"How You Can Create And
Maintain Real, Lasting Wealth"

T'S a dream world.   Like most forms of entertainment today, most concepts of so-called wealth are a fictional world that, for most of us, is nothing more than a pipe dream fantasy that never seems to come true.

   Cutting through all the false expectations and getting down to the reality of the minimal qualities or fundamental building blocks of real, lasting wealth, what are the true primary ingredients, attributes or elements of real wealth?

    Secondly, how can you discover a way to create and maintain these qualities or attributes on a lasting basis, for you and those who will come after you; your offspring or posterity?.

    In our modern world, as in all past ages, there are those who appear wealthy, but whose quality of life is really troubled and fleeting -- who live miserable, unhappy, unfulfilled lives, and whose wealth does not last, or cannot long be maintained.

    Others, though having found ways to maintain their physical wealth and achieve control enough to ensure the survival of their comforts, leisure and power, for them and their offspring -- seemingly in perpetuity -- nevertheless lead frustrated, troublesome lives full of worries, anxieties and seemingly never-ending concerns.

    Still others, though maintaining what most think of as wealth, nevertheless do not long retain the trappings of their apparent wealth, who fade into relative obscurity, while some overcome all obstacles that drag so many others down, to stay "on top," in control and wealthy, regardless of the number or size of hurdles that stand in their way.

    There are also those who, however poor or impoverished they may seem, really live quiet, peaceful lives filled with blessings, without concerns or worries besetting them, who appear to have discovered the secret to an inner wealth of happiness, contentment and peace of mind that lasts and sees them through every difficulty, no matter the fact that the apparent circumstances of their lives appear to make such an outcome difficult, unlikely or impossible.

    Most people, however -- and perhaps you think of yourself as one of these -- are continually frustrated by the choices they appear to face, and become or remain impoverished, often in the very midst of the hustle and bustle of a seemingly prosperous and wealthy society all around them.

    Like you, perhaps, I have found myself facing many different circumstances and situations in life, having witnessed men and institutions of great wealth arise, and some of them fall again back into the poverty and obscurity out of which they arose.

    Throughout my many and varied experiences in life, by keeping an open but critical mind, searching out the often hidden, secretive aspects of what really lies behind the facades and often false fronts of the apparently wealthy, I have learned to distinguish and recognize some of the key attributes of true wealth, and how it is created and maintained.

    The following is a brief list of some of the qualities that comprise real wealth, at its heart and core; the essential features without which such wealth cannot long exist or be maintained:

1. Good health, free from accidents, strife, stress or illness, attack or harm.
   
   
2. Good friends and close family, friendly and joyful relationships that fulfill, inspire and achieve the epitome of what we seek, desire and hope for in terms of happiness, contentment, peace and tranquility.
   
   
3. A fulfilling, rewarding and secure vocation, profession, mission or calling in life.
   
   
4. Freedom and the ability to choose how to use one's time creatively, generously, rewardingly and satisfyingly to fulfill your greatest potential, and achieve the utmost results that gratify, comfort, please and pacify you and as many others as possible, in happy, peaceful and rewarding ways that benefit and last.
   
   
5. Control over the essential elements of your life, which makes all of the above possible, and ensures a lasting, permanent legacy without compromising, degrading or otherwise losing the central core purpose and focus of real wealth, which is the enjoyment of all these attributes of wealth without any bitter, regretful, anxious, stressful of painful intrusions, situations or occurrences.
   
   
6. Peace of mind, tranquility and contentment, even in the midst of life's most trying circumstances, leading to blessings, rewards, honor, awards, return on investments, compensation, fruitful gifts and bountiful, reliable, frequent and recurring harvests.
   
   
7. Rest and safety from all of life's worries, troubles, anxieties, stress, difficulties, inconveniences, suffering, vexations, grief, afflictions, tribulations, distress, discomforts, burdens, plagues, provocations, exasperations and predicaments.
   

    All the above may seem like a tall order.   It may even appear "impossible" or too difficult to achieve, on the surface.

    But believe it or not there is a tried and proven way to quickly, easily and reliably obtain all of the above -- and far more -- a very real key to enjoy enduring benefits, blessings and riches of far more worth and value than mere money, gold, silver, or so-called precious jewels could ever provide you.

    The answer is found in who and what you worship, and how you devote the limited time of your life to achieve the knowledge, beliefs, activities and actions that abound with lasting, permanent worth, blessings, benefits and rewards that are not deceitful, illusory, fleeting, deceptive, vain, unprofitable, valueless, fruitless, pointless, meaningless, or useless in the end.

