HEAVEN

the dwelling place of God, gods, or other spiritual beings and the abode or state of being of the saved, the elect, or the blessed in the afterlife or in the time after the Last Judgment. The term also designates the celestial sphere or spheres in contrast to the earth (the dwelling place of man) and to the underworld (the abode of the damned), often called hell (q.v.). As celestial space, heaven also is the place of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars, all of which give and symbolize light, a quality of the sacred and the good, as opposed to darkness, the quality of the underworld and evil. The concept of heaven is interpreted in various ways in the different religions of the world. In the Old Testament heaven is regarded as the abode of Yahweh, the God of the Israelites; because he also is heaven's creator, he transcends the celestial sphere. Until the 3rd-2nd century BC, Israelites generally did not view heaven as the abode of those who died but rather believed that all men (good and evil) slept in Sheol, the underworld, which was a place of neither pain nor pleasure, punishment nor reward. In later Judaism, however, heaven came to be viewed as the postmortem destination of the righteous, who would be resurrected to live with God. Christianity, coming out of this matrix of Judaism, viewed heaven as the destination of the true believers and followers of Christ. Some of the more recent interpretations view heaven symbolically as a state of life with Christ, rather than as a place to which the elect or the saved go after death. Islam, influenced by Judaism and Christianity, views heaven as a place of joy and bliss to which faithful Muslims go, according to the will of Allah (God). In the Qur'an, the Islamic scriptures, there are references to the belief that everyone must go through or pass by hell before reaching heaven. In the Eastern religions, concepts of heaven vary considerably, some being similar to Western religious views and others being very dissimilar. The Chinese Heaven (T'ien; q.v.) is the guardian of the moral laws of man and the physical laws of nature. T'ien also is synonymous with the divine will. In some Mahayana (Greater Vehicle) Buddhist sects, such as the Pure Land sect, heaven is a "Western Paradise" for those who have received the saving grace of Amitabha, a buddha (enlightened one) who vowed to save all living creatures. Orthodox Buddhists, especially those of the Theravada (Way of the Elders), do not usually speak of heaven, but rather of Nirvana, the state of existence in which there is an extinction of desires. In Hinduism there are many and varied concepts of heaven. Worshippers of Vishnu, the Preserver, for example, believe that they will go to a heaven in which there is no suffering, fear, or death and that they will be able to live in the glory of Vishnu's eternal light.