What Is A Person's Essence?

To me, the essence of a person is the soul, the spirit. Just as we speak of the essence of a flower, a story or event, when we mean its essential meaning, the heart of the matter, so a person's essence is the core of his/her being. It's the bit we can't see and could never see - it's hidden, secretive, like the centre of a blossom, opening out its secrets only when it feels ready and safe.

It's the part of being alive not covered by physicality, separate from our human packages which we require to do what we need to do whilst on Earth. Our physical beings are far from perfect and that is in fact the point. What would there be to learn if we weren't here, fumbling and faltering, making mistakes and causing pain, loving and leaving? That's the stuff of humanness, the reason we came to the planet. But our essence is something else. It is continuity, perfection, spirituality, eternity. This is the gift of existence.