This brief address was given on the occasion of a Universal Worship ceremony in 1923. The mention of candles on the altar refers specifically to the arrangement of a Universal Worship service.
What is religion? Religion is a lesson which will teach the manner of living aright and of reaching the object for which we are born. This religion has come time after time to the world, through those who have brought the Message of God. Those who came with the message of religion have given it in diverse forms in accordance with the evolution of the people at that particular time. But the religion was one and the same. There never has been any other religion than the one: that God is one and Truth is one, and so the religion is one. If there is any difference, it is a difference of form, not of soul. It is the same pure water poured into several pitchers, one made in India, one in China, one in Arabia, one perhaps in the Western world. It is like a stream which comes through fountains and falls in various drops, but which is the same water.
The understanding of religion is not in disputing over the diversity of the forms, arguing that my religion is better than yours. True religion is in recognizing the one light in all the different religions. The candles on the altar are of different religions and teachers, but of one and the same light. What does this service teach? One light and different lamps; not the lamps that are taken first by the mind, no, it is the One Light that should be taken by the heart.
It is this religion of unification, which Jesus Christ came to teach; the teaching of Moses and the effort of Mohammed, all are towards this one object. All that Buddha, all that Krishna said is all summed up in one Light, the Divine Light; and the Light that comes is the path on which humanity should walk. The Sufi Movement, though in its infancy, is destined to serve God and humanity in this way. The Sufi Message is the re-echo of the same divine word which has always come and always will be for the blessing of humanity.