What is essential?

Photo: Night blooming Cereus.

It’s my 68th birthday today.

What is essential?

The word essential is derived from the latin essentia, from the verb esse, “to be.”

So when we speak of what is essential, we speak of Being; not of some thing in its material sense, but in the action of its existence. Esse is, after all, a verb. It is not the passive existence of objects that matters; it is their actions that matter. This is equally true of big and little things. And in what follows we’ll be speaking mostly of little things, since all big things are made of little ones.

In seeking the root of an object or a creature through its action rather than its static presence, we seek its essence; its action in relationship with the world. So within ourselves, as we seek what is essential, we seek the action of our relationship with the world we inhabit.

There’s more than one world we inhabit, however, through the action of our awareness. We inhabit an inner and an outer world; and within the inner world we’re divided into worlds of intellect, sensation, and feeling.