    Many people reverence, esteem, exalt, praise, adore, venerate and otherwise adulate, glorify, idolize and pay homage to largely fictional and worthless objects of worship that are the creations of misled hearts, such as graven images of fevered fancies, or icons, heroes, celebrities and symbols of allegedly super-powerful, religious, superhuman or superlative status.

    And most are following after self-deceptions, deceitful illusions and delusions that pacify and comfort them very little, in the face of many troubles, afflictions, curses and evils that accompany and, in fact, are created and caused by such wrong, misguided and false beliefs.

    Take the worship of so-called money or valuable things as an example.

    So many put all their hopes, dreams, schemes and efforts into obtaining the alleged trappings of wealth that they fail to realize how fleeting, impermanent and corruptible all such things truly are.

    Even seemingly lasting, unchanging, enduring and permanent edifices, institutions and societies, social orders or nations come and go, returning to the relative obscurity form which they arose.

    In fact, except for written records -- themselves largely susceptible to alteration, misinterpretation or corruption in translation and transmission from one generation to another -- we often suffer collectively from a form of social Alzheimer's disorder, a sort of general forgetfulness or ignorance of the lessons learnt by past generations and societies.

    It is true that those who remain unaware of historical realities and wisdom gained by often harsh experience are doomed to repeat the tragedies, troubles, calamities and disasters of the past, in their own unique ways.

    The only thing that can prevent this is not just education, knowledge and awareness of these things, but wisdom, discernment and understanding of why they occurred, the real underlying causes and actual effects reaped by those who sowed discord, rebellion, strife or conflict, to their own ultimate hurt and harm, and how you can avoid making the same mistakes and thereby prevent similar catastrophe, upheaval, violence, destruction or oblivion yourself.

    Toward this end, however, it must be said that your perceptions and judgments of what is worthwhile knowledge or education depends entirely upon which source you place your trust in, to accurately and insightfully convey, lead and guide you through the maze of competing, conflicting and often confusing facts, statistics, standards and mainstays of opinion, perception and viewpoint that form and shapes your attitudes, beliefs and understanding (or lack and pretense thereof), of the realities of the world in which you live.

    Not only that, but why we, and all or most of our knowledge, customs, beliefs and concerns perish, die and expire in the end.

    And despite an often morbid or macabre fascination with the frightening reality of our own eventual destruction, death and decay, the true purpose and meaning -- the eventual outcome and end result -- of this ever-present reality seems to elude and escape most of us.   Only a true perspective can accurately define and reveal the true path to creating and maintaining real, lasting wealth.

    There is only one real, actual root source of truthful insight, instruction and guidance in all these matters, but all too often faith is put not in the originator, author and Creator of everything we see, perceive and believe truthfully, but in a sometimes corrupted transmission of written records down through the ages.

    This flawed faith, however, often ignores the evident corruptions, mistakes and additions or amendments that are so prevalent in all such human endeavors, placing false belief in a largely fictional flawless text, to appease our need for assurance and acceptance of ageless truth unchanged by the foibles and perversions of debasement, deterioration, mistranslation and misconstruction, misconception or misunderstanding rather than comprehension, wisdom and assumed verity in such efforts.

    Nevertheless, lost knowledge and discarded truths may be reclaimed, recovered and restored, but only through diligent and careful research, led by and revealed only through the inspiration of the original Author of all accurate knowledge, wisdom and truth.

    The quality of your results will depend largely upon who and what you trust to lead and guide you in this worthy endeavor.   If you choose unwisely, you will not obtain the ends you seek.

    Appearances can be deceiving in this regard, because we tend to look for end results even before they can possibly exist, without realizing that the fruits of what are sown must often lie hidden in the relative obscurity of temporary death, beneath the "soil," or within human hearts, until the rainwater of spiritual awakening/resurrection comes to germinate the planted seeds of truth or error, which then sprout up and bear their fruit of thorns and tares, depending on the true nature of the seed and its origin.

    The crop produced by this process, of course, depends entirely upon the amount of rain and nourishment available from the soil in which the seed rests, assuming it is good soil and not rocky or shallow terrain where the seed is susceptible to devastating hardships, the competition of weeds or other vegetation, the careless concerns of hard or impossible to obtain room for taking root, the ravages of predators, or even sharecroppers who attempt to abscond with the fruit to consume it in their greed, envy and animosity toward the true owner and originator of "their" harvest.

