Way to live life: A hindu perspective...

When one hears the word Hindu or Hinduism, a series of thoughts and pictures flows through the mind. Strikingly colorful temples, deities adorned with extravagant costumes, jewelery, lamps, incense, gods with multiple limbs, head of animals, towering high gopuras and so on like an endless ocean of never ending imagination.Today there are more than a billion followers of this ideology majority of them in India, Nepal, Cambodia, Bhutan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Srilanka and Fiji.
              The beginning of this thought process is unknown to mankind. The first recorded manuscripts of the Veda date back to 1500 BC.  Unlike modern world religions, Hinduism does not have a founder. Through the generations its was more like a way of living a righteous life which evolved within itself. The ancient texts of Vedas are believed to be derived by the Aryans. Aryans were nomadic people of warrior class who settled down at the banks of river Ganges and Indus. The practice of worship of Siva can be dated back to the Indus Valley civilization and in the cities of Mohejo-Daro and Harappa. The coins with Pashupati being embossed on them severs the purpose of proof for this theory.
          The Holy Vedas are the prime text in which the ideas, thought process and cosmic truths and laws were describes in forms of Hymns having a specific and well developed pattern of word usage. The Vedas are the prime texts from which all the other Upanishads and Puranas have been derived from. Hinduism has a strong belief in the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. This cycle continue until the soul has met with the karma or the cosmic purpose of itself and then unite with the supreme being.
A human life is divided in four  ashramas or life stages and accordingly his duties as described by the cosmic law are structurally well defined for each ashrama. The and foremost ashrama is called the Brahmacharya. During this period of life one is in his learnig period. He lives under his Guru or teacher to learn about life, his duties as a human being. After this learning period, a man enters into his Grihasta ashrama. He gets married, has children and becomes a family man. He looks after his family, provides his children with the knowledge he gained during his Brahmacharya. Then he moves on to Vanaprastha. the period of life he starts detachment to worldly things, his family and starts visiting holy places, learns advance satva of the supreme being thus preparing himself for the final ashrama called Sanyasa. In this final ashrama he learns about the attainment of moksha or salvation. he finds himself nearer to god and prepares for the end of this present life.
Unlike other religious beliefs, after death the mortal remains are cremated with specific rituals and chanting of hymns. One of the explanation of such a ritual is that according to hindu beliefs, all living beings are basically constituted of the five elements of universe i.e. Fire (Agni), Air (Vayu), Earth (Bhumi), Water (Jal) and Ether (Aakash). During cremation the mortal remains are being offered to Agni, the smoke and water vapour ore offerd to Vayu and Jal, some residual gases escape to the sky and the ash to Bhumi. All these elements are disintegrated to the basic elements and returned to them. Also to be noted that Aatma or soul sould take a new mortal form in which all five elements are integrated again.