The primacy goal of Vaishnavites is videhamukti, disembodied liberation-attainable only after death-when the small self realizes union with God Vishnu's body as a part of him, yet maintains its pure individual personality. God's transcendent being is a celestial form residing in the city of vaikantha, the home of all eternal values and perfection, where the soul joins hims when liberated. Soul do not share in God's all-pervasiveness or power to create.
Most Vaishnavities believe that religion is the performance of bhakti sadhanas, and that man can communicate with and receive the grace of Lord Vishnu who manifest through the temple Deity, or idol. The path of Karma yoga and jnana yoga leads to bhakti yoga. Through total self-surrender, called prapatti, to lord Vishnu, liberation from samsara is attained. Vaishnavities consider the moksha of the advaita philosophies a lesser attainment, preferring instead the bliss of eternal devotion. There are differing categories of souls with attain to different level of permanent release, callled salokya, "likeness" to God; and sayujya, "union" with God. Jivanmukti exists only in the case of great soul who leave their place in heaven to make birth and later return.
There is one school of Vaishnavishm, founded by Vallabhacharya, which takes an entirely different views of moksha. It teaches that, upon liberation, the soul, though its insight into truth revealed by virtue of perfect devotion, recovers divine qualities suppressed previously and becomes one with God, in identical essence, though the soul remains a part, and god whole. This is described by the analogy of sparks is suing from a fire.
Swami Prakasanand Saraswati of the International Society of Divine Love, Texas, offers a Vaishnava view, "Liberation from maya and the karma is only possible after the divine vision of God. Thus, sincere longing for his vision is the only way to receive his grace and liberation.
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