Communication with heaven is not possible until the evils and the falsities therefrom with which the natural mind is stopped up have been removed; for these are like black clouds between the sun and the eye, or like a wall between the light of heaven and the lumen of a candle in a chamber. For so long as a man is in the lumen of the natural man only he is like one shut up in a chamber where he sees by a candle. But as soon as the natural man has been purified from evils and falsities therefrom he is as if he saw through windows in the wall the things of heaven from the light of heaven. For as soon as evils have been removed, the higher mind, which is called the spiritual mind, is opened, and this, viewed in itself, is a type or image of heaven. Through this mind the Lord flows in and enables man to see from the light of heaven, and through this He also reforms and at length regenerates the natural man, and implants in it truths in the place of falsities and goods in the place of evils. This the Lord does through spiritual love, which is a love for truth and good. Man is then placed in the midst between two loves, between the love of evil and the love of good; and when the love of evil recedes the love of good takes its place. The love of evil recedes solely through a life according to the commandments of the Decalogue, that is, through refraining from evils there enumerated because they are sins, and finally shunning them as infernal. In a word, so long as man does not refrain from evils because they are sins the spiritual mind is shut; but as soon as he refrains from evils because they are sins the spiritual mind is opened, and with that mind heaven also. And when heaven is opened man comes into another light in respect to all things of the church, heaven, and eternal life; although so long as man lives in this world the difference between this and the former light is scarcely noticeable, and for the reason that in the world man thinks naturally even about spiritual things, and until he passes from the natural into the spiritual world spiritual things are enclosed in natural ideas; but in the spiritual world spiritual things are disclosed, perceived, and made evident. (A.E., n. 970.) So far as man refrains from evils and shuns and turns away from them as sins, good flows in from the Lord. The good that flows in is an affection for knowing and understanding truths, and an affection for willing and doing goods. But man cannot refrain from evils by shunning and turning away from them of himself, for he himself is in evils from his birth, and thus from nature; and evils cannot of themselves shun evils, for this would be like a man's shunning his own nature, which is impossible; consequently it must be the Lord, who is Divine good and Divine truth, who causes man to shun them.