Moksha vs Nirvana

Moksha V.S. Nirvana
“My interpretation can only be as inerrant as I am, and that's good to keep in mind.”
-Rachel Held Evans Everyone struggles to find perfect happiness, however most differ in the path that they choose. Hinduism and Buddhism have many of the same elements, which both come from similar cultural and religious beliefs. Although they are not exactly the same, the end result or goal is: to reach a state of bliss or liberation, or the "release from the finitude that restricts us from the limitless being, consciousness, and bliss our hearts desire." (The World's 21) This concept of liberation is one of the distinguishing features throughout Buddhism and Hinduism and is exhibited through the concepts of moksha and nirvana, however, moksha appears slightly more accurate. According to Dictionary.com moksha is technically described as freedom from the differentiated, temporal, and mortal world of ordinary experience. Moksha is basically the Hinduism ultimate liberation which is considered the goal of human life. Henceforth, moksha is the liberation of the soul from the cycles of birth and death. Moksha is when the causal body is destroyed and achieves everlasting bliss in the worship of God. It is only through the grace of God that one’s self is dissolved and moksha is achieved. To achieve moksha one must work towards it through prayer and the practice of yoga. Therefore this process of getting to moksha or nirvana is much longer and requires long term discipline throughout one's life. In this lies the main difference between moksha and nirvana. Nirvana is mainly associated with Buddhism but is originated from Hinduism and is not much different from Moksha, as they are fundamentally the same concepts. The word nirvana comes from the root meaning 'to blow out' and refers to extinguishing, "not transitively, but as a fire ceases to draw." (113) From this notion it has "been widely supposed that the extinction to which Buddhism points is complete, total annihilation." This extinguishment is not literally interpreted or understood as a literal extinction of someone, but more so thought of as passing into another kind of existence by extinguishing of the fires of greed, hatred and delusion; it is interpreted metaphorically. Essentially to achieve nirvana one must give up all materialistic, emotional, and psychological things. In this state one goes beyond the conception of time and space. When these emotional and psychological abuses are destroyed by enlightenment, the mind becomes free and at death one is no longer subject to rebirth. By achieving nirvana, one escapes samsara, the cycle of reincarnation. As mentioned earlier, moksha is mainly achieved through meditation and yoga over time whereas nirvana is achieved through an almost immediate enlightenment and cleanse of all materialistic possessions and materialistic emotions. It seems that moksha is more accurate because in order to achieve something generally one needs to work for it, it is not something that one just comes upon. But then again it is very hard to just give up all material things at one time in order to reach a state of enlightenment, instead of gradually working towards it. It really seems that it depends more so on the type of person one is before one decides which one is more accurate. In fact it seems hard to even make an unbiased decision as to which one is more accurate because they have the same goal; both just go about it in different ways which basically means that the decision of accuracy falls to the individuals beliefs. I believe that these two concepts are almost too similar to choose between one, it really comes down to the individual and their beliefs. The ways to achieve nirvana and moksha are different, but fundamentally both come upon the same ending point. It comes down to what works for the individual and what path is best for them on an individual basis. The quote about interpretation actually portrays this, because it essentially comes down to how one perceives and interprets these two similar concepts. However, nirvana seems easier than moksha since moksha is more of an intensive lifelong commitment but to reach nirvana you have to give up all materialistic objects and emotions. I personally believe that nirvana would be the best path for me because it is a very clear view of what one needs to accomplish while seeking enlightenment.