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."
Andkarma yogasays: "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.
Mฤyฤmahฤแนญhaganฤซ ham jฤnฤซ “Mฤyฤ — I have known her, the great trickster!”
Kabir begins not with explanation but with recognition — a confession born of insight. Mฤyฤ is no abstract concept here; she is a living presence, the eternal deceiver who beguiles gods and men alike.
She struts with a noose in her hands — of the three guแนas — and speaks in honeyed tones.
Mฤyฤ wields the noose of the Trigunฤแธฅ — sattva, rajas, and tamas — the three strands of nature that bind all beings to life, pleasure, and delusion. Her words are sweet, her traps invisible. She entices through pleasure, through the promise of joy — and yet her embrace is the prelude to bondage. Even virtue (sattva), when clung to, becomes her snare.
She sits as Kamalฤ with Keshava, as Bhavฤnฤซ in the house of ลiva.
Even the gods are not beyond her grasp. For Viแนฃแนu, Mฤyฤ becomes Lakแนฃmฤซ — the energy of sustenance, attachment to harmony and beauty. For ลiva, she is Pฤrvatฤซ — the power of creation itself, drawing the ascetic into the play of the world. For Brahmฤ, she becomes Sarasvatฤซ — the voice of knowledge that gives birth to all manifestation.
Thus even the deities who govern the universe are, in Kabir’s vision, bound by their own energies — unable to transcend the very roles Mฤyฤ assigns them. Mฤyฤ is not the consort of God; she is His condition.
For the scholar, she appears as the idol; for the pilgrim, as sacred water.To the intellectual, she becomes form — the comfort of definition, doctrine, and text.To the pilgrim, she appears as place — holy cities, rivers, and rituals. The mind clings to what can be seen and touched, never realizing that the very desire to locate God outside oneself is Mฤyฤ’s most ingenious snare. Even piety can be bondage when mistaken for truth.
For the yogi she sits as the yoginฤซ; for the king, as his queen.
For the ascetic, she comes as distraction — as thought, memory, or vision. For the ruler, she is power, possession, and pride. Both are equally ensnared: one in subtle desire, the other in overt control. Mฤyฤ adapts herself to every temperament, appearing as exactly that which the seeker most values.
For some she sits in diamonds; for others, in seashells.
Mฤyฤ’s genius lies in relativity — she gives value to the valueless. In the material mind, she becomes greed; in the superstitious mind, faith in talismans and omens. She thrives on the illusion of importance — on the endless pursuit of more — turning both the gem and the shell into tokens of desire.
She becomes devotion for the devotee, Sarasvatฤซ for Brahmฤ.
Even bhakti and jรฑฤna, says Kabir, are not beyond her play. The devotee’s attachment to divine love, the scholar’s pride in divine knowledge — both are her ornaments. When even love becomes possession and wisdom becomes identity, Mฤyฤ has won again.
Says Kabir, listen, O seeker — this is the story that cannot be told.
And so Kabir closes where he began — in mystery. Mฤyฤ, the cosmic trickster, is not merely illusion; she is the medium through which Truth hides and reveals itself.She is play (lฤซlฤ) and bondage (bandhana), both. Even this understanding — Kabir warns — may itself be Mฤyฤ’s final snare.
Hence, the poem ends in the only language that can transcend Mฤyฤ — silence.This seemingly simple song — a catalogue of divine consorts — is, in truth, a map of consciousness. To the ascetic, it is a warning against sensual distraction. To the advaitin, it is an exposition of ignorance (avidyฤ). To the ลฤkta, it is a hymn to the manifold forms of the Mother. To Kabir, it is all these and beyond — the unsaid story (akathkahฤnฤซ) — where Mฤyฤ is neither enemy nor goddess but the mirror of the mind itself.Mฤyฤ is not out there; she is the “seer’s own shadow.”When the seer turns fully inward — when he stops chasing form, meaning, or even liberation — Mฤyฤ ceases to trick, and simply dances.
