The Hindu Religion  

The Isha Upanishad verses, 1-2, 5-8  

1)The Lord is enshrined in the hearts of all.  
The Lord is the supreme Reality.  
Rejoice in him through renunciation.  
Covet nothing. All belongs to the Lord.  
2)Thus working, may you live a hundred years.  
Thus alone will you work in real freedom.  

.......  

5) The Self seems to move, but is ever still:  
He seems far away, but is ever near.  
He is within all, and he transcends all. 

6) Those who see all creatures in themselves  
And themselves in all creatures know no fear.  

7) Those who see all creatures in themselves  
and themselves in all creatures know no grief.  
How can the multiplicity of life  
Delude the one who sees its unity?  

8) The Self is everywhere. Bright is the Self,  
Indivisible, untouched by sin, wise,  
Immanent and transcendent. He it is  
Who holds the cosmos together. 

The Buddhist Religion  

The Dhammapada  

Chapter 6: The Wise  

If you see a wise man who steers you away from the wrong path, follow him as you would one who can reveal hidden treasures. Only good can come out of it.  

Let him admonish or instruct or restain you from what is wrong. He will be loved by the good but disliked by the bad.  

Make friends with those who are good and true, not with those who are bad and false.  

To follow the Dharma revealed by the noble ones is to live in joy and with a serene mind.  

As irrigators lead water where they want, as archers make their arrows straight, as carpenters carve wood, the wise shape their minds.  

As solid rock cannot be moved by the wind, the wise are not shaken by praise or blame. When they listen to the words of the Dharma, Their minds become calm and clear like the waters of a still lake.  

Good people keep on walking whatever happens. They do not speak vain words and are the same in good fortune and bad. If a person desires neither children nor wealth nor power nor success by unfair means, know him to be good, wise and vitruous.  

Few are those who reach the other shore; most people keep running up and down this shore. But those who follow the dharma, when it has been well taught, will reach the other shore, hard to reach, beyond the power of death.  

They leave darkness behind and follow the light. They give up home and leave pleasure behind. Calling nothing their own, they purify their hearts and rejoice. Well trained in the seven fields of enlightenment, their senses disciplined and free from attachments, they live in freedom, full of light. 

The Taoist Religion  

Tao Te Ching, Chapter 14  

1) Looking for it with your eyes,  
It cannot be seen.  
Straining your ears to hear it,  
It cannot be heard.  
Reaching out to touch it,  
It cannot be felt  
Those things which are beyond the senses,  
They blend into one.  

2) As to this One, its coming up is not light,  
its going down is not darkness.  
Unceasing, unnamable,  
Again it reverts to nothing.  
Therefore it is called the formless form,  
The image of nothing.  
Therefore it is said to be illusive and evasive.  

3) Approaching it, it has no beginning,  
Following after it, it has no end.  
Grasping the ancient Tao  
One may navigate through the present.  
To know the beginnings of the ancient,  
Is to know the thread of continuity that is Tao. 

The Hebrew Religion  

Psalm 27 verses 1-4  

1)Yahweh is my light and my salvation, whom need I fear? Yahweh is the fortress of my life, of whom should I be afraid?  

2) When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, they, my opponents, my enemies, are the ones who stumble and fall.  

3) Though an army pitched camp against me, my heart would not fear; though war were waged against me, my trust would still be firm.  

4) One thing I ask of Yahweh, one thing I seek: to live in the House of Yahweh all the days of my life, to enjoy the sweetness of Yahweh and to consult Him in His Temple. 

The Christian Religion  

Luke chapter 2 verses 8-14, 29-32  

2-8) Now in this same district there were shepherds out in the fields, keeping watch  

2-9) through the night over their flock, when suddenly there stood before them an angel of the Lord, and the splendor of the Lord shone around 2-10) them. They were terror-struck, but the angel said, 'Do not be afraid; I have good news for you: there is great joy coming to the whole  

2-11) people. Today in the city of David a deliverer has been born to you--the Messiah, the 2-12) Lord. And this is your sign: you will find a baby lying all wrapped up, in a manger.'  

.....  

2-29) 'This day, Master, thou givest thy servant his discharge in peace; now thy promise is fulfilled. (2-30) For I have seen with my own eyes(2-31) the deliverance which thou hast made ready in full view of all of the nations:( 2-32) A light that will be a revelation to the heathen, and glory to thy people Israel.'  

