. And such things give them joys, but not happiness.

No inequality in Heaven

In the heavens, there is no inequality of age, rank, or wealth. As to age, all the people there are in the bloom of youth and stay that way forever. As to class, they all regard others according to what useful functions they perform. The more outstanding look on the less eminent people as brothers.

You can learn more about the author and his exemplary works on this link.

https://swedenborg.com/emanuel-swedenborg/

https://swedenborg.com/bookstore/free-ebooks-downloads/