Pure Life: A Plea for Love as Legal Tender

By Ivo VALKENBURG

There are two wolves inside of you
The wolf of personality and the wolf of Infinite love
Which one will win?
The one you feed

More and more people dare to trust the power of love in all aspects of life, without judgement or expectations. They share one dream: to be restored back to their original state of being

• Language: English
• Publisher: VALKENBURG bv
• Release date: Jan 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9789082655308

Ivo VALKENBURG

Ivo Valkenburg (Netherlands, 1966) stands for the enabling of an economy of well-being and happiness. He engages with substantial renewal of classical thought models and its practical applications. In doing so, he just looks beyond the material side of life. He considers that man again should correspond to the original state of being, which one carries in within, as the highest ideal. He views that the love (heart and soul) and wisdom (mind and spirit) are the key ingredients to realize this ideal step by step. Ivo is active for 30 years in business. His focus is on (1) to make visible how beautiful our society can be, (2) assisting companies and institutions to work from Infinite love, (3) helping people to experience the power of the heart and to integrate it into everyday life, (4) writing books and articles, and (5) giving lectures and talks about love in action.

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PURE LIFE

Keywords: love, transition, economy

© 2017 Ivo Valkenburg

Cover and interior design: Peter Beemsterboer / Beemsfoto (Netherlands)

Translator: Jaap Hiddinga (Scotland)

Editors: Rose Hill (Scotland) and Susan Galvan (USA)

ISBN 978-90-9029893-1 (paperback)

ISBN 978-90-826553-0-8 (E-book)

Any part of this book may only be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system and/or transmitted in any form, by print, photo print, microfilm, recording, or other means, chemical, electronic or mechanical, with the written permission of the publisher.

CONTENTS

www.ivovalkenburg.nl

www.lovemadevisible.eu

www.facebook.com/PureLifeTheBook

‘When love beckons you, follow her, even though her path is steep and only passable with great effort.

And when she spreads her wings around you, surrender yourself to her, even though the sword she keeps hidden under her feathers will injure you seriously.

And if she speaks to you, believe her, even though her voice is capable to shatter your dreams just as the Northern winds strip bare the gardens.’

KAHLIL GIBRAN

‘The Prophet – about love’

ODE TO 28 BACKERS OF PURE LIFE

Kickstarter Crowdfunding Book translation Campaign

They supported the translation of Pure Life from Dutch to English. In only 3 days! Thank you!

• Leontine van Roosmalen

• Jelle Bartels

• Thom Boot

• Joris Vincken

• Jeroen Bais

• Madelon Engels

• Baptist de Pape

• Linda Ruigrok

• Jeppe van Tricht

• Jeannette Vaandrager

• Lammert Koekoek

• Jose de Graaf

• Cécile Timmermans

• Hubrien Meijaard

• Lennart van Gastel

• Alie van Geelen

• Sebastiaan Martin van der Hoek

• Neutralis Financial Life Planning

• Douwe Dijkstra

• Willy van Houtrijve Spiritual Netwerk Zuid-Limburg

• Karin van Geelen

• Anoeska & Marcel Coopman

• Vereniging Life Planners Netherlands

• Rein Teune

• Jeroen Timmers

• Paul

• Nic Oosterveer & Stephan Zwahlen

THANK YOU!

Thank you Petra van Vliet (crowdfunding movie), Jaap Hiddinga (translation), Susan Galvan (editing), Jacquelien Veerman (editorial support), Peter Beemsterboer (cover and interior design), Aernoud Oosterholt (Edicola Publishing) and Emy ten Seldam (BRES Magazine). Thank you Mark Anielski and Paul Efmorfidis for your most joyful support always! Thank you Falco & Corry (without your helping hands I would not have been here where I am now), Ans, Sander & Arlene, Georgia, Merel, Ad & Anneke, Trudy & The, Ihaleakala Hew Len, Willem & Bibi, Boudewijn, Ton, Vera, the monks of Rasca Transilvana Monastery and all other beautiful people involved, for lifting up my soul in most challenging times! Thank you Wilma & Joke for giving me the opportunity to work on ‘meraki’ in my so beloved Greece and beyond! Thank you Thom Boot, Douwe Dijkstra and Jeroen Bais for making it possible to built Casa Maria, a guesthouse for everyone who loves to create time and space in silence and nature, to experience the power of being, and the power of love in all aspects of life without judgment or expectations. Thank you An & Marc, Jelle, Karin, Angelo & Willemijn, Lennart and Sandra for your amazing support to the mission of Transilvania Retreat Center, Center for Co-Creating a Society of Love! Last but not least: thank you Lili & Edwin for living such a Pure Life together!