    Education is very popular today, as it has been throughout the past ages of human endeavor.   Yet the end results of all this hungering and thirsting after knowledge -- if general conditions of economies and societies in our "modern" world are any reliable indication -- at best have been and are disappointing for most.

    At worst, the destructive beliefs, attitudes and activities generated and engendered by such efforts have destroyed many lives, social orders and even nations.

    True education, to exist at all, must be founded upon true beliefs, which in turn must be predicated upon correct attitudes, effective efforts and accurate understanding.

    All of this must be guided by correct directive principles, or timeless laws which, to exist and remain functional on a reliable basis, must be maintained and directed by an intelligent, beneficent, overseeing authority.

    Often, because most of what creates and maintains our world either remains hidden or obscured by familiarity with this general prevalence or commonplace, omnipresent universality, we often fail to recognize or acknowledge the truth and reality of this guiding but unseen hand working behind the scenes, making life and the world as we know it possible.

    Without all of the elements and essentials to sustain life present and functioning at all times, with elemental, essential laws operating and directing the form and shape of all that is, we simply could not exist and would not remain as an enduring part of the creation of which we are a part.

    Even agnostic evolutionists and other nonbelievers in an intelligent Creator must rely upon the preexistence of immutable laws and principles guiding the outcome of their otherwise largely fictional attempts to explain a supposedly "scientific" development of life upon this planet, apparently alone among an otherwise barren universe seemingly devoid of similar occurrences elsewhere, in the observable vicinity of our world.

    At least this is how things appear or seem to be, as far as science -- that largely fictional concept of alleged competent wisdom and understanding of all things worth knowing -- has been able to determine, through all the investigative efforts of so many inquiring minds over countless decades and even centuries of united efforts in this direction.

    Despite these educational efforts and their inevitable results, there is a great deal of belief in fantasy "dark" matter and energy, without realizing the true nature of the energy permeating, forming and shaping, and actually operating our cosmos, leaving so-called "scientists" often puzzled, shocked, surprised and dumbfounded by nearly every new discovery, most of which are immediately misidentified, misinterpreted, or mistakenly explained according to preexisting but erroneous paradigms and beliefs.

    Similarly, largely disfavored and discredited evidence of non-human intelligent life of terrestrial and extraterrestrial origin has been and is being ignored, doubted, disparaged or belittled by our largely self-appointed intellectual mentors, leaders, educators and media "experts," such as news correspondents, producers, directors, writers and commentators.

    Adding to the confusion are the many competing and often contradictory voices of all the major and minor religions and religious leaders, educators and personalities.

    In all of these sources, true education in the basics of the foundational law, and it's Creator and sustainer, is often lacking entirely or flawed by corrupt carnal reasoning, argument, of pagan, superstitious and false beliefs.

    True education must, to be true at all, steer clear of all these pitfalls, dead-ends and merry-go-rounds of endless debate, confusion and ignorance, along with arrogance and hatred toward any opposing viewpoint, facts or beliefs.

    And so, you will learn, if you have the ability to perceive the truth in all that has been related thus far, that real wealth is actually found in the correctness of your foundational, core beliefs and who you choose to hear and follow.

    Lasting wealth is the character you develop, and carry with you into every circumstance you face in life.   It is how you react that brings about the desired results of true peace, contentment, understanding and blessings you seek, not just for yourself but for the benefit of all who are deserving of sharing in those blessings.

    It is even found in the richness of compassion toward those who are presently unworthy, in the effort and attempt to help them come to see the error of their beliefs and ways, holding out to them a helping hand, a kind word, or guidance and direction if they are willing to receive it.

    Wealth, the kind that truly enriches us all, is not found among the fearful, the envious, the hateful, the hurtful, the warring or the dishonest and false.   It will not be found in any nation, philosophy or religion that embraces any of these carnal, common and sadly generally all-too-popular responses toward your fellow man.

    The real and lasting wealth that overcomes all of these prevalent human vices, even facing certain death in peaceful opposition to such "security"-minded, insecure and hostile forces, comes not from within your heart, but rather from the only origin and source for the wisdom and character that embraces the universal laws of Creation, the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth Himself.

    Unless you are learning about Him through His laws, and studying His wise and enduring Commandments, Statutes, Judgments, and every word that proceeds from Him, you have not yet begun to truly discover or obtain any of the real lasting wealth that is yours for the asking, if you will only first realize the precious resource and bountiful source of all that is of real and lasting value.

    Heaven and earth may one day pass away, but all of true worth will continue without end, in the new heavens and new earth that are coming.   May you be counted among those blessed to see, experience and rejoice in that future reality!