Basic beliefs, values, and practices:
- The one all-pervasive supreme being is both immanent and transcendent, both supra-personal and the highest person (God), who can be worshipped as both Father and Mother of the universe.
- The universe undergoes endless cycles of creation, preservation, and dissolution. All souls are evolving and progressing toward union with god, and everyone will ultimately attain salvation/liberation.
- Karma is the moral and physical law of cause and effect by which each individual creates one's own future destiny by accepting responsibility and accountability for one's own thoughts, words, and actions.
- Four aims or goals are arranged hierarchally:
- the joy cluster
- the economic and social fufillment cluster
- the morality cluster
- the spiritual goal of salvation/liberation
- Each individual passes through several stages in his/her journey through life. The four classical stages are:
- the student
- the house-holder
- reti-rement to the woods for spiritual pursuits
- renunciation (optional)
- Divine aspects and elements of God, the "presence," are invoked through ritual symbolism and prayers in consecrated images and icons for purposes of worship. God also "descends" periodically, in incarnations and historical personalities such as Rama and Krishna.
- All life is sacred, and is to be loved and revered through practices of nonviolence.
- No particular religion (including Hinduism) teaches the only exclusive way to God and salvation above all others.