8325. Thou shalt bring them in. That this signifies elevation, is evident from the signification of "bringing in," when to heaven, as being elevation. It is said "elevation," because before the outward sight of spirits heaven is on high, and before the inner sight, such as is that of the angels, heaven is within; for everything internal in the other life is presented representatively as above, and everything external as beneath, consequently heaven appears above, and hell beneath (n. 2148, 3084, 4599, 5146); for it is states of truth and of good, and in the opposite sense, states of falsity and of evil, which are represented in the other life by means of heights and depths; in a word, which are represented by means of distances and places (n. 2625, 2837, 3356, 3387, 4321, 4882, 5605, 7381).
[2] From this experience alone it can be concluded with what difficulty the natural man apprehends spiritual things, consequently those things which are of heaven. What natural man can comprehend that there are no spaces and times in heaven; but instead thereof states; namely, states of good, or states of being, instead of spaces; and states of truth, or states of coming-forth, instead of times? Will not the merely natural man believe that there is absolute emptiness and nothingness where there are no time and space? From this it is evident that if the natural man concludes in himself that nothing is to be believed except what he apprehends, he then casts himself into enormous errors. As the case is with spaces and times, so also it is with many other things; as for example, the natural man must needs fall into phantasy about the Divine, when he thinks from time about what the Divine was doing before the creation of the world, that is, what It had done from eternity till then; nor can he be extricated from this knot until the ideas of time and of space are removed. When the angels think about this eternity, they never think about it from time, but from state.
[3] In the other life there appear two statues, partly of flesh and partly of stone, placed at the boundary of the created universe, in front toward the left; and it is said of them that they swallow those who think about what the Divine was doing from eternity until It created the world. This swallowing represents that as the man cannot think except from space and time, he cannot from himself extricate himself therefrom; but he can do so from the Divine, which is effected either by the dispersal of this thought, or by the removal of the ideas of time.