OfPonderingWandering

A quick introduction to Essence.

This essay is to serve as a brief introduction to my idea of Essence. I hope to touch back upon it and improve it later, enjoy!

There is only one thing we can know for certain: death. One day, we will all die and return to where we came from. This begs the question, what will we leave behind? 

Regardless of the existence of the afterlife, or the soul, I will argue for the existence of one thing, a person’s Essence, a sort of social soul. From a simple reductive standpoint, each interaction we have with someone changes their life, for even a brief interaction leaves a mark. Building on this, perhaps said conversation was incredibly informative. Now the listener’s life has qualitatively changed, as they carry within them new information that is linked to your actions. This is what Essence is. A dispersal of the self through positive social interactions. 

Essence dispersal. 

As we interact with people, we trade Essence, we carry a little bit of them forward in our life, as they carry a little bit of us forward in their life. We must then wonder, ‘What will we trade?’ Like a tree dispersing seeds into the wind, our Essence represents who we are, even in our absence. Therefore, we should look to disperse seeds of olives and figs, not weeds or toxicity. 

Where does toxicity come from? Ego, more specifically, a fearful form of Ego, of a need to be remembered, to be significant, or to bring change. This stems from a deep internal wound, not the true essence of Essence, Love. Such wounds fertilize toxic seeds, which grow like weeds, spreading throughout us and attempting to poison our connections with other people. Hence, we must remain mindful during our interactions, we must turn inward to ensure our most inner actions come from ones not of need, fear, or confusion, but of Love, compassion, and hope. Furthermore, through the alignment of our inner actions, we can slowly learn to align our outward actions. 

Outward actions form seeds of warmth, a simple smile to a stranger, supporting a friend in a dark time, teaching, presence and listening. These outward acts follow a simple process of giving back. Someone has lit a great hearth within us, now it is our time to light the hearts of others.

Passing on the warmth. 

Essence has a torchbearer effect. There must be some person who originally inspired some person, who then inspired more and more generations of people, who eventually lead to inspiring someone who gave their Essence to you in their life. A fiery torch of warmth now rests within our hands, much like those before us, it is our duty to pass it onto the next generation, for we have been sufficiently warmed.

Yet, with the duty of passing the torch on, comes with the responsibility and choice of how we pass the torch on. This means that we get to put an individual stamp onto the flame, perhaps we have an unique teaching style or a memorable line. Regardless, this is the extent of ourselves that we can put into our Essence, without poisoning it with Ego. Then we may wonder, what is Essence truly made out of?

Inner Divine Quality. 

Essence is formed by humanity’s ability to emulate qualities of the Divine. For instance, the ability to be radically kind (To treat anyone with kindness- full stop.) is very well a mark of the Divine. By a similar extension, the ability to pass on one’s Essence requires a sort of divinity as well.

This divinity begins when we begin to forgo the Ego, and shift our attention to those that are outside of ourselves. Our divinity grows when we begin to give back to those around us, without our Ego in the way. To fully emulate the Divine, we can start to tap into inner qualities of Love, compassion, and kindness, this means we give without expecting that, we listen and understand, and we pass on warmth/knowledge when we can (And when the receiver is ready). 

In its very essence, Essence is a divine tradition of igniting another’s inner flame with the warmth of one’s own inner fire. How will you give back? 

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