The Gold Standard

By Edna Lister

Today, as never before, we are concerned with our relationship to "things" on the one side and that unseen Power, which we call God or Spirit, on the other. The solution to financial worries must include this idea of relationship, which we have known as unity, in a broader sense than man has ever used it.

We must sweep aside, for all time, the idea of each of us being a separate part. We must become unified parts, working with and for each other. We must understand ever more clearly the laws of being that bring forth from the invisible into the visible. We must understand how the Master increased the "loaves and fishes," and be able to apply that process to our own needs.

The first step always consists in having your needs met at the time. The second step is to have just enough to meet your needs before you really need to use it. The third step is to have the symbolic "twelve baskets left over" to share freely after you fulfill your own needs.

Let us consider four ideas concerning these laws, which we must use to complete any needed manifestation. The old method was to concentrate or to demonstrate the supply of abundance. You sat in the silence, concentrated on your empty purse, and knew that the Divine Infinite would fill it.

If, while you were concentrating on your supply, Billy came home with some claim of illness, you had to stop concentrating on supply and concentrate on Billy. If other needs presented themselves, you had to concentrate on them. Meanwhile, your purse became empty again.

Concentration is a mental power and comes by using will. You can use the power of concentration only in one direction at a time and upon only one thing at a time. Therefore, it will not work well for manifesting supply.

You need something that will do all things at once. You can always find this in your ability to surrender yourself completely to the Power of Love.

You can concentrate harder than ever before, but only on keeping yourself completely surrendered to this Power, concentrating on keeping your eye "single" on releasing this Power. As you speak the Word of truth about everything in your life, the Power goes forth and does the work.

When you surrender to the idea that the Power is doing the perfect work, when you surrender yourself to become a perfect instrument through which it can work, when you become a mouthpiece directing it to that place where it is needed, only then can you be sure that your life will be perfect. As an instrument, you release the Power, and as a mouthpiece you control its direction, the two perfect halves of a perfect whole.

The second idea is visualization. If you see empty space anywhere, you will not have any results worth mentioning in manifesting supply. If you are seeing empty cars, empty houses, empty stores, empty rooms, empty cupboards and empty purses, they will never be filled.

You must then see everything as filled with activity, or some outer forms. Yet, it isn't enough to see your own purse or wallet full of bills and gold, for the law is "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again." – Luke 6:38.

You can overcome this need by mentally reaching into your own pocket and purse to fill the purse of your friend or the wallet of anyone whom you meet on the street. You can always give from this invisible supply — just as Elijah left the widow of Zarephath with the "barrel of meal that wasted not and the cruse of oil that failed not," so can you use this great law of visualization to increase your own supply.

That which you give, you shall receive. You may have nothing visible to give away right now, but you can surely give from the invisible substance that occupies the whole universe — right where you stand this moment.

Everyone can see Niagara Falls. Anyone can see the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. You do not leave your body to go there, but use the faculty that everyone possesses: You can visualize anything if you try hard enough.

Some have this faculty well-developed but others must work to develop it. However, everyone has the imagination to develop and use. The main idea to keep in mind about visualization is that you must have an unselfish, universal reason for the Power going into action for you.

If the "gimmies" bother you — give me this and give me that — it will not work for you. It is only when you give that which you yourself desire that God can release it through you.

We have all heard people say, "I do not care about money!" Indifference never brought anything to anyone — and it cannot be true at this present stage of development, for we all must use the symbol of God's abundance, which we call money. No one can buy the fabric to make clothes without money. No one can get food without money. No one can ride in cars or on buses without money.

If you do not earn the money that you pay for these things then it is true that someone else is doing it. Someone is earning money for the things that everyone wears and uses. Therefore, no one can honestly say that they do not care for money. Back of that statement is pride that you are not "as other men are." Usually back of that is still another wrong emotion — hatred of the situation of lack and limitation.

Are you to give all your time to thinking about money? Are you to use all your time visualizing money? Most assuredly not, but being indifferent about money — prideful about not caring — or letting someone else do your "worrying" about it is just as negative as it is to be too eager about it. Underestimating it is just as definitely wrong as it is to overestimate it, and undervaluing it is just as wrong as overvaluing it.

You have had God and joy, God and pleasures, God and houses and lands, God and clothes, God and money, and God and all sorts of things. Now you have One God in all, through all, as all. You may have no false god you call money.

Money now takes its rightful place in your life, and you use it without stinting, knowing that it is only the outer symbol of those inner riches that are yours to draw upon. You know that you are entitled, through your inheritance from the kingdom, to all that you can possibly use. "All things that the Father hath are mine." – John 16:15. Everything the Father has is mine to use.

Free yourself from all ideas of it not being the will of God that you have all that you need. Any good idea is God's idea, and it is a good idea for you to be free to grow, unfold and take care of all your obligations.

