For so many years I have heard about this wise man named Confucius. Now I am understanding more who this man really was. Confucius spent most of his life looking to find a solution to Chinas problems of disorder. He never found such a solution. His followers after his death compiled all of his sayings and teachings and put them together into the Analects. Confucius said things such as, "if the ruler is not a ruler, the subject not a subject, the father not a father, the son not a son, then even if there be grain, would i get to eat it?" Little bitts of knowledge and wisdom like this made people think deep and outside the box. People heard  his words and felt enlightened and better for them. I feel that the longer it had been for these sayings to age the more they made sense to Chinas people and the more that they shed light on what they were acknowledging in life. Confucius saw education as the key to moral betterment.

     Hinduism based their fundamental beliefs on the human soul. The end goal was liberation. A great example from the text was, "a bubble in a glass of water breaking through the surface and becoming one with the surrounding atmosphere. To achieve this was no easy task. It took many lifetimes. The cycle of rebirth and reincarnation were the basis of breaking to the surface of liberation. Karma dictated ones good and ones bad. To be born into a higher caste, one would have proven to lived a full life with absolute good karma. This would earn them another better reincarnated life and another chance to prove their worth. The should would then have to reach elite karma in order to continue on in this extreme cycle. A person that has poor karma may be left stagnant in their life and be reborn into the caste that they are currently in or they may be demoted a caste and must continue to work at achieving good karma. Lifetimes may papa and pass with the hope to end the pain of rebirth. Three paths to this ultimate liberation were: knowledge or study, detached action in the world, doing ones work without regard to consequences or passionate devotion to one god or deity. This sounds like an absolutely tiring process though the ultimate prize I'm sure seems to be so worth it.