FOREWORD

BY MARK ANIELSKI

Ifirst met Ivo at his book launch of Spirit in Finance in Holland in the medieval town of Heusden. Prior to that personal encounter, I will never forget the conversation we had over Skype about his book and my vision for an economy of wellbeing being and a civilization of love. Ivo cried that afternoon; his heart was moved. I knew that a truth had been spoken and that the sign of truth comes with tears of joy. Ivo is one of most joyful people I’ve ever met.

Like Ivo, I too have had a sometimes painful relationship with money. While I may not have suffered as much as Ivo has with financial burdens, the anxieties over money have often distracted me from pursuing a true and pure life. How often have you been filled with anxiety over issues pertaining to money while instead focusing on the abundant gifts God has blessed you with?

A wise elder friend reminds me of the fundamental question we all face: are you leading your life, or just following it around?

Our relationship with money is a strange thing that causes us to do things that seem incongruent with our true nature. Many of us in European or North American cultures were brought up with a work ethic of ‘work hard, make money.’ But what if that higher aspiration were ‘work hard, follow your heart’s deepest calling, and pursue genuine happiness (as in the Greek definition, eudaimonia, which means ‘well-being of your spirit’)?

My indigenous friends of the Cree people of Turtle Island, also known as North America, tell me that, in their understanding of human nature, ‘each child which is born is an answer to a prayer.’ The question is ‘what prayer were you an answer to?’

I believe that our true nature is that we are created in the image of God which is LOVE. If this is true then a pure life means living in this truth that LOVE created us; therefore, love is who we are.

Money is the creation of our imagination – a social construct which we have used as a form of exchange of skills, talents and energies. Money can do many great things, but it can also cause us anxiety and despair. It is not money which causes us anxiety, but rather our relationship with money and the ways in which we acquire it (as in debt). In reading this important book, my heart feels for the damage that money has done to this dear friend of mine.

I believe one of the solutions to our mixed relationship with money is to actually fall in love with money. This may seem paradoxical; but to fall in love with money means to break the spell it has over us.

Indigenous wisdom elders in North America have taught me that our relationship with money must be secondary to healthy harmonious relationship with the creator and with the earth. These Native Americans had no real use for money (coins, gold, silver) like European cultures. They used sea shells as a form of currency in exchange for things considered valuable and scarce. The shell was only considered to have value (which comes from the Latin word valorum meaning ‘to be worthy or strong’) because shells were beautiful and rare and came from Mother Earth (Nature), who gave from her abundance freely. They were used to adorn dresses and were sewn on to deer or moose hide to create wampum belts which became a sign of unity and were used to record relationships (treaties) between Nations. European colonists mistook wampum as a form of money and ultimately destroyed this tradition.

Over 2000 years ago, Jesus reminded us of how to pursue a pure life, a life of LOVE. He also reminded us of our right relationship with money, and taught us to mimic nature by trusting that all things would be given from a place of abundance. His gospel of love reminded us that we are created in the image of God, which is LOVE, therefore, we are literally children of LOVE. We are told that God looked upon His creation and smiled saying it is good, indeed it is all good.

Ivo’s important book reminds us to rediscover these truths and to boldly place LOVE in the heart of all aspects of our lives, including business and even finances and banking.

If we could create such an amazing thing as money out of our imagination, surely we can create an economy based on LOVE and ultimately eliminate the source of our collective suffering that has been part of our reality for hundreds of years.