The fourth idea in which you may have gone wrong in the past is that you think deep down within you that God probably cannot trust you with money. If you had an abundance of all good things, you might be inclined to forget who God really is, or you might get off the path, which you have held to with such great difficulty.

Everything from the outside seems to try to carry you into other ways. Your friends sometimes seem to lead you far afield. You have already left the path so often to pick a few beautiful flowers, which soon fade, to chase a few brilliant butterflies.

Perhaps you are determined to keep your feet planted on the straight and narrow way, fearing that if you have too much ease and comfort, you will again fail to study and grow. Now, if you cannot trust yourself, how then can you imagine that God can trust you? If you are really afraid that you may fail, then how can God release the necessary Power through you?

While you have the fear that you are not ready to be trusted with everything that the universe can supply in the way of abundant riches, just that long will you bar yourself from the kingdom of riches. God cannot trust you with anything that you cannot trust yourself to handle. Eventually, you reach the point in your development where you can stand up and say,

"Please send enough of the Power of Love through me to fulfill all the needs of my family and myself. Father, You can now trust me with the wealth of the Kingdom to distribute to the world. I am now ready to be used to release this Inner Abundance that shall relieve the whole of humanity. You can now trust me to use all that I need for myself and send the rest forth into the world."

When you can also tell God that you are ready to receive the courage to stand steadfast where you are, that all you want is the Power to lift everything given to you daily to lift, that you no longer want to run away from your responsibility but desire to pour out enough love upon it to make it perfect, that you want to be responsible for all your family — "God hath given thee all them that sail with thee." — when you do this, then and then only will God send forth through you that release for all those about you.

Then you discover that He has only been waiting for this one thing — your own sense of ability to stand amid all outer challenges, calm and unmoved, steadfast and sure.

You may even have thought with the rest of the world that because a few men have cornered vast wealth, you could not have very much. When you started on this great adventure of life, God sent with you all that you could possibly use or need through the whole of your period of living.

When you stepped into this visible form, you had to leave it just at your fingertips in the invisible. You and I are invisible to the world. All that the world sees is that radiance, which is Spirit. If you have not used the vast supply, which God gave to you, then it is still waiting to come forth for you.

You are here to learn how to be a Master Creator — how to conquer this invisible world. No one else of earth can possibly touch or bring into visibility one particle of that which vibrates only with your own vibration. It waits the magic touch of your spoken word to become! What? That which you desire and need.

This invisible substance, which we call supply, what is it? How do you know that a radio wave exists? Because you have to breathe invisible substance to continue living, and you must tune in to hear a radio wave. Scientific instruments measure, compute and tell us that these things are facts, then we must accept them and use them.

Countless thousands of fruit trees stand idle and bare during one season of the year. Later they put forth tiny leaves, buds, flowers, and then produce the countless tons of fruit that we use. Where has the fruit come from? Out of the invisible into the visible. The tree is larger each year, but leaves no hole in the ground.

Countless acres of wheat fields, endless acres devoted to vegetables and berries, lay empty for months, then suddenly stalks, leaves, and later tons of berries, wheat and vegetables spring up. Where has it all come from? Out of the invisible into the visible, leaving no hole in the ground after the harvesting is finished. Farmers have used the fields for centuries and still they retain the same old level — the hills are still hills and the flat places are still flat.

Countless sheep grow wool, which men shear each year and make into garments. Where does it come from? From the invisible into the visible, and the sheep grow no smaller but reproduce.

Our paper money was once wood pulp, made from a tree that came from the invisible into the visible. Men dug gold and silver from the hills, which nature made from single cells that extended and expanded — from the invisible into the visible.

When will you really see it and know? When will you stop fussing and work to use that which is your own? When will you accept your own responsibility to create from this invisible substance of which God formed the whole earth? It is yours to use, yours to bring forth, yours to make and create into any outer form that you choose or desire.

You cannot destroy gold. The hotter you heat it, the more you purify it. The more you burn it, the greater its value. As you put it in the crucible and fire it, the dross comes to the surface and you remove it, leaving only the purified and perfect substance. The refiner knows when it is perfect, for he can see his own image reflected in it.

When the fires of life purify you until God can look at you and see His own image and likeness reflected in you, then and then only will you have become a Master of life. Then and then only will you have become a conqueror of the Inner Kingdom, bringing its perfection into the outer realm.

Whenever you decide to live by this perfect Godly Gold Standard every hour of the day, you shall be able to create the outer and visible sign of wealth. Whenever you lend yourself to the purifying process, through which all gold must go, then you shall be allowed to use all that you can imagine yourself enjoying.

"I am now ready to accept my own inheritance."
"I am now ready to create my own abundant wealth."
"I am now ready to surrender to this Power that works through me."
"I am now ready to release all that Love that belongs to me."
"I am now accepting everything that comes to me as fire to make me perfect."
"I am now being made into perfect and pure gold of Spirit."