Being kind to a stranger would give the person good Karma, while being cruel to an animal would be bad Karma. Karma can also cause good or bad things to happen to a person during their life on Earth. What are the cultural and societal influences that have made Hinduism vital to the region in which it originated?

Hinduism is so important to Indian culture because it is so old, dating back 5,000 years. The most important scriptures for the Hindu religion, the Bhagavad Gita, or Song of the Lord, dates back to 3,000 BC. It teaches that devotion to God is the highest level of worship. Because God is everywhere around the person, anything the person does, if done with devotion to God, pleases God. This caused the religion to infuse every day life

Explain the desire for liberation from earthly existence.

The highest goal for a Hindu is for its soul to learn all the Earthly lessons it needs to learn, completing all the reincarnations necessary to achieve that goal, and be released from moksha, or the cycle of reincarnation. When a soul reaches this high state, it is united with Brahma. This can take many reincarnations and makes it important for each Hindu to strive to learn all he or she can, and to worship God and act in ways pleasing to God, so the soul can move forward to this liberation (Atkinson, 2003)....

They must avoid negative emotions such as envy, greed and hatred. The Hindu religion provides several paths for a person to follow as he or she strives to lead a life closer to Brahman. One way is to use meditation, or Jnana-yoga, to gain insight to the truth and to move beyond attachments to material goods and the concrete life. Karma-yoga, or self-realization, is attained by dedicating what one does in everyday life to God (Atkinson, 2003). Bhakti-yoga, focuses on living a life of pure love of God. This requires daily worship, which included daily worship, offerings, and prayer. The Hindu view this approach as "God-centered" in that anything they do is done for God and not for the individual performing them (Atkinson, 2003). These multiple paths emphasize the Hindu belief that there is no one way to achieve release from moksha.
Bibliography

Atkinson, Glennis. 2003. "Basic Hindu Beliefs." The Hutchinson Encyclopedia, 2003.

Subramuniyaswami, Satguru Sivaya. 2000. "Nine Questions: Hinduism, with its ritual and philosophical richness, naturally arouses questions from curious non-Hindus.…