Writing in "Melody Maker", Michael Watts described the album as "Harrison's personal statement", documenting his journey towards "a spiritual goal which for the first time he has been able to define". Amid the "large autobiographical insights" offered in Harrison's new compositions, Watts wrote of "The Light That Has Lighted the World"'s role in the song cycle: "Until finally he climbed over the rocky patches and found his own Shangri-La, becoming transformed in the process." To Bruce Eder of AllMusic, "The Light That Has Lighted the World" is one of the tracks on "Material World" that suffers from seeming "weighed down with their own sense of purpose, in ways that "All Things Must Pass" mostly (but not entirely) avoided". Similarly unimpressed, "Eight Arms to Hold You" authors Chip Madinger and Mark Easter write: "One would think that the 'light' might have given George a bit more happiness to reflect upon, but hey, the slide work's great!" The outtake available on the "Alternate World" bootleg, they add, was "believe it or not, even more lugubrious that the commercial version".