“Money is the root of all evil” is a familiar proverb ironically central to our grasping, material culture so obsessed with money and status. The actual quote from the New Testament is much more nuanced: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” (1 Timothy 6:10).

Considering the origin of the above quote, it is surprising that the nobility of poverty and the innate corruption of filthy lucre is boldly proclaimed most readily from the altars and pulpits of religious organizations who have themselves accumulated incredible amounts of the stuff and use it as an instrument of power and control.

And so it happens that, in our age of growth of consciousness, one is led to believe that if something has monetary value attached to it, or if one labours for financial gain, this is in opposition to spiritual growth.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Money is probably one of the best tools available to us for the development of consciousness.

The invention of money goes back to our spiritual guides, those that act as “guardians” of our evolutionary path, being instructed by the higher dimensions to provide human beings with a powerful tool of potential freedom.

Ancient initiates saw that money would be for the social body what blood is for the human body. By introducing money and permitting it to flow freely through society, humans would be able to improve and increase their capacity for wielding power in service of good.

However, human evolution requires that, in order to learn to do good, it is necessary to go through the experience of error, understand the trouble that error has caused, assess the impact of it at an individual and social level, and thereby gradually learn to do the right thing in the right way, with love and openness towards others and oneself.

Like any tool, money can also be used as a weapon. What can construct and create can also injure and destroy. Without the potential for causing pain through misuse, nothing can teach us anything of real value. Money is no different.

Our askance relationship with money is therefore not a result of a deficiency or negativity in money’s essential nature, but simply from the accumulated experience of money being used incorrectly, to detrimental effect, often producing additional unfortunate by-products like environmental destruction and the concentration of power in relatively few hands.

If money is for the social body what blood is for the physical body, it must circulate freely. Its flow should not be stopped, and it cannot be accumulated in only one or a few organs without resulting in injury to the rest of the body. Just as a malfunction of the physical heart can cause illness, organ failure, even death, so can the absence of right impulses such as love and a desire for good in the heart of society lead money to cause social sickness, the failure of institutions to serve their correct purpose, and collapse.

Indeed, the current suffering in society due to the misuse of money is itself the proof of the above. If we are honest with ourselves and each other, we will see quite clearly that money is treated with a predatory madness, a selfish desire for accumulation or self-preservation, with little or no concern for all the other parts of the social body. This greed is one of the main drivers of social ills, and we ignore it and allow it to flourish and deepen its hold at our peril. No matter how massive the fortunes we may have accumulated, none of us will be spared the consequences to society from the ravages of this sickness.

We have contributed to poisoning the water of life in which we all swim, literally and figuratively.

In our materialist era, so short-lived in historical terms, our lack of a true spiritual perspective has generated this relentless competition for accumulation. Our society acts as if only the material dimension exists, yet with utter disregard for the obvious fallout from our pillaging of the biosphere and mistreatment of our fellow humans. Material goods are not a source of happiness in themselves, and no bank account amounts to more than the love and joy of inner growth.

World finance, in the grip of this mindset, has proved itself to be anti-love and anti-human. It has ratcheted up money and financial products far beyond what corresponds to existing goods and services. This egregore, a thought-form given power through collective will and acting in the physical realm, enriches the few and impoverishes the many, generating illusory power, greed, despair, wars, hatred, psychic and physical diseases. It constitutes a sinister form of control over humanity.

Mahatma Gandhi once said that “the world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.” Our misuse of money continues to feed perverse and parasitic power that is maintained precisely on the persistence and widening of such imbalances. The causes of this are not remote from us.

The way we choose to use money, every day, is the basis of the very power oppressing and dividing us. We, with our own money, are the ones who freely invest in unethical finance, deposit our money in banks that finance wars and anti-human investments, buy products from multinationals who harm the environment and other humans, drugs that don’t heal us, foods that weaken our bodies and keep our consciences asleep. We are the ones who empower this system, one penny at a time.

All is not lost, though.

The dream of those ancient inventors of money is starting to come true. The awakening of consciences has begun, and a growing number of people no longer consume as passively and uncritically.

This gradual shift is manifested by a more conscious use of money. By looking for ways to use money for the good of others and not only themselves, those with a growing awareness are beginning to “spiritualise” money.

More and more ethical financial choices are being made in this age of awakening, both on an individual and a social scale:

• being mindful of one’s expenses, giving greater priority and importance to purchases of goods and services that are healthy for both the body and the soul
• the decision not to invest more money in banks or financial products managed by the giant international financial cartels
• seeking out products and services that do not harm the body and the spirit, but help them and support them during their experience on Earth
• the decision to use money to help those small groups who make efforts to escape the great powers of control, so as to allow a correct and unencumbered flow of money to where it is needed most
• the decision to eat healthy and organic, rather than the products of agribusiness or the food industry that use biotechnology and GMOs
• the choice of products and therapists that belong to holistic cultures, providing them with enough money to support and expand their activities for the benefit of our social fabric
• the decision to invest one’s own money in supporting artists and art forms that contribute to spiritual growth
• to contribute with one’s own money to support the development of consciousness, so that a culture based on love can spread and gradually replace centuries of predation, short-sighted accumulation and foolish materialism
• to reserve part of one’s money to help others in need, not by relying on large international charities, but by personally selecting who to help, in what way and why

Those who refuse to engage with money as a potential good in their lives and in the lives of others have ignored the fact that doing so leaves money only in the hands of humanity’s manipulators and takes it away from the forces of conscience.

It is very difficult to use money well, to escape from egoism and our inner predator, but overcoming this blockage is also an integral part of our development path.

If we do not want money to continue to be predominantly the club and the cage used by the powerful to enslave us, we have to accept its place in our lives and engage in the battle fully.

Money, functioning ethically and nobly, is the ideal instrument of our freedom to choose the best for our body, for our earthly conscience, and for our immortal spirit.

Money can either remain the weapon that has been used against us throughout history, or it can be an important and powerful tool of Love, of our genuine desire for Good.

It depends only on us, on how we want to use it.