“While trekking, as I thought of Enlightenment being our Birth-right, I tried to recall all the famous enlightened people. Do you know that nearly all enlightened people experienced CeLiberation before the age of forty? Buddha was 32, Christ was 33, Guru Nanak was 35, and Prophet Mohammed was about 40. And our living examples in AoOa, Vivek was 39, Aruna is still not 35, DJ was 33 when he experienced enlightenment 12 years ago. We can ask Nutsy at what age he experienced CeLiberation, but I can bet that it must have been before he was forty,” asserted Ishan.

“Hurry up Matt, your days are numbered,” Sharika teased, and everyone burst into a roaring laughter.

“Come on, I’m just 34,” protested Matt. He was the oldest of the Buddies. “Haven’t you heard Vivek say that ‘Enlightenment takes not seven days, or seven minutes, or even seven seconds!’ It might happen any moment! But Ishan’s observation is correct. Could there be any neurological basis for this age limit, CC?” he queried.

“Perhaps after the age of forty our intellectual abilities begin to decline, and our brain too starts losing its flexibility. And enlightenment requires one to be at the peak of performance, intellectually and emotionally,” CC suggested. “Yes, it all depends on how long our brains remain plastic and malleable,” Rashmi observed. “Thanks to neoteny, our childhood is prolonged and we retain childhood features, including brain plasticity, till middle age and even beyond.”