Money: An Illusion — A Shadow of Something Else

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...