Paths of spirituality - simplified
What is the gist of all spiritual scripture? What is the reduced, simple and direct instructions given? Here I summarise them. Feel free to offer your rebuttal.
Krishna himself ultimately says, "Just surrender to Me. Keep your mind, buddhi, and karmas on Me. I will take care of your liberation. Worry not!"The entire corpus of bhakti literature boils down to exactly this: one lovingly surrenders to their ishtadevata, to some ideal or ideology, and commits fully — because in doing so, they find happiness.
Similarly, the entire dhyana and yoga literature essentially says: "Manage your lifestyle to be conducive and serene. Sit still. Breathe. Focus. Observe. Dissolve."
The jnana path says: "Keep questioning and inquiring. Keep trying to get to the source of all phenomena — thoughts, emotions, reactions, activity, substance."
And karma yoga says: "Keep the tenets of dharma — the rules and code of conduct — in mind. Know your role in life and circumstance, and follow it even if it brings pleasure or pain to oneself, because it is simply the right thing to do." An aid to living this way is to hold no expectations from any external object or person — that is, to start from a place of contentment within oneself.
Everything else in the moksha shastras, in my humble opinion, is a matter of detail. Eventually, one naturally feels the strongest pull toward one of these paths.
On where the Moksha Shastras actually apply
"Why should I even believe or follow any of this?" Good and valid question!
When one wishes to know about things beyond the mundane material world, one explores those answers in spirituality. The moksha shastras are said to hold value precisely because they speak to atindriya vishaya — matters beyond the reach of the senses. For aindriya vishaya — things within sensory and empirical experience — the shastras are not the relevant pramana. For those domains, science, psychology, humanism, morality, and similar frameworks are the appropriate tools.
Only after exhausting these, if one still remains dissatisfied, should one look toward the atindriya realm — simply to explore. It is at that point that the shastras may serve as a guide.
This is my understanding.
