Some of the religious paths create this fear of hell and heaven that puts people into such a turmoil of guilt and fear that the mind can never calm down. Meditation can never happen. This is very unfortunate. So even though such followers are aspirants, they are not really getting the path.
These people don’t get access to the knowledge: ‘Come on, the mind is like a river, what are you holding on to? Don’t hold on to it. All the events are gone, drop it and move on. Live in the present moment‘. This knowledge is not available to many people (who aspire to walk the spiritual path). They go on repenting about the past, feeling guilty, and the mind becomes a mess.
Of course they do pray. Their prayers do help, and they get some blessings. Blessings come to everyone, no doubt, but the knowledge, the right path and liberation remains a distant dream for them. Peace does not happen in their life. They sit with the hope that one day they will go to heaven. And so these souls get trapped with desires and fear.
They got a human life to be free from all this. So they will have to come back again to work out all these things. Again they will get into meditation.
So, a human birth, desire for a path, and the path being available to them (Maha Purusha Sannidho: getting a Spiritual Master), these three things are rare and difficult to get. If you have all three, you are lucky.