PARADISE
What is Paradise? All things that are. For all things are good
and pleasant, and may therefore fitly be called Paradise. It is also said, that
Paradise is an outer court of heaven. In the same way, this world is truly an
outer court of the eternal, or of eternity; and this is specially true of any
temporal things or creatures which manifest the Eternal or remind us of
eternity; for the creatures are a guide and path to God and eternity. Thus the
world is an outer court of eternity, and therefore it may well be called a
Paradise, for so indeed it is. And in this Paradise all things are lawful except
one tree and its fruit. That is to say, of all things that exist, nothing is
forbidden or contrary to God, except one thing only. That one thing is
self-will, or to will otherwise than as the eternal Will would have it. Remember
this. For God says to Adam (that is, to every man) "Whatever thou art, or doest,
or leavest undone, or whatever happens, is lawful if it be done for the sake of
and according to My will, and not according to thy will. But all that is done
from thy will is contrary to the eternal Will." Not that everything which is so
done is in itself contrary to the eternal Will, but in so far as it is done from
a different will, or otherwise than from the Eternal and Divine Will. l.
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