While the different cultures may have varied cultural teachings, there is always a tendency to share similar basic principles with respect to one's mortality. Most traditions contain ideas about life and the soul; notions about the afterlife also reflect common human concerns about the meaning of life. As such, it is supposed to teach man something about the journey of the soul, morality, and life beyond physical mortality.
Almost all cultures have a common belief that the soul is immortal or it survives death. In Hinduism, the soul is believed eternal and can only be liberated through spiritual growth and moral life until which the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth continues. Buddhism also emphasizes this cycle but focuses on gaining knowledge to break free from this cyclic process. This is accepted in both traditions, that the karma, or morality, of actions performed in past lives affects the development of the soul.
A somewhat different outlook is given by Chinese Taoism. Taoists teach that life and death are part of the Tao, or the basic flow of the universe. It is in this cosmic continuum that the soul forms a part of it, and death is but a natural transition stage rather than an end, according to the Taoists. This would give emphasis on living harmoniously with the Tao and its precepts in order for one to transcend smoothly through the cycle of life and death.
In Shinto, the native Japanese spirituality, life and death are part of natural inter-relations. Shinto does not focus on the afterlife but instead is concerned with harmony with the deceased kami spirits of their ancestors.
Rituals and sacrifices keep the dead honored and their souls passive in positive ways on behalf of the living. Such practices display a far more cyclical view of life, in which the dead are integral to the ongoing life of human society.
Mostly practiced in Iraq, Yazidism originally came from ancient Zoroastrian and ancient Mesopotamian religions. The Yazidis believe in a divine figure called Melek Taus, the angel peacock who oversees the soul's journey. Yazidiism believes in the spiritual examination of souls and their purification. For Yazidis, the afterlife is not of everlasting reward or punishment; it consists of a series of spiritual challenges through which the soul is purified for eventual reunion with the divine.
While most religions lean toward the belief that life, in some form, extends beyond death, details vary from religion to religion. These differences revolve around what such meanings of travel by the soul, the afterlife, and moral implications of human behavior stand for. Ideas within the religions also derive from the geography and location of the main religious center. These beliefs, either in rebirth, spiritual transformation, or living according to universal principles, are deemed one common pursuit of man in understanding life beyond physical death and the continuity of the soul.
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