Reply #3: There are two major schools of thought [View All]

[demwing]

and then countless divisions within these schools.

Basically, there is one school that has a personal view of God. God is a person, or a personality, from which all other personalities emanate. The other view is that God is impersonal, or devoid of personality, and exists as an energy source.

In both schools, the goal of life is to escape from the cycle of birth and death (reincarnation) through one of a variety of types of yoga systems. One is caught in this cycle by the laws of karma, which operate as a universal system of balance - you get back what you put in.

Those who live for a materialistic life are rewarded with the type of body appropriate to life such a life. Those who li8ve a spiritual life will eventually reduce their karmic debt and gain release from the material body and the cycle of birth and death.

Sin is negative materialism, nothing more.

The main difference between the schools is the goal - either one gains a personal, blissfull, and eternal relationship with the supreme, or one blisfully merges with the supreme and loses all sense of identity.

Thats hundrends of scriptuures and thousands of years nutshelled, to the best of my ability.