Q: I just had a very intense experience. I realized my wallet was gone – I must have lost it on the way. There was a lot of money in it and all my cards: everything. First of all I was in shock but after I’d cried and gone though the shock I felt really light. I just wanted to dance and sing on the streets! I felt very beautiful. I have a feeling I’m carried. It feels as if I got freed of something and I feel very open now to receive love.

John: What you thought you had, you didn’t need, within.

Q: You mean the thought to live without money?

John: What you had is for an external purpose but you had it for an internal purpose. What you were freed of was the internal purpose. While being released of the internal purpose, keep recognizing the external purpose. What you had in it was a dual purpose. What is to remain is a single purpose. It is to be an external means, not an internal and an external means. What left you was the internal means. While that is gone, remain recognizing the external means.

Q: What is this internal means, or the internal purpose?

John: Money had, for you, an internal purpose. It gave you a sense of internal security – something that you didn’t need. It didn’t give you something; it actually took something away. When you lost that, then within you gained something. You gained no longer needing, within, what you had lost, within. Before, you were gaining a sense of internal wellbeing in having things externally. All that does is restrict you, internally. What you had externally is for an external purpose. You cannot use it to gain an internal sense of wellbeing. The internal sense of wellbeing is to come only from within.

What you experienced is that the space within didn’t actually need what was filling it before, so that for you was very freeing. Before, you had an internal use for external things. In losing it, you realized that within you didn’t need it, but that doesn’t mean there is no use for it, without. Love being responsible in not needing what you have without, within. Love being responsible in not needing it, within, while being responsible in using it, without.

The external is not to fill the internal: the internal is to fill the external. When the external is being used to fill the internal then what you have is cold, hard cash. When the internal fills the external then what you have is warm, soft cash. There is a different beingness in each, representing your beingness. Your money can only have what you actually have within. That makes your money an extension of what you are being. It is you who is to make money something, not money that is to make you something. The flow is not to be from without, in: it is to be from within, out. Then your money is friendly instead of needy. You experienced being freed from what you were taking from it. You were freed from your internal dependency on it. Remain externally dependent while internally free, then you have a way with money instead of money being your way.

Q: I always feel that money gets in my way when I want to share my work … the fact of taking money for it, and how much? This always feels as if it is in the way. Does that have to do with what you’re speaking about?

John: Money is an energy that needs to be integrated, which means you learning how to be genuinely comfortable with it so that it can, within you, be a warm flow. There cannot be something wrong with money; there can only be something wrong in your relationship with money. If anything about money feels wrong or uncomfortable then it is not about the money; it is about something in you.

The exchange of money is to be an exchange of beingness: beingness receiving and beingness giving. Your relationship with money reveals what kind of hands you actually have. If you have a right relationship with money it is because your hands are actually kind and useful.

Q: I often feel a lack of self confidence also connected to this giving and taking money.

John: Then let tender shyness replace the discomfort. That enables you to be seen in the exchange of money.

Q: I feel it is difficult for me still to be seen – not only in things to do with money, but to be seen with my potential, my creativity and my truth.

John: Your creativity is to be an expression of your actual innocence within and not an expression to achieve something within, which is then the loss of innocence. What you have, within, is to be a flow from within outwards. What you have, within, is not to be used to bring something from without, in. It’s not to be used to achieve something.

Q: There’s such a deep longing to come from within, and not to achieve something but it feels like if I want to be out there in the world I need to achieve something there, or I can’t exist there.

John: You are to achieve something, without, but not achieving something without for having something within: not connecting an external achievement to an internal sense of wellbeing. An interior development that manifests itself in an external achievement does not, in any way, represent an internal achievement.

Q: My mind wonders how to get there?

John: Your sense of self-esteem is to come from your enjoyment of what you are being. It is not to come from an achievement. It is to come from such things within as genuineness – enjoying being genuine.

Q: What is “genuine”?

John: Holding nothing, within, while expressing much from within. As soon as achievement gives you something within then your expression from within becomes dependent on what you are holding within.

Real self-esteem is an expression that does not originate from having something without or from achieving something from without. Real self-esteem originates from what you are cleanly being, within. It comes from what you actually are, instead of it coming from what you can do or what you have. Real self-esteem is a sense, within, of loveliness that doesn’t come from anything without. It is there, within, only because you know that you are actually being that. You cannot have real self-esteem without actually being lovely, within.

Innocence is lovely because it is holding nothing. Innocence deepens as it begins to move and achieve things without, without using that to have something within. Innocence in the deep is experienced innocence. It has moved through this world without losing itself. Then, all that is acquired within from innocence having moved through this world is wisdom: innocence that understands, innocence that moves and understands such things as money, without losing itself in money.