To speak of love as part of an economic model may seem strange coming from an economist. Much of my training in economics and accounting required me to report all values in terms of dollars. I would look at those demand-supply curves and the price-quantity relationships on the black board of my economics classes and wonder ‘what does that snake-around-a-stick’ (dollar sign) actually mean? What gives this true value?’

Unfortunately, I realized only much later in my career that money was nothing but a creation of our will and imagination. Money has no relationship with anything real, that is real assets or what I call ‘genuine wealth.’ I would learn that all money (95% or more) in today’s world is created in the form of debt when private banks issue loans. The bank teller who told Ivo his account was empty had no idea she was part of a system of ex-nihilo money creation. In principle, that system could have created new money for Ivo and his family in that moment of existential angst without any real cost. Instead Ivo suffered and nearly took his own life because of his feeling of guilt and shame. Fortunately, he had his loving father to remind him that a pure life is one filled with unconditional love and giving without expectation.

It’s hard to fathom that new money is created every time a mortgage or student loan is issued. The act is so simple that John Kenneth Galbraith, the great Canadian economic advisor to John F Kennedy, said that the creation of money by private banks is so simple, that the mind is repelled.

Ivo’s book is a form of therapy for all humanity to help us overcome the inter-generational trauma and financial angst we have experienced. For generations, millions of people have suffered under the hidden form of debt slavery not even knowing they were slaves. How can we leave this slavery if not through a new call for amazing grace and a return to what we all long for: a pure life filled with love as we contribute to the world our real gifts?

We must indeed pursue a pure life that brings us lasting joy and genuine happiness; i.e., the well-being of our souls (eudaimonia). We can create a new economy based on well-being and love, returning money to the role of servant of our lives rather than our master. Learning from the Indigenous Native Americans of Turtle Island can help us.

We can make money do whatever we want it to do and create it in whatever form you would like – seashells, gold coins or digits on computers. The great irony about money is that it must be created by us human beings for the benefit of others so that all of us can enjoy a good, flourishing life of true happiness without anxiety over tomorrow’s debts.

Jesus gave us the important words in the Lord’s prayer that we should forgive each other’s debts as we too forgive our debtors. We have forgotten those words instead using the word trespasses in the current version of the Lord’s prayer. I’m not sure what a trespass is; I do know what it means to experience debt. If we pray the Lord’s prayer properly, we may find ourselves free from the debt slavery cancer that grips the world in a global mortgage. This deadly thrall is reflected in French, where ‘mortgage’ means ‘death pledge.’

Our money system demands payment of interest on bank loans issued by corporations who have license to create the money we need for life’s needs. Currently the burden of that interest consumes roughly 1/3 of our working lives which we will spend paying for the interest costs that are embedded in the collective debt in our economy. This is both unnecessary and unjust.

Alternative systems are available looking to our past. In Britain, for almost 800 years a system of money was used known as tally sticks. These notched sticks were issued by the king or queen to provide sufficient supply of currency, without cost to society, for the exchange of goods and services and for the payment of taxes. There was no burden of interest or usury. Money was always in sufficient supply to meet the needs of society. Ironically it was William of Orange from Holland who brought the debt money system to Britain. This resulted in the creation of a privately held central bank called the Bank of England in 1694. This model of central banking became the model for all other central banks in the world including the US Federal Reserve Bank, the largest private central bank in the world. Sadly, Europeans have long forgotten about the amazing tally stick and how it was used effectively to sustain one of the most stable economic periods of economic history. In many ways the tally stick was like the wampum belts of Native Americans.

Ivo brings the world an important antidote to a global pandemic of debt money enslavement and trauma. Thank goodness that he did not despair over his financial problems and leave this earth, but instead chose to stay with us with a renewed passion for LOVE and a reminder that we all can and must pursue a pure life.

Indeed Ivo reminds us there is only one truth: LOVE is who we are.

Enjoy this book and renew your love of life.

