If you're talking about the opposite of hell, that heaven and saying it's not so much a physical location, here is my biggest problem with that.  If heaven begins or increases because of something changing in your heart, how could Jesus leave heaven? 

There is so much talk and controversy surrounding Heaven/Hell. I, personally, think that is how God wants it to be. He likes that none of us know the depths....No one is exactly sure what/where Heaven is...I mean, sure....we have the basics. Like you said, a love of Jesus and watching out for evil/Satan will help us on our way. I actually really like having questions about Heaven. It gives me something to think about, and in a way, it brings God and I closer. I always pray for more information on Heaven, and my prayers are answered. Whether it be something as simple as a new Bible verse to contimplate or as complex as looking at one of God's creations in a different way...they are always answered.The fact that it is a mystery, a book that none of us know the end to, a road that goes into eternity, a loving relationship with my savior...it is definately worth having questions for.

Come to my blog "Heaven and Hell and Some Bible Facts" and read the rest of what the following is an excerpt:

Some of you seem to think the aim of God's salvation is to die and go to heaven.  Recorded in several places Jesus says, "Heaven and earth shall pass away:  but my words shall not pass away." (Mk 13:31, Lk 21:33)  What will you do if you die and heaven is not there?  How Scripture uses the word ought to be looked at more closely.

     The word "heaven" is slightly more than half the time plural in Scripture.  The commentaries like to explain it with a Latin term to sound like they know what they're talking about.  They say the plural "heavens" is majestis pluralis, meaning plural only to communicate the exceeding glory of heaven.  In reality there are three (3) heavens, (2 Co 12:2) corresponding to the dimensions of spirit (where peculiarly God's presence is), soul (psychic realm,) and body (the heaven of earth's atmosphere to the distant galaxies.)  Jesus has passed through all the heavens (Hb 4:14) and rests up over all in the right of the Great All-Togetherness upon High (Hb 1:3.)  While we are joined to Him there in ascension, we are undergoing a process with His Spirit sharing the same body in union with Him down into death and through resurrection to come into the demonstration of ascension.

     When I bring up God when talking to strangers, whether believer or not, they usually change the subject to Ethics, "Do you think such and such is a sin?"  It seems there is some prior commitment that functions as a veil to keep out the unworthy that is seen in the common misconception that the aim or purpose of those in whom the light has shined is to die and go, not to "hell," but to heaven.  Progress toward our actual aim is in process whether we recognize it or not, regardless of what we do or not.  When accurately taught, "The rudimentary elements of the oracles of God" (Hb 5:12,) what functionally is our, "Foundation" (Hb 6:1,) we realize our aim is to not die, but live; and, to enter, not a place, but a state of being that corresponds to the Divine nature (1 Co 3:11.)  The apostle Paul (in Phillipians 3) described his aim:  "If by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead..." (v.3) "I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus..." (v.14) " For our citizenship is in heaven; whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:  who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself." (v.19-21)  Resurrection followed by ascension is actually the at the finish of the race we are in.

      The container Christ is a vessel of another form than that of Adam.  Acknowledging a fact does not have the same effect on our personality as being formed through experience with the interrelatedness of that fact in our system of values.  While it can be accelerated by special emissaries from God, what each of go through is for Christ, Who is the Image and Glory of God, to be fully formed in us, (Ga 4:19) to undergo metamorphosis from Adam (homo sapiens) into Christ (homo novae,) (1 Co 15:45-49) that is, from beastly man of flesh into freely expressing all Jesus is and does---corporately when we gather as well as individually---no longer defined as a short-lived individual soul in a dirt husk subject to gravity and limited perception, but in another multidimensional deathless vessel of myriad living forms: all-knowing, all-powerfull and everywhere.  Our immediate development is out of everything destroying man by going through the cross into wholeness and health, liberation, enlightenment and abundance.  We are ultimately destined to enforce through love this blissful glory in all the universe.

---James