A word is worth a billion pictures

A picture is said to be worth a thousand words, but how many pictures is a word worth?

_______________________

A word when read or heard will form an image in the mind of the listener or reader. Rarely do we find two people sharing the same image.

This is because each individual has his or her own unique perspective on everything. These perspectives exist within the reality they have created for themselves.  For example take the word 'love', it will form a different image in each individual's mind because of their own unique reality.

We share this planet with billions of people, therefore each word can potentially translate into billions of images. Harmony between people can only be achieved if people are willing to accept that different people and communities have different realities. Openness and  engagement 
allows us to broaden, deepen and makes vibrant our individual perspectives.

Wise and evolved individuals are dangerous for exploitive leaders. They want just obedient zombies. Smart enough to work hard and stupid enough to willingly accept orders and norms blindly. 

So leaders and exploiters depend on authority, so that their brand of reality is imposed on the mind of followers and potential followers. Thus the individual's natural or original reality is distorted or suppressed.

That is why the first phase of creating followers is generating mass discipline by indoctrination. This is used by priests, social leaders and parents. They give each one of us our prime reality. Subsequently formal school and college teachers impose on us our secondary reality. This is why all political parties and organised religions have such a keen interest in mass education. The younger the mind the more virgin it will be, and easier to implant their preferred perspectives on pure minds.

This is why Albert Einstein observed, "Few are those that think with their own minds and feel with their own hearts."

Once indoctrination is complete, most people enter a stage of stupor and stay that way. Now their given realities are reinforced by suitable laws, norms and the use of communication media. 
In such a society that we have now come to live in, individuals are generally unhappy but are intellectually and spiritually too weak to dare make or even think of making any changes. They often live frustrated, hypocritical, shallow lives and will one die within these given realities. But who cares? Definitely not the leaders and definitely not the new mass of docile sheep lining up for the slaughter.

This struggle between leaders and individuals goes on. The leaders want to impose reality where as the individual seeks to discover and experience their own reality.

All it needs for an individual soul to break free from these artificial realities, is a trigger. 
Several factors can act as triggers, extreme failure, or success, new information from other non traditional sources from the outside of the controls of leaders who dominate our reality. Stimulus can come from reading, travel, engaging with people who have different perspectives, listening to others, or encountering true and good teachers. All these can jolt people awake from their given realities and they start to see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

This is why so many restrictions are imposed by the power authorities on engaging or mixing with other people, travel, etc. They seek to keep people on the straight and narrow path laid out for people to follow.

The fortunate ones with the help of genuine teachers learn to courageously experience, evolve and create their own true reality.  The true teacher can be a parent or a master or even a stranger. He or she is not is not someone who draws you to them or a dogma, He or she is someone who draws you towards yourself.

These blessed people live fulfilling lives. Rich or poor, successful careers or not, they will be contented, tolerant, friendly, peaceful, and compassionate.

__________

There is another dangerous side of awakening. 
History is full of scientists, artists, teachers, saints, prophets, gurus,  who have been tortured and killed because they dared to espouse new and different ideas and perspectives. Anyone who dares to express a reality other than the commonly accepted reality is sought to be destroyed. The worst offenders who seek to destroy are whose power is challenged by new ideas and perspectives. Most common destroyers being governments, organised religions, and professional organisations, etc. in short all those who are politically structured and govern others.

This is why many people who actually awaken pretend to remain asleep, for they have not the courage to show their own picture, their own reality.