What is the Difference? Hinduism

HINDUISM

The word Hinduism comes from the Indus River, which flows through what is now Pakistan.

Hinduism is not really one religion, but many religions that interact and blend with one another. There is no known founder of Hinduism, no creedal statements of faith to sign and no agreed-upon authority. In fact, one can be a good Hindu and believe in one god, many gods or no gods at all.

There are two foundational assumptions that almost all Hindus believe without questions:

REINCARNATION
Reincarnation is the belief that the atman, a person’s uncreated and eternal soul, must repeatedly be recycled into the world in different bodies. In some forms of Hinduism, souls may be reincarnated as animals, plants or even inanimate objects. Reincarnation is the process that takes the Hindu through the great wheel of “samsara”, the thousands or millions of lives (all full of suffering) that each atman must endure before reaching “moksha” (liberation from suffering and union with the infinite).

KARMA
Karma (action) has to do with the law of cause and effect. For the Hindu, karma means merit or demerit, which attaches to one’s atman (soul) according to how one lives one’s life. Karma from past lives effects a person’s present life, and karma from this life will determine a person’s station in the next life.

For Hindus, the great spiritual challenge is that the soul, or atman, is separated from Brahma (Ultimate Reality) and trapped in samsara, the seemingly endless process of being reincarnated over and over. Moksha, which is the liberation from samsara and reunion with Brahma, is the goal.

Hindus do not believe in a personal, loving God, but in Brahma, a formless, abstract, eternal being without attributes, who was the beginning of all things. They believe that Jesus is not God but just one of many incarnations, or avatars, of Vishnu.

Hindus call sin “utter illusion” because they believe all material reality is illusory. They seek deliverance from samsara, the endless cycle of death and rebirth, through union with Brahma, which is achieved through devotion, meditation, good works and self-control.