It is to be observed that man is altogether such as he is in respect to his interiors, and not such as he is in respect to his exteriors separate from his interiors. The reason is, that the interiors belong to his spirit, and the life of man is the life of his spirit; for the body lives from the spirit. Therefore also such as a man is as to his interiors, such he remains to eternity.
But since his exteriors belong also to the body, they are separated after death; and those of them which adhere to the spirit are laid asleep, and only serve as a plane for the interiors, as was shown above in treating of the memory of man which remains after death. Hence it is evident what really belongs to man, and what is not properly his own; namely, with the wicked all those things which belong to the exterior thought from which they speak, and to the exterior will from which they act, are not properly theirs, but those things which belong to their interior thought and will.
OPENING OF THE BOOK OF LIFE.
When the first state is passed through, which is the state of the exteriors treated of in the preceding chapter, the man-spirit is let into the state of his interiors, or into the state of his interior will and the thought thence proceeding, in which he had been in the world, when, being left to himself, he thought
