Anamchara - Living An Essential Life

What is essential in your life? This question contains one of the most important words an question can address. This is the word "essence." To know your "essence" is to live the mystery of life rather than the illusion of "your life."

One of my simple pleasures is browsing second hand bookshops. They have a very distinct smell. They feel warm and inviting and often they take me back to earlier times in my life.

As I normally do I find more books that I might ever read. I found a book by Rudyard Kipling called "The Jungle Book." I have only ever seen the wonderful fun movie of this name. There are sentimental connections with this movie from my youth. The hero of the story is a child called Mowgli who gets lost in the heart of the jungle. It is a metaphor for many of us living in this 21st Century.

Mowgli was a nickname that somehow got attached to me when I was around ten to twelve years old. Maybe it was because I felt lost and needed to be found and taken from the heart of this jungle of conditional love.

The Jungle Book was turned into a wonderful musical cartoon full-length film. In it the character of the bear named Baloo sings a song. This song is called "Bear Necessities." I love this song, as it is a song of gladness and confidence. It is a song about attraction and the experience of enough.

I often ask questions of others and myself in relation to what is essential. What is essential to life apart from food, shelter and clothing? These are essentials for the well being of the body. Beyond this what else is essential for a happy and fulfilled purpose focused life.

We have so many things, which we consider essential to living. We do this because we have forgotten our essence. We have forgotten what it is simple "to be." The prefix of this word essence (esse) comes from the root of the words "to be." We have forgotten how to be essential.

We have become people of the "never enough." We are like the monkeys in the story of "The Jungle Book." These monkeys are referred to in the book as "the people of the food." They eat and eat and never seem to get enough. This I believe is a metaphor for our Western consumer society. This is because these "people of the food" have lost the ability to feel their essence. They have lost the knowing of how to be essential. The leader of the "people of the food" has become greedy for power and forgotten that nothing quiet satisfies like love.

Being is more fun. It is simply allowing the energy within to move freely. It is the ultimate freedom. It is knowing you are one with it all and can have it all. We have been taught that you are to "do your life." We are taught to ransom your present moment for some dreamed of future.

The greatest gift we ever have now is to be present to this feeling of aliveness. Our disease and discomfort arise from absence from being. We have fallen out of ease with the natural flow of our life's energy. We miss our essence and we miss what is essential for a fulfilled happy and prosperous life.

Economics tells us that we live in world of scarcity. It teaches us to live in fear of not getting our share. We more and more live in the pace of scare-city. Our media is full of images, which focus us on fear. Fear is of the ego. It is not of your essential nature. T is a product of limited thing. It is not the liberation of knowing who you are.

The "bare necessities of life will come to you" if you will allow them. These will be more than bare. If you allow them to be gifts and be thankful for them they will begin to fill you up. They will give meaning and comfort to you. This is the essential ingredient, which is missing from the attitude of the "people of the food."

Stop struggling to "do your life." Remember you are a human being and not a human doing. You have forgotten how it feels to be graced with your full humanity. You have forgotten the grace of your essence. You struggle and you constantly do in order to validate your existence. The sadness is that this teaching is passed to our children who give up their creativity for education.

We view our world as a place of competition and adversity. We approach the world with an armoured heart and then ask where the joy has gone.

The "people of the food" are those who live in hell. This is a psychological rather than a physical place. There is in this place a great banquet. There is food of all sorts and yet the "people of the food" go hungry. The irony is that the exact same thing is happening in a psychological place called heaven.

When God was asked about this situation and why one set of beings was fulfilled and the other clearly dissatisfied and even despairing. God gave a simple answer. He said"In heaven we feed the other."

Life is not a jungle. It has laws that are to be followed. When we live from an essential place then there is always enough. You only have to make a heart felt commitment to being essentially who you are. This is the most courageous act any individual can make.

There is nothing to be added to the essential you. You only have to be prepared to let go. You have to be prepared to receive the "bare necessities of life" and allow them to come to you. Realise you are forever enough. Blessings be upon you.

Tony Cuckson is an Anam Cara. This Celtic term means "Soul Friend." He specializes in providing insight for the spiritual journey, Blessings for YOU, words of wisdom and finding inner peace. Visitors to Irish Blessings Matter website and Tony's Blog get the opportunity to develop a purpose driven life through articles, newsletters and other programs.

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