7. Reflecting on being ESSENCE

Hello! Welcome to this sacred space … welcome to this quiet moment …

and welcome to a short reflective and meditative time together!

I’m Bill Bauman … and I’m deeply honored

to be spending these few precious moments with you.

Let’s reflect now on … being ESSENCE!

If you stripped yourself of every quality or characteristic

that you might use to describe your human self—for example,

your personality, beliefs, values, orientations and preferences—

what would be left of you?

Without any or all of those traits, who or what would you be?

Now that I think about it, if you even deleted the cherished qualities

of your spiritual nature—for example, your loving heart,

your light-filled soul, your spiritual values, your higher consciousness—

what would you be left with?

As I personally pondered these questions, one simple answer appeared:

The only ‘something’ that would be left is your very essence.

Your simple being-ness. Your innate state of being.

An internal state of simplicity-filled consciousness.

Let’s spend these precious moments today in that aspect of you,

in that most basic, most fundamental, most stripped-down you—

in the utter, simple and essential is-ness of you!

For this brief time together, let’s forget all the visible trappings,

all the alluring clothing, all the tangible specifics that you might assign to yourself.

Let’s just sit quietly, together, in the middle of your simple essence.

As we start, what is this ‘sitting experience’ like for you?

What is it like, right now, just to be? To be nothing other than being?

Perhaps, to be oblivious of your body, your human form, your human life?

To live outside of your mind’s thoughts, to have no beliefs or attachments?

Even spiritually, what is it like not to be motivated by the value of love,

to be stripped of your spiritual identity, to live beyond the activity of your soul?

Well, here we are, you and I,

spared, for this moment in time, of every human and spiritual trait,

reduced to our simplest, most non-describable nature.

We’re now formless and lifted from all our daily focuses,

We just are! Period.

No thoughts. No evaluations, No interpretations. No beliefs.

No anything … only pure being.

What a privilege, what an honor,

to sit in this quiet, thought-less, simplest-of-all-simple spaces!

How are you doing, as you are adjusting to this pure state of “is-ness,”

realizing that words to describe it simply don’t exist?

As you are diving more deeply into this state of is-ness,

I invite you not to experience yourself

as your historical human self looking out at that essence.

Instead, perceive yourself as essence itself—essence perceiving itself.

Yes, you’ve just arrived at a special moment—you’ve now become essence.

You’ve left your humanness behind.

You simply are … with no object attached to the verb … except to say

“You are essence!”

Yes, at this moment, you are essence … and nothing more.

And, being essence, you notice something fascinating:

duality and differences are nowhere to be found in this simple state.

You’re now seeing every someone or something as having also morphed

into the very same state of simplicity.

You realize that you are not alone.

Through the eyes of essence, we see that we are all this amazing essence …

beyond all the hype of existence, all of us are pure being itself.

Can you notice that you’re feeling more and more at peace …

a peace that comes from seeing everything as “It just is!”?

You’re freer and freer of all judgments and complexities,

You’ re feeling peaceful about yourself and about everything around you.

Also, you are now free to embrace everything—

life’s un-predictabilities, creation’s ebbs and flows,

other human being’s idiosyncrasies—

just as they are, absent of all stories.

You’re free to meet everyone and everything

at that center meeting point and melting pot of pure being,

where our only required calling card is:

We simply are! Period.

What is it like for you now, having and being nothing except your essence?

Also, I wonder: Is your essence maybe saying something to you right now?

Is it perhaps inviting you to live more fully with it, in it, as it—

at that central meeting point or melting pot

where we all are privileged to be nothing more than being itself?

Is your ‘essential self’ inviting you just to be?

To release all attachments and live in this sacred inner state more fully?

To look at everything through the non-judgmental eyes of your essence?

To treasure your simplicity, value your essence, cherish just being?

As we prepare to leave each other following this sacred moment,

please know that my own essence goes with you …

that it is always present to you,

as a shining mirror of your own simplicity,

as a support for living in your own pure essence …

and as a reminder that everything in your human life is simpler

when you let go and let yourself dwell in your state of pure being.

Thank you for our sacred time together today.

I leave you with this, my completely unbiased opinion:

Your essence is dynamically sparkling in its non-sparkling-ness,

is impressively elegant in its undressed simplicity

and is blatantly wondrous in its sheer innocence!