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Hinduism: What is Nirvana?

Have you ever considered dying? Have you ever thought about an afterlife? Have you ever been curious about reincarnation? Well, these three aspects are all addressed in the Hinduism belief of Nirvana. A huge discussion piece of all philosophy is death. People want to know about the unknown so they hypothesize and from this stems different beliefs. 

"Just as a man discards worn out clothes and puts on new clothes, the soul discards worn out bodies and wears new ones." 

~Bhagavad Gita 

In this second installment, I am going to talk about Nirvana and its importance to the Hinduism religion. Nirvana, also called moksha, is the reconnection with Brahman. Brahman is believed to be the god of hindu traditon and the universal soul. The quote above is from the Bhagavad Gita which is an important ancient Indian text associated with Hinduism. As this quote shows, Hinduism believes in reincarnation. The happening of many births and many deaths until the soul reaches perfection then it reconnects with its source. The theory is that the soul must live many lives and come to peace with many things before it may reach divinity. Hinduism believes in a cycle. You are born, you die, you are reborn and this is all governed by Karma and how your previous life was lived. This is called the Samsara. Worldwide, these philosophies have approximately 900 million followers. Overall, the Hinduist philosophy has 6 schools of thought. There names are The Nyaya,The Vaiseshika,The Sankhya,The Yoga (which you can see in my other installment), The Purva Mimamsa,and The Vedanta. These are all different ways of achieving the same goal. They are meant to suit different people of different temperaments so many people can find their way. Whichever path one may chose to take, whether the yoga or the nyaya or any other path, they are all working to achieve the goal of eternal bliss through the removal of ignorance. This internal bliss is found in Nirvana. 

"There is only one truth, only men describe it in         different ways"     

          ~Vedas 

In conclusion, Hinduism is about rebirth and a renewed life with a continuous soul. It is widely supported and has many other branches. As the first book of Hinduism says, "There is only one truth, only men describe it in different ways".