There is a life spark, a seed-spirit, in every human being. Each is like a tongue of flame, while God is the consuming blaze. The Psalms say, "Ye are gods: and all of you are children of the most high" (82:6). Call the life spark what you may, that which sustains life in every human being is always on its journey towards complete reunion with its source.
For a tongue of fire to blaze like its parent flame requires self-purification, which expands our little seed-spirit to almighty Spirit. Before a drop of water can be like an ocean, it must become part of the ocean. So it is with us: for a human being to become one with God, he must completely lose his personal being. We are all gods, suns, great divine lights in the making, but we must free ourselves of all material illusions before we can fully express our divine potentials.
The journey of the human seed-spirit starts from Divinity, the reality on which every pair of opposites is balanced. The path is an immense circle which can be pictured as descending and ascending arcs. On the descending arc the seed-spirit passes through spiritual hierarchies into the grossest levels of matter. On the ascending arc it awakens and rises from the material life back to the heights of spiritual attainment and reunion with the Divine.
The main task on this journey is purification and growth. Reincarnation is an opportunity for the individual to try repeatedly, since it is impossible for anyone to become perfect in a period of only seventy or a hundred years. Rebirth gives us the chance to outgrow deficiencies in the pattern of our evolution and be better fitted to become at one with our spiritual source.
Divine love is the source of all light. As the planets revolve around the sun, so the spiritually inclined revolve around the light left behind by the messengers of truth and love. Such messengers have, from time to time, visited the various races of the human family. As the sun illumines our days, so the rays of the great spiritual light-bearers brighten the inner aspect of every human being. From these light-bearers have arisen the great religions of the world. People are sometimes tempted to ask, Which of the light-bearers brought the greatest truth? My friend, there is no small truth. The important thing is to extract as much truth and love as possible from the exemplary lives and works of those who, in their own time and race, have kindled the inner light that illuminates humanity's path to the Oversoul.
These great repositories of light, held in esteem by one or another culture, are the paths of life as expressed in such works as the Bhagavad-Gita, Tao Teh Ching, Voice of the Silence, Bible, and Koran. All these books are based on the ancient wisdom, the path to truth, love, and union with the fountain-spring of life. Nonetheless, there will be no end to divided families and religious problems as long as those in religious groups continue to maintain that only their scriptures hold all the wisdom in the world. The totality of truth and wisdom is contained only in Divinity.
Man in essence is spirit and matter. His journey in the inner realm is an individual affair. That life ends is an illusion. A suitable body awaits anyone in any state of being in which he finds himself. In our Father's house are many suns, just as there are many mansions. But the one indestructible self is the spiritual sun, the breath of God, the light that burns in every sun in our Father's mansions. To unveil our inner light requires no force of arms, but knowledge of light and love of the Divine.
(From Sunrise magazine, February/March 2002; copyright © 2001 Theosophical University Press)