The Religion of Islam  

from The Quar'an  

(translation by A. Yusuf Ali)  

God is the light of the heavens and the earth.  
High above our petty and evanescent lives,  
He illuminates our souls with  
Means that reach our innermost being.  
Universal is His Light, so pure and so intense  
that grosser beings need a veil to take his rays:  
His elect are forever absorbed  
in prayer and praise and deeds of love,  
unlike the children of Darkness, struggling in the profound Depths of False vanities.  
All nature sings to the Glory of God, and  
men of fraud and hypocrisy are but rebels  
in the Kingdom of God. 

Native American Traditions  

from 'Black Elk Speaks'  

A Sweat Lodge Prayer  

O Grandfather Wakan-Tanka  
Bend down and look upon me  
As I raise my hand to You.  
You see here the faces of my people,  
You see the Four Powers of the Universe,  
And You have now seen us  
at each of these four directions.  
You have beheld the Sacred Places and  
the Sacred Center which we have fixed,  
where we shall suffer.  
I offer all of my suffering to You in behalf of my people.  
A good day has been set upon my forehead  
as I stand before You, and this brings me closer to You.  
O Wakan-Tanka, it is Your Light which comes with the dawn of the day and which passes through the heavens.  
I am standing with my feet upon your  
Sacred Earth.  
Be merciful to me, O Great Spirit,  
That my people may live. 

From the Sayings of Hazrat Inayat Khan  

"What the moon seems to give as light, is not its own; it is the light of the sun. So it is with the divine messengers of all times."  

"None of the great ones have called themselves Masters, nor have they ever considered themselves to be such. What they have known in their lives is their privilege in opening their heart wider and wider to reflect the Light of the Master, who is God Himself."  

"The wise see in every form the divine form; in every heart they see the divine light shining."  

"He who clings to the light from heaven has a light to warn and guard him at every step, according to his desire for guidance."  

The Coming Light  

Sermon by Rev. Hamid Cecil Touchon, Dec. 25, 1994  

The movement in the last 150 years has been toward not so much the coming as a singular prophet as much as all of us accepting our divine mission in life whatever that might be and which is individual to each one of us. The Universal Worship is intended to represent the freedom of all people to believe whatever they believe but at the same time to come together in the idea that, at the root of all things is the same singular Life. The different traditions may be represented as the different colors of the rainbow; each seemingly different because of the time or the culture and yet there is one light though many colors.  

The root message of the Universal Worship service is that there is the one underlying truth and this is starting to become clearer and clearer to people all around the world. It seems strange that this truth hasn't been understood much sooner and there are yet many who still have not understood this truth.  

The coming light represents not each of us looking for some future dawn or some coming prophet but rather, the Kingdom of Heaven, the Light of God, the Prophet, the Divine Guidance coming from within each one of us. Each of us is an expression of the Divine Being in a physical form. Each one of us, a little phrase in the Great Symphony of Life.  

As in a hologram, if it is broken into pieces, each piece contains the whole image. In the same way, if each of us can come to recognize our connection to the Divine Light then this light is the sun dawning inwardly upon each of our beings.  

With this thought in mind we must each take up our responcibiliy in transforming our lives and those lives which we touch into the Kingdom of Light. This is the clear message from all of the Messengers. They do not tell us that we are forever doomed to ignorance, they tell us to follow them. To become what they have become; becons of light in this world of human ignorance. It is the Call from the Divine Being Itself. Awake! Awake! Oh my Self, Awake!  

The idea of light is universal through all of the traditions as representing the illumination of our consciousness with the underlying Divine Reality. When this Light enters our consciousness we are as if in a room that we can see clearly for the first time. Ignorant of this (the Divine Reality) we are as if in darkness; blind and deaf to the reality behind the appearance of things in the world around us. Our ignorance of this greater Reality is the source of our fears whatever they may be  

Once this illumination fills our being it is as though we have a lamp that will illuminate our life's path. Jesus has said; Once your lamp is lighted, you don't put it under a bushel but rather hold it high so that you can see where your going.  

So the idea is to discover this Light and bring it out where we can see by it so that our path is guided by this light; the Light of the Divine Truth. The more that we let this light grow in ourselves and encourage this dawning of the Divine Consciousness in our being, the more that the Divine will shine through us and therefore the more aware we become of the Divine Harmony that we are participants in. This is the peace that passeth understanding; the end of fear-based living.  

The kingdom of heaven then, is some place that we enter by this light of the Divine Consciousness rather than as a place that we deserve to go to or a place that we are kept out of. The more that we come to radiate with this Consciousness of the Divine the more that the Kingdom of God, which is all around and within us, becomes more apparent and more present in our lives. This is the coming light.