I was on the way to the mountains with my wife for a much-needed vacation — from work, from worrying, from the day-to-day distractions that croon to me of my self-importance, even as they lead me farther and farther from my Self.
I had packed some books — too many, Norma suggested. But having too many books comforts me, the way other people might be comforted by extra clothes or cash. Of course, I never read them all; that’s the point. They represent for me a source of inspiration that’s inexhaustible, a feast without end. And we’re all a little starved, aren’t we? — we who surround ourselves with so much: the books, the records, the lecture tapes, the art prints meant to enlighten and uplift, the lavish reminders of our essential humanness to which we become so slavishly attached, so that we cannot live without them. . . .
But this trip was meant to get us back in touch with ourselves, and with each other, unmediated by familiar surroundings and comforting reminders. Norma’s right, I thought, when we stopped along the way for coffee and a sandwich at the Summit Street Bookstore and Cafe. I didn’t need another book.
So why did I pick up the slender volume with the unlikely title of Remember Your Essence? Haven’t I endured enough books that reduce the irreducible, that seduce with truth? Here was a 170-page prose poem that seemed, at first glance, hopelessly mawkish. Love. Light. Connection. Source. The words have become unbearable, haven’t they? The eye grows weary and the heart goes numb. I’ve read too much of this; I’ve written too much of this. Still, I couldn’t put the book down.
Something was giving these simple phrases the power to move me. I’d never heard of the book’s author, Paul Williams, but as I stood there, turning pages, it became evident that this wasn’t just another collection of new age homilies. This was a man’s hard-earned wisdom, sweet and solemn, a testament to the power of love and the indestructible essence in each of us. I bought the book — and read it that week. Then I read it again.
Picture a burning log, Williams writes. Move the image into your body, so you can feel it like a warm, comforting glow inside your chest. “This burning log is real, and it exists inside you. The inexhaustible log is called your essence; and the fire, the flame, is your life.”
We are, each of us, a source of warmth and light, he continues. Even at our moments of greatest doubt and pain, the life still burns in us, and our essence remains “pure and untouched.”
“You are who you are regardless of who you think you are,” he says. “You have a power that has nothing to do with what you do, or what you say, or who you know, or what you know, or where you are, or what you look like, or your skills, or your talents, or what you have. It is the power of your presence.”
Thus begins a meditation on human nature, a hymn to the heart in which no note rings false. I’m pleased to print an excerpt from it here.
Paul Williams’s other books include Das Energi, Waking Up Together, and Outlaw Blues. He started the first rock-and-roll magazine, Crawdaddy!, in 1966 and edited The International Bill of Human Rights. He is currently writing a book about the music of Bob Dylan.
— Sy Safransky
You are an essence in a world of essences. You burn, like those around you burn, with an energy called life. Life reaches out to life. Essences sing to each other. Your fire, your aliveness, is sustained by your need to touch and be touched. You are afraid of the touch of fire. And yet you live for it. You are also afraid of your own fire yet you cannot live without it. You depend on your inner source and you depend on the stimulation of the essences around you. You are a flame that must be nourished constantly by your fuel and the air around you or you cannot create heat and light. Great power always requires great dependence. The danger of pride is you forget this truth, and act without regard for your source. Remember your dependence. Remember that power alone is not enough. You must constantly ask, “What is right?” No one but you can answer this question. And the answer itself is always changing. It shifts and dances like fire. Love is energy and willingness. Let go of what you seek to achieve and ask instead, “What do I have to give?” Your greatest satisfaction is giving. A burning log depends on the flame that allows it to participate in the world. It needs to share itself. It needs to give off heat and light. There is nothing you could want to have that would mean as much to you as the experience of giving of yourself and being received. You always have something to give. You always have an essence to share. Even at your moments of greatest doubt and darkness, the fire burns in you and you are a source of heat and light. The question, “What is right?” humbly asked, is a daily, hourly meditation to reconnect you with your purpose. Confidence is a power that comes from the inner knowledge that you are at one with your purpose. Self-doubt and self-examination are the means by which a powerful person like you re-creates this inner knowledge at each new moment. You are on your path. Look around. Notice what you’re feeling. Ask, “What is right?” Now you are ready to take the next step. Confusion is a feeling. The most effective response to confusion is patience. Acceptance leads to clarity. This is always true. If you do not have clarity, look and see what you’re not accepting. Resistance is the opposite of acceptance. Fighting and despising your resistance will not lead to acceptance. It will only create more resistance. Accept your resistance. Love yourself exactly as you are. Love your anxiety. Anxiety is lack of trust. You cannot force yourself to trust. When you love and accept your own anxiety you defy reason and give yourself room to trust or not to trust. Don’t just pretend to give yourself room. To love yourself as you are you must let go of, disengage from, all thoughts and feelings about how you really should be. Love is unreasonable. Love is a feeling, and the expression of a feeling. It flows through you from your source. Whenever you wish to give or receive love, remember the feeling and let it flow through you. Remember the feeling of dependence. Life on Earth depends on a ball of fire called the sun. Life energy from the sun crosses millions of miles of space and brings you light and warmth. You are a miniature sun. That which you depend on is that which you have to give. Your resistance creates heat. Your acceptance creates clarity. Everything about you is a source of warmth and light. You cannot know with your mind when to resist and when to accept. All you can do is give of yourself, tell the truth, and trust your essence. A friend is someone whose presence you enjoy. Friendship does not depend on what you say or do. It isn’t about what you know or what you look like or what you have. Friendship is the experience of presence with presence. Essences present themselves to each other. When the attraction is strong enough, there is a mingling of essences: each receives a part of the other. You cannot change your essence. And yet, two essences can touch and never be the same again. This is the mystery. Picture yourself in the presence of a friend. Can you feel that person’s essence? What is it you feel? I’ll tell you a secret. That person, your friend — the essence you’re in the presence of — is a teacher for you, if you allow it, who can serve you in any and every area of your life that’s important to you right now. Everything you need or want to know at this moment in your life, in every area where you have a need or desire to grow, is here. What you require and wish for is available to you and right in front of you, and all you have to do to get it is be with this person and notice everything that happens while you’re in his or her presence. An hour can be enough, if you are awake enough. Five minutes could be enough. The limitation is your willingness and ability to let it in. This has nothing to do with what the other person does. Your teacher is his or her essence. Your opportunity is to let it act on you. The only limit to your growth and learning is your fear of becoming more powerful. The only limit to your ability to love is your fear of being powerful, the fear that you can’t handle it, this feeling that you can’t trust yourself. To the extent that your trust is conditional and you have expectations, you’re right — you can’t trust yourself. You’re almost certain to get in the way of what you think you want. You’re going to screw things up. But trust isn’t conditional. Trust yourself, and trust God, with no strings attached. Be ready to accept what you get, and the world is yours. You’re here, and you have fuel and air. What else do you need? Let it in. Burn. Love. And remember.
Copyright © 1987 by Paul Williams. Reprinted by permission of Harmony Books, a division of Crown Publishers, Inc.
