An important distinction sometimes made is that between knowledge of nature and knowledge of culture. The facts of nature do not change from age to age and from country to country; the facts of culture do. While there is general agreement among scholars in the field that social relationships provide the key to understanding the genesis of ideas, there are also far-reaching disagreements among several distinct schools, within which there are again individual differences. Money and work are, of course, intimately related. By splitting concerns for financial profit from the inherent values of work, money can become the focus of a job’s narcissism. Basically, pleasure in money can take the place of pleasure in work. Nevertheless, we all require money, and money can be an integral part of the work without loss of soul. The crucial point is our attitude. In most work there can be a close relationship between caring for the World in which we live (ecology) and caring for the quality of our way of life (economy). Money is the medium of exchange of our relationship to the community and environment in which we live. We pay our taxes, and the government provides for the basic needs of the community. It is the recognition that community is necessary and that it requires rules of participation. Money is central in our attempts to live a communal life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5

The lives of some people are shaped by the lure of money, while others sense the temptation and take an ascetic route, in order to avoid being tainted. Either way, money retains its powerful position in the soul. However, if a person’s attitude toward money is essentially a defense against poverty, then this person may never truly experience wealth. The experience of wealth is relative to our state of mine. For some, being wealthy is having a mortgage paid off, car paid off, good health, and food to eat. For others, being wealthy might mean being rich, famous, owning a mansion and being the president of a successful corporation. Nonetheless, wealth is what you imagine it to be. Some people feel wealthy by having a loving family and someone to share their joy with. The basis for correct spiritual treatment starts with the idea that being is already perfect. The idea of perfection is the spiritual power which heals. From the standpoint of pure spirit, an unknown or hidden false cause would be just as unreal as a known or revealed one. We know that mind, or spirit, is pure, perfect, and complete, manifesting itself in physical form in and throughout all nature. The government of good is enforced through the law of human’s own divinity. “When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous, but terror to evildoers (Proverbs 21.12).”  #RandolphHarris 2 of 5

Power exists, and the action of this power is upon your word, or your word acts upon the power, no one knows which. For all practical intents and purposes, the power acts upon your word. If we do not feel any general sense of proprietorship toward the Earth, then we can think that it is someone else’s responsibility to keep the oceans clean and the air free of poison. From the perspective of the soul, wealth and poverty come together in responsible use and enjoyment of this World, which is only leased to us for a time. God knows who we are and that our little affairs are important, the answer is that God knows everything, not as big and little, but only as action and reaction, only as contemplation which produces its own reaction. Remember, that the same ingenuity, the same creative power that flows into the largest form also creates the smallest form. Comparatives do not belong in the Universe. They are merely differentiations in our own mind. The problem lies not in having too much nor too little, but in taking money literally, as a fetish rather than as a medium. If wealth is found by rejecting the experience of poverty, then it will never be complete. The soul is nurtured by want as much as by plenty. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5

God, who created the World, watches over the affairs of humans, the believer is committing oneself to a certain general view of the ultimate basis of the World, giving voice to certain, perhaps very indefinitely specified, expectations as to how things will ultimately turn out, expressing a basic sense of security in life, committing oneself to approach God in prayer and ritual in one way rather than another. And these functions are intimately dependent on each other. What is needed is a description of the relationships among these functions, one sufficiently complex to match the complexity of the subject matter. We have to distinguish between shadow qualities of money that are part of its soulfulness and symptoms of money gone wild. Greed, avarice, cheating, and embezzlement are signs that the soul of money has been lost. It is the nature of money to be exchanged. In fact, we sometimes refer to it as change. When a society becomes corrupted by money’s shadow, that society falls apart much like ancient Rome. However, a society that owns up to its financial shadow can be nurtured. We do not always need a lot of money to feel like adults. Some people end up with millions of dollars and still wonder when they are going to grow up. No clear line is drawn between symbol and object, between wish and fulfillment, between perception and fantasy. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5

Again, no sharp distinction is made between the object itself and the emotional reaction it evokes; emotional response is taken to be an integral part of the environment. As a result, none of our familiar standards of truth or objectivity are applicable. What is most real is what arouses the greatest intensity of emotional response and, particularly, what is felt most sacred.  A Great load will fall from our mind if we will stop thinking about rich and poor or hard an easy. There are many Heavenly bodies millions of times larger than the Earth; there are many that are smaller, but the same Cause created them, not as big or little but merely as expression of itself. We know what it is to believe, opine, and wonder, and we know when we know. We know, noninferentially, that there are other persons. Possibly through religious experience, and in particular the experience of solemn awe, we know that God exists. We do not want merely inferred friends. Could we possibly be satisfied with an inferred God? Because beauty in its highest form is spiritual, it must suggest a deeper ethical meaning. When God puts a promise in your heart, you have to come to the place where you believe in that promise so strongly no one and no circumstance can move you. “The Lord detests different weights, and dishonest scales do not please him (Proverbs 20.23).” That means that be fair and honest. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5