The stages of spiritual development and qualification of a spiritual seeker

[Anirban657]

Please read the article by clicking on the link

https://www.swami-krishnananda.org/spiritual.life/spiritual_13.html

"What is required is not the length of time of practice, the duration of the hours of our sessions in meditation, but the intensity of the longing—tīvra saṁvegā. As Patanjali Maharishi puts it in one of his sutras, tīvra saṁvegānām āsannaḥ (Yoga Sutras I.21): “It is near to those who are intense in their burning longing for it.” The only qualification of the spiritual seeker is wanting it, mumukshutva. Seek, and you shall find it."

Can one go through all these stages in one lifetime? Or is the above quote the only factor that needs to be considered in the spiritual path? 

Please comment. Thank you!!

[ground]

The concept of "development stages" is deeply engrained in ordinary worldly minds and that is why it is mostly taught this way. Otherwise the matter would hardly be accessible. So it is a skillful way of teaching. But all models of "development stages" offered by spiritual teachers are just models, i.e. possibilities. Individuals are too different and so are their individual stages.

What certainly is important is focus and perseverance and patience. Some say that the basis must be faith others say that certainty based on rational analysis is more important than faith. Actually there are these two traits: bias towards faith and/or bias towards rational analysis. Different people different biases.

Basically every spiritual journey can be summarized under three headings: view, path and fruition. One cultivates a view. One integrates this view with practices and finally the result/fruition will reveal itself.

One can also speak of ground, path and result: The ground is already primordially present. The path serves to reveal that ground, not to create something new, and the result is the ground being fully and irreversibly manifest. So actually there is no difference between ground and result. And since the path arises from the ground and can only arise from the ground it is also not inherently different from the ground either.
Having said that it turns out that if you practice you have already "attained" the result. If you don't practice you have in some sense already "attained" the result, too (because the ground is primordially present) but since there is no awareness of the ground if you do not practice delusions make themselves felt as if being independently real or true.

 

[Anirban657]

@ground Yes I feel like you are saying the right thing.