164. However, as this is a truth (arcanum) of angelic wisdom it cannot be comprehended by man unless his spiritual mind has been opened; for such a man, by virtue of his conjunction with the Lord, is an angel. Such a man may comprehend the following from what has already been stated:
1. All, men and angels alike, are in the Lord and the Lord is in them according to their conjunction with Him, or, what is the same, according to their reception of love and wisdom from Him.
2. Each of these has a place appointed in the Lord, thus in heaven, according to the nature of this conjunction or reception of Him.
3. Each one in his own place has his state distinct from the state of others; and draws his portion from the common stock according to his position, his function and his need, precisely as each part does in the human body.
4. Everyone is initiated into his place by the Lord according to his life.
5. Everyone from infancy is introduced into that Divine Man whose soul and life is the Lord; and in the Lord, not outside Him, he is led and taught from His Divine Love according to His Divine Wisdom. But as freedom is not taken away from man, he can be led and taught only in the measure that he receives love and wisdom as of himself.
6. Those who receive are conducted to their places through an infinite maze of winding paths, much as the chyle is carried through the mesentery and the lacteal vessels to its cistern,* and from this through the thoracic duct into the blood, and so to its own place.
7. Those who do not receive are separated from those who are within the Divine Man, as excrement and urine are separated from man.
These are interior truths of heavenly wisdom which man can in some measure comprehend; but there are many more which he cannot.
* Cisterna or receptaculum chyli, occasionally called the abdominal cistern.