heaven (n.)\ˈhe-vən\the place where God lives and where good people go after they die according to some religions. Old English heofon "home of God," earlier "sky, firmament," probably from Proto-Germanic *hibin-, dissimilated from *himin- (cognates Low German heben, Old Norse himinn, Gothic himins, Old Frisian himul, Dutch hemel, German Himmel "heaven, sky"), perhaps from a PIE root *kem- "to cover" (also proposed as the source of chemise). [Watkins derives it elaborately from PIE *ak- "sharp" via *akman- "stone, sharp stone," then "stony vault of heaven"]. Plural use in sense of "sky" is probably from Ptolemaic theory of space composed of many spheres, but it also formerly was used in the same sense as the singular in Biblical language, as a translation of Hebrew plural shamayim. Heaven-sent (adj.) attested from 1640s.
hell (n.)\ˈhel\ the place where the devil lives and where evil people go after they die according to some religions Old English hel, helle, "nether world, abode of the dead, infernal regions," from Proto-Germanic *haljo "the underworld" (cognates: f. Old Frisian helle, Dutch hel, Old Norse hel, German Hölle, Gothic halja "hell") "the underworld," literally "concealed place" (compare Old Norse hellir "cave, cavern"), from PIE *kel- (2) "to cover, conceal" (see cell).
The English word may be in part from Old Norse Hel (from Proto-Germanic *halija "one who covers up or hides something"), in Norse mythology the name of Loki's daughter, who rules over the evil dead in Niflheim, the lowest of all worlds (nifl "mist"). Transfer of a pagan concept and word to a Christian idiom. In Middle English, also of the Limbus Patrum, place where the Patriarchs, Prophets, etc. awaited the Atonement. Used in the KJV for Old Testament Hebrew Sheol and New Testament Greek Hades, Gehenna. Used figuratively for "state of misery, any bad experience" since at least late 14c. As an expression of disgust, etc., first recorded 1670s. Expression Hell in a handbasket is attested by 1867, in a context implying use from a few years before, and the notion of going to Heaven in a handbasket is from 1853, with a sense of "easy passage" to the destination. Hell or high water (1874) apparently is a variation of between the devil and the deep blue sea. To wish someone would go to hell is in Shakespeare ("Merchant of Venice"). Snowball's chance in hell "no chance" is from 1931; till hell freezes over "never" is from 1832. To ride hell for leather is from 1889, originally with reference to riding on horseback. Hell on wheels is said to be from 1843 in DAS; popularity dates from 1869 in reference to the temporary workers' towns along the U.S. transcontinental railroad and their vices.
From as far back as the time when Shamanic paths were the only sort of spirituality known to man there have been concepts of different worlds, planes or realities, aside from the obvious one that is seen on the Physical Plane through the human's eyes. Shamans were always trained to contact that which we know as Spirit, and to travel inwardly to gain inner experience and wisdom about medicinal plants that could be used for the health of the tribe, as well as spiritual matters, and as one grew, he was initiated through the various cycles and planes until it was possible for that person to become his tribe's spiritual leader, not only interpreting signs for the benefit of the tribe, but also in guiding them in the world and often through a number of significant challenges. The shaman knew that these challenges caused the spiritual growth of the individuals in the tribe. The generally looked at the world as being in three parts, the highest, what is now considered to be heaven, the middle which is the earth plane, and the underworld, where animal and nature spirits could be consulted for the wisdom that could be had.
Over time the concepts of various areas or planes developed more thoroughly. Native shamanic paths were the root of all spiritual and religious beliefs, regardless of what continent they were occurring. To them the underworld was not necessarily a dark and scary place, but rather had a reason and purpose within the whole for existing. Over the centuries, as greater degrees of mystic experience were achieved, those that had them would propagate something of an upgrade to the form of spirituality that was prevalent at the time, a greater degree of development and overall understanding of the whole would be brought continually forward for the benefit of mankind. History cannot conclusively state where the first belief in a heaven and a hell began, but it is likely that these concepts began either in ancient Khemet (Egypt) or Persia. While most of the world began spirituality from a shamanic path, it is likely that the next development acknowledged the female ability to give birth as many theistic systems had a creation story that had the world beginning from a holy or cosmic mother figure, and then next could be seen what became pantheistic tendencies, although this does not prove that any group failed to recognize that there was one Creator that had multiples of traits or qualities that were often given a name and worshipped as individual entities.