MARK ANIELSKI

Author, The Economics of Happiness: Building Genuine Wealth

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

INSUFFICIENT FUNDS

It was around Christmas in 2008 that I expressed the intention to write my first book, Spirit in Finance. It is my first plea for love as legal tender. I had just moved from a nice, bright and sunny house to a detached bungalow with views of perhaps the most beautiful fortified town of Netherlands. The birth of my son, Edwin, in May of that year gave me an inner strength that I had never experienced so strongly before. After six more or less involuntary abortions and three miscarriages, Edwin as number ten was a godsend. I dreamed of expanding my company from sole trader into a powerful management consulting firm with a team of five to ten employees; and guiding people, companies and institutions into the transition toward a new form of enterprise, arising from a pure heart.

Less than a week after I started writing, my bank account was blocked. ‘Insufficient funds’. I broke into a sweat when I noticed that little message on the screen of the pin machine at the supermarket. I was embarrassed and looked at the line of people behind me. Everyone seemed in a hurry to have the last shopping done before Christmas. I felt guilty that I kept the people waiting in the cue. I felt fear creeping through my entire body. ‘You are guilty’, spoke my mind, never hesitant to give me advice and comments. Meanwhile, I wondered if the girl behind the cash register could see that I had no money. Apparently not, because she asked me if I had keyed in the wrong PIN code. Or did she not want to confront me with my problem out of respect and courtesy?

I gathered all my courage together and apologized for the inconvenience. ‘May I leave all my groceries here and, in the meantime, get another credit card at home to pay later?’ It was agreed, and I drove home in a hurry. In panic, I asked my wife for her credit card and succeeded in saving myself from this situation in a very short time. This kind of event continued to repeat itself for several years. The experiences were getting less innocent. At one point I chickened out by not even opening the mail anymore. Everything that looked like mail involving finances was thrown unopened in a desk drawer. The problems piled on.

Meanwhile my dear father passed away. I missed him intensely. During the week of his death, we got at least three messages from heaven. During the last farewell of my father, my brother and I told our family, friends and other acquaintances about this. ‘We have good news, dear people, it is well with dad.’ We stood together in the hall of the crematorium and shared this.

My father, who had written the preface for Spirit in Finance, had wanted to experience the publication of the book. A week and a half later he left his body. I will never forget the smile on his face. I also want to die like this. With a smile. Thankful for everything and everyone around me. He chose to go alone. We had already discussed this years before. ‘Dad, would you like to pass away alone or would you find it more comfortable if anyone would be there?’ He wanted to experience his last moment by himself. ‘Otherwise I will find it too hard to go. It’s so difficult to let go of you. I love you so much as well as your mother. You are the last to which I am still attached on Earth. That is why I prefer to be alone at the end. To be able to go in freedom.’ And so it came to pass.

Just before that I had been next to him for a while on his deathbed. I loved my father. And I still do. Before me, he had been with my mother and brother in the same way. I then went into another room to sleep. My father turned around. He died less than half an hour later. For years we have had the time to say goodbye. What a gift to be able to grieve with each other in advance. His passing therefore was okay. It felt as a huge relief even to see my father no longer suffering physically.

In the morning a dear friend called. Clairsentient as ever, he called to let me know how he had felt from a distance that my father had left the Earth. ‘I could not fail to call you. It might be a little crazy to call you so quick, but I can see your dad having plenty of joy. He is so happy that he can move freely again. His death is celebrated as a birth on the other side. Your father has been welcomed with so much love. There are plenty of cakes going round. I really had to share this image with you. You don’t mind that I am so open telling you this?!’

A day later my brother and I walked in at the local florist near my mother. We gave the news about the death of my father and asked him if he wanted to take care of the flower arrangements for the funeral. ‘Just walk with me to the back,’ spoke the florist. ‘It is well with your father. I can see him walking, he is so happy to be able to walk again. He has found immediately the path to the light. It’s so nice where your father is. As above, so below, isn’t that your wish also, Ivo?!’

A day before the funeral I was interviewed about Spirit in Finance by an American radio station over the phone. I told about the passing of my father. The interviewer also appeared to be clairsentient. Totally unexpected, it was the third confirmation as she told me how she saw my father cheerfully dancing the polka. ‘There is plenty of celebration up there. Your ancestors are so happy to see your father, and vice versa. It is a joyful occasion. Just pay attention when tomorrow you say goodbye to your father, he will be at the back of the hall at the left, dancing.’

