LATE BLOOMER

We are all late bloomers, insofar as the Atman in each of us is a late bloomer.  This is to say, it can take  many lifetimes over many eons for the Atman to at last awaken. 

This may not be literally lifetimes and eons, as philosopher Alan Watts pointed out.  The lifetimes may be the innumerable intervals of a typical individual life, for example, the school years, the child-rearing years, the career years, the retirement years, and so on.  Each of these intervals has a beginning, middle, and end, like any good story, like any good life. 

But then again it could just as feasibly be literally lifetimes and eons, covering your lives as a rock, many rocks, as a moth, many moths, as a frog, many frogs, as a horse, many horses, and then as a human, many lives as a human. 

Or it could be a combination of the two.