The timetable of history has now been provably turned on its head as far as civilizations are concerned. Sumer is no longer the actual cradle of civilization since the discovery of archeological evidence that the city of Jericho has been continually inhabited for at least 10,000 years, beginning with hunter/gatherer peoples. In Turkey the temple of Göbekli Tepe is thought to be the first megalithic temple structure built by mankind, also hunter/gatherer groups dates to 11,000 years BCE. Sunken cities off the western coast of India are dated to be at least from 7500 BCE but are thought by some to potentially be 12,000 years old. So any of these cultural centers obviously pushes the date back much further than was previously thought.
Each spiritual tradition around the globe had its own names for heaven and hell, as well as for the Absolute and the lower form that formed a basic duality. In ancient Egypt Aaru (the field of reeds) was heaven, and Duat (or Tuat) was consistent with the idea of an underworld, but never did have any one consistent meaning or interpretation to compare it to Hell. The Soul would be tested before being allowed to enter Aaru to live with the gods, and if it failed the test it would be eaten by Ammit. They had no place where Souls were punished or tortured for eternity. Zoroastrianism is thought to be the first path that specified the possibility of an evil Soul being sent to a place for eternal punishment for Its actions, and likewise a good Soul would spent Its eternity in a heaven. Both of these early paths had a definite influence upon the Abrahamic faiths that came along later with their individual concepts of Heaven and Hell.
In Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism, hell is named Naraka, and is always a place of an appropriate recompense for the actions performed during a lifetime. In these cases, all of which include both karma and reincarnation, the punishments are never eternal as each Soul would need to be continually reborn until It earns Its freedom from the cycles of Samsara, at which time It may either remain in a perfect realm for eternity, or be reborn as a Saint, Prophet or Master so as to aid other Souls in accomplishing the return to their true home. On the other side of the dichotomy, the heavenly realms in a majority of the Eastern paths are most often split into various planes or levels that also relate to specific states of consciousness as opposed to being just one place or area. Some of the Abrahamic faiths do indeed detail specific and differing areas but none go into as much detail on these as many of the Eastern paths do.
In Judaism there can be found more than one perception of a Hell. First is Sheol, which is a pit or dark place that all dead go. A later interpretation is a place called Gehinnom, where the Soul basically has any negative "stains" that It acquired during Its life on earth laundered to cleanse It before It is admitted to Olam Ha-Ba (the World to Come) which is one version of a perceived Heaven. Another is called Gan Eden, which is a Heavenly Garden of Eden where the Soul can continue Its existence in a realm of splendor as Adam and Eve did in the beginning. These are generally seen as places where the Soul exists, disembodied, until the time of the coming of the Mosiach when each will be bodily resurrected for the final days. In Kabbalistic tradition can be found many instances of conscious travel out of body to various heavenly realms. Going along with this is the image of the Tree of Life, used in Judaism as well as many branches of later Christianity and Islam. This is a sort of diagram of the planes of existence and there are many dissenting points of view as to how accurate any of them are or are not. This is a form of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, as it was seen by the Norse peoples.
In what was to become Christianity,there were first of all a great many Apocryphal texts, and some of these outline not only various layers of Heaven, but also of Hell. In some are outlined up to fourteen planes which correspond directly to the cosmology of a later Indian path called Sant Mat by Sant Tulsi Sahib, and this is echoed today by Eckankar's plane structure. The Catholic Church obviously had historically the widest influence of spreading the ideas of Heaven and Hell to European and Asian societies. Islam calls Hell Jahannam or Hār. This is much like the Christian concept of hell as a place of eternal torture. Jahannam has seven gates and levels, each being for a different sort of sinner. Islam calls Heaven or Paradise Jannah which in Arabic means "Garden" showing Its relation to the Jewish concept of Heaven, as well as an idea that also had a great importance to the Persian mindset as kings had kept gardens for this reason in Persia. This is also directly related to the peoples of Sheba or Saba, which is found on the southernmost shores of the Arab Peninsula in present day Yemen, that were known historically to actually keep two garden paradises in their lands that were fed by irrigation, this being much of the reason that in this dry area of the world the idea of a rich garden equated to a Heavenly Paradise in the minds of the populace.