The publication of Spirit in Finance in November 2009 was the beginning of considerable turbulence in my life. I missed the sense of basic trust from my father. He was no saint though he could sincerely trust in life. Instead of hating his cancer, which was the case when it started, he blessed his cancer cells. He went on to love them. I had not been able to do that with the problems in my life. On the contrary. I even seriously considered giving up on myself at some point. A financial crisis in my life, bailiffs and bankers, towering debt, shame, fear and frustration were just some elements which contributed to the development of suicidal feelings in me.

Spirit in Finance had only just appeared, and I started to feel down in the dumps. ‘Just be careful what you wish for’, my mind was telling me. ‘You have asked for it yourself. Or don’t you believe in your own beautiful words? Was your book just too naive? Just be honest!’

My wife had noted during a Conference that each speaker longed for the practical fulfilment of the message he or she shared with the people in the room. It seemed true for me as well. I have written about money, love and forgiveness. I have written about the renewal of the economy towards well-being and happiness, about a society of love. The ink was not dry and already I wanted to experience the truth of my own book: unconditional love, no judgments, waking up as the one you truly are in essence. It all sounds great. There are few books on these topics that I haven’t read. But now I needed to put my words into practice; now the challenge of actually doing what inspired me. That is different.

The first print of Spirit in Finance was almost sold out. The demand for translation of the book in English just kept coming. I started to pray. ‘Heavenly Father, Divine Mother, Holy Trinity, all the archangels and angels, servants of God, servants of the light, heavenly friends, my entire being belongs to you, move in with me, use me, have me, for the glory of God, for the Kingdom of God on Earth.’ Before you is what came in response to that prayer: Pure Life – A plea for love as legal tender. It is the sequel to Spirit in Finance.

INTRODUCTION

This book is about the realization of an impossible dream. It is about a society of love, about an economy of well-being and happiness. It is about our planet Earth as a place where humanity can experience health, beauty, strength, intelligence, love and true wealth. It is about our highest ideal which is to merge all our actions with our divine origin. It is about the transformation of everything material into the spirit of love. It is about inspiration, revitalisation and spiritualization of every situation in our lives. It is also about people, companies and organizations that integrate love into their daily activities. This book is intended for all who put more emphasis on practice than on the theory.

It is also for people who want to reconcile the material and spiritual life with each other; for everyone who wants to transform money and material items with the spirit of inspiration and creativity; for those of us who sincerely want our unique talents to work for a better world, in which Heaven and Earth are connected with each other. It is meant for people, companies and organizations that desire to learn unconditional love, with nothing and no one excluded. It may speak best to those without expectations – and hopefully, to you yourself.

The book is a deepening of my previous plea for love as legal tender, more ardently than ever before. It wants to go beyond the anthem about the beauty of love to its practical application in everyday life. It is an invitation to learn to be one with the highest nature in ourselves – not only on Sunday or during a spiritual exercise but continuously, in all facets of our existence. It can guide us when we experience resistance or problems in life that challenge us to a next step.

In part 1, the central question is: why would we take love as a starting point to put our ‘impossible’ dreams into reality? Experience shows that we can make so many other choices in seeking personal growth, business development and transition of society as a whole towards well-being and happiness. For the sake of peace we mostly choose for war, embargos and bombing. For the sake of the economy we often choose austerity, exclusion and divisions between people. For the sake of ourselves we regularly choose fear, sadness and anger.

Deep down we would be different; but our thoughts and feelings automatically return to the duality of control or surrender, habit or change, attachment to the old or fear of the unknown, now or tomorrow, postponement or fail, keeping up appearances or being transparent. Why does it yield gold when we are able to think, feel and act from our highest nature? Why are trust, empathy and a connected worldview the basic ingredients for an authentic and inspired life? Why is there no sustainability without love?

Part 2 wants to make visible the power of love. It wants to show the reader how beautiful a society can be. In that context, and in conjunction with this book, a website called www.lovemadevisible.eu has been created where many practical examples can be found of people, companies and organizations that meet every situation in daily life with ‘What does my heart