THE FIRST STEP TO HAVING WEALTH is to know what it is. And few people know what it really is, in and of itself. What is wealth? What causes it? What causes the cause of it? Let us start with money, the world's symbol of wealth, and then move deeper.
Money is not real.
Money is merely legal tender, a form of exchange. We use it to exchange value. It represents value.
Money is the “body” of value. It is the physical representation of value that rises and falls in ourselves, within us. Not within “things” outside of us, but within us. For without us, what is the value of a thing, such as a car? Nothing, at least not to us. In other words, it is we, the observers, that place value in things, but this value is really value in us—we give value to the material things. The material things have no “money” value in themselves—we give that to them. So money is the external physical representation of a particular section of our internal value, within us, within you. That is why a house or a block of shares valued at $1 million today can fall to a valuation of half a million dollars tomorrow when fear is introduced into the hearts of those involved. The fear kills a portion of the internal values of the participants, and that is reflected by the paper money, the “body” of value.
Here is something else: physical paper money does not even represent money in full. It cannot reasonably do that. By some estimates (and this varies from nation to nation), only as little as 4 percent of the money in the banks exists in physical form. Imagine how much cotton, linen, pulp, and metal the world would need to make all the money everyone has in his or her bank accounts. Imagine how much space it would take to store all that money as paper or coin.
If you were to stack only one million US dollar bills, it would weigh one ton and be 361 feet high. Neither does money exist as gold reserves anymore, for exactly the same reason—we ran out of the reasonable ability to maintain a gold standard in the 1970s.
So what does it exist as, the money that we are always talking about? Well, it is one massive illusion. It is all just numbers written on paper and computer storage devices and assigned to people and entities like companies and investment groups—or, more accurately, further illusion! To put it in another way, for every $100 or its equivalent in any other currency, only about $4 exists as printed paper notes or coins, while the remaining $96 exists as numbers stored on papers and computers in banks and businesses and other entities. The only reason this system does not collapse is that we all believe in it. The last time people stopped believing in it to any great extent was just before the Great Depression when large numbers of people rushed to their banks to withdraw their money and found that they could not all get it. This is not what caused the Great Depression, but it, in a large way, accelerated it.
So money is not real—something else is. Money is just the shadow of that other something. The first step to wealth is to know what money really is or, more accurately, what it represents. Learn not to look at money most of the time. As you will soon see, it is very rare that you should ever look at money as you know it today—the cash, the bank accounts, the costs, etc. This is merely the shadow and not the real thing. As you will soon see, looking at the shadow, the physical money, is mostly very unwise and unhealthy for you and your finances.
Look, instead, at the value within you and within people, and the flowing and exchanging of this value between people. Our internal value is what creates money. Money is the shadow of our internal value. Develop this internal value in yourself and in others, and your external money and wealth will rise correspondingly—automatically and without fail.
Know this however: Money represents an aspect of a person's internal value, but that does not mean that it represents a person's entire internal value. That is very important. It is not about self-worth. Money only represents an aspect of that internal value that pertains to wealth. You cannot, therefore, say that a wealthy person has a higher self-worth and value than a poor person. But you can correctly say that, in matters that relate and pertain to money, a wealthy person has a higher internal value in that aspect of value, or chooses to exercise a higher proportion of this internal value. The section of internal value that reflects on the outside as money, when exercised, is called wealth consciousness. It is available to all people equally and can be developed by and within all people equally. Like everything else that is important to our being alive—like air—wealth consciousness is free to all. But you can choose to develop it or not, or to exercise it or not. At any time, you can change your choice, and nothing outside of you can stop you.
You require nothing outside of yourself to increase your wealth consciousness and, therefore, your money. All you need is within you right now. You may have forgotten it, but it is right there. You will now remember it. The first step is always to remember that money is not real; it is the shadow of something else.
And here is another secret: Wealth consciousness is simply the expansion of your consciousness and awareness into the wealthy parts of your Self. That is why all you need to increase your wealth consciousness is within you already. You are already wealthy, but you have been taught to choose not to experience your wealth. This insight changes everything. Like wealthy people, you can now know how to start experiencing the wealthy you—and choose to do so.