Sufism, while being considered firmly under the area of Islam was actually begun by Zarathustra's first students and has been carried down through the centuries later using Islam as a camouflage, but with its universal tendencies and interpretations of God's way, is able to rise beyond the fundamentalism that often develops within religions. Much like its other Eastern equivalents, it considers varying planes and states of consciousness at least as far as the first realm that lies outside of duality, what in Eckankar is called the Atma Lok or Soul Plane. This enters the concept of Heaven in that this area is the first that can truly be considered Heaven. The other planes that lie below it, while being finer than the physical plane, and therefore often considered a Heaven by many religions, is not beyond duality and because of this contains not only positive places and levels within it, but also those that would be considered as negative, the home to demons or jinn.
From the Astral Plane, up through the Causal Plane, and the Mental and Etheric Planes, are found constant states of dualism, none of which are entirely pure. This means that the form of God that one finds here will often claim to be the Creator, but is not in any way the Godhead. This individual can be considered as Lucifer or Satan, and just as easily as Jehuva, the dual god, the Negative Pole or the Demiurge. This being the case there are also demons that exist on each of these lower planes that act as his agents by trying to overcome the Souls that reach these states of consciousness by endlessly challenging and testing them. This testing is the Negative Pole's purpose, to refine and constantly challenge that Soul's state of awareness in Its lower forms.
As one that is embodied physically often finds as they progress spiritually, they can often come under attack by these entities. As irritating and uncomfortable as this can often be, it still serves the purpose of developing a true state of love in the individual. It also demonstrates very clearly that there are several levels to the negative entities that we may come across as we progress. When an ECKist is a Second Initiate, they have the initiation of the Astral Plane, so they may find themselves having to learn how to protect against their influence, the same being the case with the Third Initiation, which is of the Causal Plane, or the Fourth Initiation, that of the Mental Plane. Astral negative entities will tend to use the emotions against a person, Causal ones might use memories of unpleasant things that they find will aide them, whereas Mental negative entities can use any number of mental situations or states of potential confusion to cause problems for an initiate, going forward into the Etheric or Sub-conscious Plane, which is included within the Fourth Initiation.
The majority of earthly religions fail to notice that they're addressing a dualistic "God", and so they continue to place importance on rituals that in their opinions, that god demands. For reasons such as this these that are believed to be God exist no higher than the Mental Plane as do their "heavens". As was said before, this sort of god is both what many humans consider erroneously to be their Godhead, and at the same time is the Negative Principle which is nothing more than the Universal Mind. Very few spiritual paths make any distinction between the psychic planes in the lower worlds and the purely spiritual planes that exist beyond matter, energy, space and time. This alone causes one of the greatest misunderstandings about death and "heaven". A Soul cannot be free of karma and reincarnation until it has passed beyond the dualistic limits of the lower planes, and this passage must be directly earned by re-balancing their karmic account. Only after moving beyond these things is true sainthood earned, and the first true Heaven realized and experienced. And in this world can be found the True Creator God, the first manifestation of the Godhead, in an area that the lower polarization cannot access, nor can any of its servants whether they be demons or angels. Both exist on the lower planes, but neither have any true access to God, by whatever name. Those entities must first go through the same process of expansion of awareness to develop any ability to rise into the non-dual planes and become Self-Realized, and it is this very detail that proves the actual importance of each physical embodiment. This gives Soul the opportunity to directly bring the rounds of birth, death and rebirth to an end.
One final point that cannot be left unsaid on the subject of the subjective views of Heaven and Hell is this: If one's path does not include steps to accept responsibility for the karma that one has created, in this life and in all past incarnations, then that path or way will be unable to carry Soul beyond the confines of Samsara, or karma and reincarnation. So often when an individual reaches the end of their physical life, that Soul is then able to see more clearly the ills they have thought, spoken and done that prevent them from being able to rise to any higher level. The cry of such Souls is always great, but they have no effect on any of the authorities concerned in these matters. Nor does it matter if one is so thoroughly invested in a path that cannot accomplish what it promises, even if this is not seen to be the case until after it is too late to do anything about it. That Soul will always be sent to re-balance the debt they created by acts of their own free will. It is in this specific area that Dharma becomes of great import, as living a just life, despite the various challenges that may be faced, is the right course of action and will help to prevent being karmically bound to any particular situation in the afterlife. It is literally true that one creates their afterlife just as they create the circumstances of their physical incarnations, that both can be either a "Heaven" or a "Hell", depending on how the individual sees things. And each does indeed have a choice in the matter.