Following is the Aranya Kanda essense that I tried summarizing from Guruji Sree Bhashyam Appalacharya swamiji's Ramayana pravachanam.
Aranya kanda is considered to be the moksha kanda. It begins and ends with two rakshasa characters namely, Viradha and Kabandha. In between Lord Rama kills 14000 rakshasas and also three people get mokham namely, 1) Sharabhanga Maharshi 2) Jatayu 3) Shabari.
Viradha sanskrit meanings is some opposite meaning to aradhana. When Rama, Lakshmana and Sita are walking in the jungle, this Viradha comes and pulls and takes control of Sita devi and says: "She is my wife". This is what all we say that this body and atma is mine and identify it with the 'I' (Mother Sita is analogous to Jeevatma which belongs only to Paramatma). But Jeevathma belongs to paramatma and we out of ignorance we claim that as ours and commit all sorts of sins in our life to give pleasures to this ephemeral body. When Rama and Lakshmana try to kill him, Viradha says, he can not be killed by arrows, but only have to buried. This is analogous to ours materialistic desires never end. Then Rama and laksmana dig a pit and bury him in that and press hard with their legs on the pit so that he will not come back. This is analogous to our materialistic desires can only be conquered by pushing/pressing hard with Rama paadam which is full of thorns and turned reddish (because of his journey in aranya without wearing padukas). Only that reddish, Rama padam with full of thorns can only eliminate our materialistic desires and give us bhakthi, Gnaanam and Vairagyams. Hence we should seek Rama's anugraham to conquer our indriya vyamohas by doing sharanaagathi.
Sharabhanga Maharshi is a great sage. Just before Lord Rama, Sita Devi and Lakshmana arrive to his ashram, Indra deva comes to sharabhanga maharshi's ashrama and welcomes him to swargam (becoz of sharabhanga maharshi's great tapas). But sharabhanga says I will come only after seeing Lord Rama, Sita Devi and Lakshmana. When they arrive, Sharabhanga dedicates all his tapas, yagnas, yagna phalams to Lord Rama and leaves his body and attains moksham. This is the Karma Yoga. What ever tapas, yagnas, yagna phalas he got , he dedicated all those to Rama (In vishnu sahasra namas, meaning of one of the names of Lord is: He is the one who is doing yagnam, he is the one who gives Yagna phalam and He himself is the very process of Yagnam). Maharshi sharabhanga realized this and attained moksham.
Jataayu injures his body severly fighting with Ravana for rescuing mother Sita who is so dear to Rama till his last breath and in that process Rama gives him Moksham.
Shabhari is a desciple of Matanga Maharshi's desciples. She has great Guru bhakthi and she has great vishwasam(trust) in guru vaakyam. Her gurus told her to wait till Lord Rama comes to meet her. They did not tell when will he come and she also did not ask how long she has to wait. She simply followed what her gurus said. For 13 years she waited for Rama without giving a second thought on their guru's words. This way, all 13 years, she was thinking about Rama expecting him to come to her ashram. Finally he came and she gave aathithyam and left her material body and attained moksham. She does not have great tapas or yoga shakthi etc. But she has vishwasam on her guru's words and because of that great quality, she attained moksham. Her guru bhakthi is her major strength.
What we can learn from these three incidents is: 1) We should do all our deeds thinking that it is god's will and dedicate all our karma phalams to the Lord without expecting benefits from it and that can lead us to moksham 2) We should use our body for spiritual enlightment and serving god related activities. 3) We should have trust and devotion on our Gurus (Unquestionable trust on our gurus)
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