I often think about people around whom things get brighter. You don't do anything special with them, yet you walk away from the conversation with a clear head and a wish to act. They are not necessarily the smartest or the most successful. But they shine: through constant learning, through doing good without unnecessary noise, and through awakening something similar in others.
For a long time I thought of this as a personal character trait. Then I began to notice that texts thousands of years old speak about exactly this, and in remarkably similar words.
The person as light: seven traditions
Christianity. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus does not say "seek the light." He says directly: "You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden" (Matthew 5:14). And the Gospel of John says the true Light is the one that "gives light to every person coming into the world" (John 1:9). Every person. No exceptions.
Judaism. The Book of Proverbs: "The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the inner depths" (Proverbs 20:27). I love this image: a lamp doesn't only shine outward, it also illuminates what is inside. Honesty with yourself is a form of light too.
Hinduism. In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, King Janaka asks the sage Yajnavalkya: what serves as a person's light when the sun has set, the moon has set, the fire has gone out and speech has stopped? The answer: the self, the atman, is his light, and it is through this light that he sits, goes out, works and returns (BU 4.3.6). Notice the verbs: not "meditates," but "works and returns." Inner light is described here through action.
Buddhism. Before his passing, the Buddha tells his disciples: "attadīpā viharatha" (Mahaparinibbana Sutta, DN 16). The Pali word dīpa means both "island" and "lamp." Modern translators mostly choose "be islands unto yourselves," while older translations have "be lamps unto yourselves". Either way the meaning is the same: don't cling to the teacher, rely on yourself and on the teaching.
Islam. The Ayat an-Nur, the "Verse of Light," opens by saying that God is the light of the heavens and the earth, and then describes a lamp in a niche, within glass that shines like a star (Quran 24:35). Many commentators, Sufis in particular, also read this image as a description of the human heart, in which divine light can be kindled.
Sikhism. The evening prayer Kirtan Sohila in the Guru Granth Sahib contains the line "sabh meh jot jot hai soi": "Amongst all is the Light, You are that Light... Through the Guru's Teachings, the Light shines forth" (Ang 13). Jot, the light, is in everyone. But it shines forth through learning.
Scientology. L. Ron Hubbard's religious philosophy goes perhaps the furthest with this claim. A person does not have a soul, he is a spiritual being, a thetan: "One does not have a thetan, something one keeps somewhere apart from oneself; he is a thetan". The word comes from the Greek letter theta, the traditional symbol for thought and life. And the thetan is described as the source of all creation and life itself. Here light is not something that comes from outside, but the very essence of a person, their awareness and ability to create.
Seven traditions, different languages and eras, yet one shared idea: a person doesn't merely reach for the light, they carry it. And learning, good deeds and honesty with yourself kindle that light.
Light does not diminish when shared
There is another property of light that has always amazed me. If I give away money, I have less of it. If I give away time, I have less of that too. But if I light a candle from mine, mine burns just the same.
The Sifrei Bamidbar comments on the moment when God takes part of Moses' spirit and gives it to the seventy elders. There Moses is compared to a lamp on a menorah from which many lamps are lit without the first losing any of its light. In the same way, Moses' wisdom was not diminished.
Three thousand years later, Thomas Jefferson writes in a letter to Isaac McPherson (1813): "He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me".
The Buddhist version is the popular line "thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle." Here I have to be honest: the Buddha did not say this word for word. It is a later paraphrase from the Japanese anthology "The Teaching of Buddha". But the image itself is genuine: the Sutra of Forty-Two Sections has a comparison with a torch from which countless others are lit while it keeps burning the same.
To shine is to act
Light that no one sees illuminates nothing. That is why right after "you are the light of the world" Jesus adds: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works" (Matthew 5:16). Not "your good intentions," but works.
The apostle James puts it even more bluntly: "Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead" (James 2:17). And just before that he describes a situation each of us has seen: a person has nothing to eat, and someone tells them "depart in peace, be warmed and filled," and gives them nothing.
For me, light in the soul is not a state you can simply be in. It exists in relationships: in a conversation where you truly listened, in knowledge you shared, in a job you finished even though you didn't have to.
Help that makes a person stronger
But there is a trap. You can shine so brightly that people around you stop lighting their own fires. Help that makes a person dependent actually puts out their light.
In the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides sets out eight levels of tzedakah, charity. At the highest of them you support a person with a gift, a loan, a partnership or a job so that they can stand on their own and no longer need help (Gifts to the Poor 10:7). The highest level of mercy is when you make yourself unnecessary. A similar idea underlies the Scientology motto "make the able more able": help should increase a person's own ability, not replace it.
The well-known saying that it is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish is often attributed to Confucius or Lao Tzu. In fact, according to quotation researchers, the earliest known version mentioning fish appeared in 1885 in a novel by the English writer Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie. But the essence is right, and Maimonides formulated it seven centuries earlier.
From the soul to management
Now about what I do every day.
A weak manager is a sun around which everything revolves. Nothing gets decided without him, everyone waits for his word, and when he goes on vacation the company pauses itself. It seems he shines brightly. In fact, it is dark around him.
A strong manager kindles. His goal is for the person next to him to light up on their own and start kindling others. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, discussing the midrash about the transfer of leadership from Moses to Joshua, distinguishes two things: influence is like lighting one candle with another, while power is like emptying one vessel into another. The more power you give away, the less you have left. The more influence you pass on, the more light there is overall.
In practice I see it this way:
- Delegate responsibility, not tasks. A task a person simply executes. Responsibility they think through, and that is exactly how their own light is kindled.
- Mentor rather than hand out answers. The question "how would you solve this?" often gives more than a ready-made solution.
- The measure of success is who grew next to you. The best sign of a leader is when people appear on the team who grow leaders themselves.
- Keep learning yourself. You cannot kindle others if you have stopped burning.
In the AI era this matters even more. Tools give everyone enormous power, but they don't give the desire to use it or the courage to take responsibility. In the Impact AI club we see that those who gain the most are not the ones with the best models, but the ones someone once kindled: showed them it's possible, and stepped aside so they could try on their own.
Instead of a conclusion
It seems to me that each of us has our own candles from which we were once lit: a teacher, parents, a first manager, a chance conversation. And there are those we have already lit, often without even knowing it.
So I want to ask you:
- Who lit your light, and have you told that person?
- Whom have you lit over the past year so that they now shine without you?
- Where does your help make people stronger, and where does it quietly keep them close to you?
I'd be glad to hear your answers.