Buddhism
The Hindu beliefs of karma and reincarnation and the concept of release from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth as an ultimate goal were the basics of Buddha’s teachings on the afterlife. According to Buddha what kept a being in the birth death and rebirth cycle was desire or a craving for something in the world. To reach the ultimate goal and be released from the cycle of birth death and rebirth a person would have to get rid of any desire for that something in the world. In the Buddhist religion this freedom from desires is known as Nirvana. Nirvana means the blowing out of a flame, extinction. As a flame is blown out it is free just as one is free from all desires when Nirvana is reached. Buddha’s addition to the already established beliefs of karma and reincarnation was his theory stated in his doctrine of “anatta.” Anatta is the belief that a person does not posses an eternal soul.