The Rarity of Human Birth in sanātana dharma

A guru who is a realised being and totally selfless, an ocean of compassion and ever ready to help the seeker realise the truth, is placed even above Gods is what we learnt in the last article. However, a good teacher without a good student would not be of much consequence. A guru’s wisdom finds fulfilment when it meets with the untiring efforts of an earnest seeker. Who is an earnest seeker? Who is eligible to know his divinity and how? This is the subject of discussion in this article.

sanātana dharma proclaims that of all the species born on earth, human birth is the rarest and the most sacred as it is only through a human birth that one can realise one’s divinity. Sri Adi Shankaracharya in his work vivekacūḍāmaṇi, the highest treatise on discrimination, begins his discourse by saying – ‘jantūnāṁ narajanma durlabham’ – of all the creatures, human birth is the rarest. He goes on to say that rarer still is mumukṣutva, the  desire  to  realise  one’s  divinity,  and  rarest  is  to  find  the  company  of  a realised soul – mahāpuruṣa-saṁśraya. While it may not be a surprise that human birth is one of the best births that one can have on this earth, as compared to the plant or animal species, most would imagine that it is so due to the several abilities that distinguish humans from other species. For instance, the ability to walk on two legs, speak several languages, have a very developed intellect, being able to invent and innovate and so on. But our scriptures call it the rarest and most difficult to receive, not because of the physical, mental or intellectual capacities, but the spiritual potential hidden in every human to be able to realise his or her divine nature.

We know by now that the fundamental tenet in sanātana dharma is that ‘all is divine’, animate and inanimate. However, the ability and opportunity to realise one’s divinity is given only to humans and not to other species. Yogically it is due to the ‘erect spine’ that humans are  endowed with, which is a must to perform yogic practises to experience the higher truth of divinity, but more importantly it is due to the inherent potential in terms of ‘self-enquiry’ and thereafter ‘directed efforts’ to realise one’s divinity which makes homosapiens special. One may argue that on this planet, inhabited by over 7.8 billion humans who seem to grow in numbers year after year, human birth does not seem to be a rare phenomenon or difficult to have. But one must understand that it’s not just about getting an erect spine, but more importantly developing the desire to realise divinity which is rarer to come by. A human who is only concerned about eating, sleeping, securing and procreating, is no better than an animal and our scriptures call such a human as ‘narapaśu’ or a ‘human equal to animal’. Therefore, humans desirous of divinity are truly rare. Sri Krishna says in the bhagavadgītā that out of thousands of humans only a few develop the desire to know the truth and plod efforts towards that. And out of thousands of those who exert themselves, very few realise the truth. So, to be born a human may not be as rare as to be the seeker of truth, and the rarest would be to realise the truth.