To Light a Thousand Lamps - The Theosophical Society

142 / TO LIGHT A THOUSAND LAMPS
The same possibility is ours: to begin now, in spite of the
selfish and unruly traits that mar our nature, to sow the
seeds of love and caring. Full enlightenment may be ages
upon ages in the future, and although we too must make the
supreme choice at the final moment of destiny, it will have
been in the making all along the way. At each instant of our
lives we are building into our character either the selfcenteredness
that eventually leads to pratyekahood, or the
generosity of spirit that will impel us to take the first step on
the bodhisattva path. Both paths are on the light side of
nature, but there is, nonetheless, a clear distinction: as recorded
in Buddhist writings, the pratyeka is compared to
‘‘the light of the moon’’ in contrast to the Tathāgata who
‘‘resembles the thousand-rayed disk of the autumnal sun.’’*
Every living being is the fruitage of a beginningless and
endless outflowing from a divine seed, for within the seedessence
is the promise of what is to be: an immense potency,
inert until the mystic moment when the life force
bursts through and brings forth flower and fruit. Once a
seed is sown in an appropriate environment, nature’s elements
of earth, water, air, and fire protect and stimulate its
growth. So it is with ourselves: aided by the invisible counterparts
of these elements, the seed-thoughts we sow daily
and nightly leave their impress on the subtle energies coursing
through our planet. Since we are one humanity, however
separate at times we may feel ourselves to be, we share
with all others what we are, our finest and our meanest.
What a responsibility is ours, but also what a superb
*Buddhaghosa, quoted in World of the Buddha, p. 160.