Originally Posted by
syzygy
What if you imagine Heaven and Hell not as 'places' in the sense of physical space, but rather as spiritual 'tendencies'?
Heaven is the movement towards God and Hell is the sense of movement away from God. These movements exist only relative to their limits and only in a sense of 'becoming', whereas God 'exists' infinitely, eternally as Being. From the perspective of Being, if one may use the expression, there is no duality - it is understood as One. When viewed from a limited perspective, such as the human perspective, however, Being is experienced as becoming and everything that is included in that particular mode of existence.
This duality of Heaven/Hell, Light/Darkness, Knowledge/Ignorance, etc. produces a graded 'expanse' within which exists manifestation - or rather, it is 'Creation' that contains the potential for all possible manifestations within given sets of limits. Creation is inherently a movement 'away' from God, but only relative to that which believes itself to be moving.
What is so special about humans is that we have access to both points of view - we are experiencing the world of becoming, but we can also realize within ourselves the stillness of Being, freed from the constantly changing world of the senses. It is up to us individually to focus on our center, because nothing outside of us will permanently change the perspective for us. It must also be a fully conscious effort, and not fall to the temptations of immediate gratification that our present culture so often promotes.
When this center is established within, we become freed from the incessant desires that are ignorantly followed, and become fully conscious of our actions, knowing that they are an expression of a higher source.