Is Enlightenment Birthright Of Everybody?

Image Courtesy: Kingston Sunset of Lenny K Photography

From the series of questions answered on Quora.
Enlightenment is not a birthright. You cannot demand enlightenment. Yes it is true only few individuals reach enlightenment. It is said, that 1 in a 10 million there is an enlightened individual. In spirituality or any spiritual authority you will read about, they all say that only enlightened beings can recognize other enlightened beings. According to spirituality, there are four stages or states, a person or human is considered to be in all the time:

1. “Sansari“( or worldly person): These are the people who are in highest numbers. They have no desire to follow the guru, they are superficially happy, but they have incredible desires for materialistic things. Now that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t go after materialistic desires, it just mean that you don’t get lost into it, because that will eventually cause you a lot of suffering.  “Sansari” despise any kind of spiritual teaching, or Guru or any thing related to that. They are in majority out of 7 billion.
2. “Jigyaasu“(or The Curious one): The Jigyaasu are the ones who show some interest in Spirituality, they are the ones who are kind of curious about it, hence the term Jigyaasu(which means the curious one in english). There odds are like 1 in 10,000.
3. “Saadhu“(a Heretic): he/she is aware of the teachings about spirituality and have started to walk the path. They are continuously practicing what they have learned from their Guru. They are definitely are in even rarer number than the Jigyaasu.
4. “Sant“( an enlightened being or Saint): He/she is the one who has reached the final stage. They practiced what the Gurus told them. And passed all the tests laid out in front of them. And they are in total Bliss or have found inner peace or happiness. They don’t have any fear of death.  And they are the ones who are 1 in a 10 million in this world.

There are even higher stages than sainthood too. But it is out of the scope of the reader. We’ll probably share it some other time.

Thank you for reading.