125. Because the zones are reflections of the angels' differing degrees of reception of love and wisdom, something must be said about the differences which produce that appearance.
The Lord is in an angel, and an angel in the Lord, as we showed in a previous discussion. 1 But because the Lord as the sun appears to be at a distance from the angel, it appears as well that the Lord sees him from the sun, and that he sees the Lord in the sun, almost as in the case of an image seen in a mirror.
Consequently if we are to speak in terms of that appearance, then the case is as follows, that the Lord sees and gazes upon every angel as being directly before Him, but that the angels do not thus see and gaze upon the Lord in return. Those who are in a state of love toward the Lord from the Lord see Him straight ahead of them. Therefore they are in the east and west. But those who are more in a state of wisdom see the Lord off to the right, and those who are not so much in a state of wisdom off to the left. Therefore they are respectively in the north and south.
[2] The latter see the Lord at an angle to one side for the reason that love and wisdom emanate from the Lord conjointly, but they are not received conjointly by the angels, as we also said above; 2 and wisdom that outpaces love appears indeed to be wisdom, but still it is not, because wisdom outpacing love does not have in it any life from love.
This makes apparent the reason for the diversity of reception which causes the abodes of angels to appear in different zones in the spiritual world.
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