All through the ages there have been spiritually endowed men and women—the mystics of the world—who have known conscious union with God, and who have brought the presence and power of God into their actual experience. Always there has been a Moses, an Elijah, a Jesus, a John, or a Paul, but none of them had many followers. None of them was ever widely known or his teaching widely practiced, during his own time or for years afterward. These spiritual masters devoted their lives to giving us the truth which has brought us to our present state of consciousness. The light that we have today is the result of the light which has come down through all time. There are many spiritual teachers who have left no record, and about whom we have no knowledge, but there are many whom we can identify: Moses, Elijah, Jesus, John, and Paul, mentioned above; Eckhart, Boehme, Fox, and others mystics of the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries; as well as the great leaders and revelators of more recent years. No one person has given the light to the world, but each of these great spiritual prophets has been a beam of light contributing to the whole light.

Joel S. Goldsmith
The Art Of Meditation, p4