Durga

"Be good. Do good."

“Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Do not repeat them in the future.”
- Swami Sivananda [1887-1963]

tight weld

A closed society is one in which an individual’s role and function can theoretically never be changed, as in the traditional Hindu caste system.

“Watering a man without breaking caste rules. For an Untouchable, a member of the lowest Hindu social class, the rules are many, with prohibitions on everything from physical contact with higher castes to drinking from central village wells.” Image source: Maynard Owen Williams, National Geographic

Rishis

Image by Pasug.

According to Hindu belief, inspired ancient sages, known as Rishis, heard the Vedas - the poetic scripture that comprise the foundation of Hinduism - directly from the Gods.

"The Hindu religion doesn't have one specific founder. The foundation of Hinduism is that there is one God who appears in many ways."

- Shankaracharya Swami, Sadhana Ashram

Houses of Dying

Image source here.

Varanasi on the Ganges River is the most sacred site in India; where creation started and where the world and time will end.

If you die here the Hindu god Shiva will release you from samsara - the painful, eternal birth, death and rebirth cycle on earth so that you will achieve moksha or enlightenment.

 

Scientologist Afterlife

Isaac Hayes's death spurs a discussion of the Scientologist afterlife:

His soul will be "born again into the flesh of another body," as the Scientology Press Office's FAQ puts it. The actual details of how that rebirth occurs is not fully understood by church outsiders, but some core beliefs of Scientology are that every human being is really an immortal spiritual being known as a thetan and that the "meat bodies" we inhabit are merely vessels we shed upon death. (Members of the elite church cadre known as Sea Org, for example, sign contracts that pledge a billion years of service throughout successive lives.)

Further,

Unlike religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, in which reincarnation functions as a kind of justice system—i.e., an individual's behavior in one life determines the caliber of the next—rebirth in Scientology is a more mechanical process.