You have more wealth capability within you than you can possibly experience in a lifetime. You need not worry that you have reached your limit of becoming wealthy in any way or because of any condition. Nor do you need to know how to convert wealth consciousness into paper money; as you will see, it will happen automatically. All you need to do is expand your wealth consciousness and exercise it, act on it, be it, and the situations and opportunities for the equivalent conversion into cash will present themselves automatically to you. None of the extremely wealthy people today could have, at the time when they were not wealthy, possibly predicted and planned the exact sequence of events that would lead to their immense wealth. They most probably had a set of goals and a plan, but any one of them will tell you that they met countless “coincidences” and opportunities that “joined the dots” for them in ways they could never have predicted. Their goals were their own doing, but the paths that led them to accomplish and exceed those goals were amazingly intelligent yet unforeseen. You shall now see how to make them happen in your life. You may not be able to predict their sequence, but you can certainly make these “fortunate coincidences” happen to you every day of your life.
By the way, it is not only paper money that is not real. A lot of the things around you that you hold to be real are not really real at all. You are about to embark on a beautiful, empowering, and liberating journey that will show you exactly what your world is, so you can see it in a way that you have never seen it before. It is a journey that will open your eyes and free your wings. You are about to look “under the hood” of life; you are about to learn how to customize your world to your liking.
You are about to attain wealth consciousness. Once you do, avoiding success and wealth will become very difficult. Yes, you read that correctly. Once you have wealth consciousness, it will be very difficult for you not to have success and wealth. Success and wealth will follow you automatically wherever you go. You will not need to concern yourself with looking for them; they will find you. You will be free to experience other aspects of life that you may not even have dreamt of before—dimensions of self and life that are truly amazing. The same is true for happiness, for you will see it here in this book as well.
Let's get started now on the real stuff, if you are still interested.
You are now on a journey, at the end of which you shall know how to create all the wealth and happiness you ever wished for—Now—without any limits. You shall soon also know many timeless truths about who you really are, what you are doing here, and what this game of life is all about. Here are the steps of the journey you are now taking with this book:
The way to understand this book is to read it once in its entirety. As you read, you will have many questions, and some things may not make sense to you when you read them. Never mind; just keep going. Subsequent chapters will make clear some things that you may have not understood or found true in earlier chapters. Language is a linear thing, yet wealth consciousness is wholeness—a nonlinear whole in which step 1 may be connected to step 7 and so on. And wealth consciousness is a state of being, while language is a symbol. States have to be experienced, and symbols cannot represent experience accurately. They can only show the way, be a guide. So as you read this book, you will find many amazing things that make sense right then, but it will only make complete sense when you have finished it and have the whole of it in you. That is when you will start to say, “Aha!”
Once you have read the book fully, read it again slowly. In the second read, you will be able to understand things more fully, since you now will have the whole in you. The material you will find in this book contains many layers of understanding. What you understand today will reveal an even deeper hidden truth, application, and identification when you read it again tomorrow. Read a small part of this book every day, even after you finish it the first time, and your internalization of wealth and happiness and your becoming wealthy and happy will accelerate.
Don't read this book with your logical mind; feel the lessons in this book. Some of the things in this book are logical, but many pertain to a realm that logic cannot fully grasp. Yet your Self knows it all and perfectly understands. As you read this book, keep yourself open, feel the essence of what you read. Many things will not make sense to your brain, for it is finite and four-dimensional. Some things are infinite and multi-dimensional. Only your Self will know them because it is multi-dimensional and infinite in nature. Sometimes you will feel that you understand something at a deeper level—your mind may not be able to picture it, yet you understand it deeply somewhere. Honor the deeper level, for your mind may never fully grasp it anyway. In any case, your mind is a tool, but all you know is in your Self. You are a Self with a mind as a powerful tool, as long as it does not take you over. However, most people have unfortunately identified with their minds and believe that they are their minds—and that is where the trouble and limitations start. You shall now go higher than that.
Read this book and take it to heart. Live by it, and wealth, affluence, and abundance will automatically come to you in ways and amounts you never before imagined possible, by laws that never fail. Carry it around with you whenever possible. Leave it by your bedside, and read it for a few minutes every morning when you get up and at night before you go to sleep. When you are done, start again, a few pages every day. Repetition causes internalization, making it your second nature.
You will understand this book to the extent that you are willing.
Ready? Still interested? Let's begin.