The awakened individual often finds themselves at odds with their fellows.  The world speaks of reasons to be afraid, they see a chance to love.  The world demands revenge (labeled as justice), they find reason to forgive.  Where there is hatred and intolerance, they choose kindness.  The gentle heart is but a sheep surrounded by wolves.

The words of the enlightened commonly fall on deaf ears.  Should you remain silent?  Jesus gave us the answer.  Your holy words will not be appreciated by dogs (the animalistic barbarians who rule the world through force).  Your pearls of wisdom will be trampled underneath the feet of swine (those who seek their sustenance from the depths of materiality).  Add to this the possibility that they will turn and rend you (use your words against you) and silence appears to be a reasonable choice.

Rejoice.  There is a light shining through the manifest darkness of the world.  Perhaps you have felt the warmth of its touch.  You will not see it shining down upon the Earth from the heavens above.  You will find it in the eyes of your brothers and sisters.  It is the light of Spirit, without which nothing would exist.  Before you can find it, you must look.  Before you can see it in another, you must find it within yourself.

Enlightenment comes to the open heart through an open mind.  It may arrive in the blink of an eye or at a pace so gradual that you barely notice, until one day you understand that which you have never learned.  Words of truth are pointless to the uninitiated.  Love is ineffectual to the mind ruled by logic.

The enlightened individual must be deemed insane when measured against the established authorities of the world.  Yet the world has no jurisdiction over Spirit.  In the end it will matter little how much we have accomplished in the world.  We will stand naked before the mirror of ourself.  The false will pass away.  Only the truth within us will remain.  Our reflection will show us what?  An empty shell or a fulfilled being?

These words are neither true nor false.  Truth lives within us.  Spirit awakens within us.  Awaken.