You've raised a number of questions here, John. I'm going to pick one to specifically focus on and hopefully, through some long rambling text-based thought-streaming, my answer will eventually cover the others too.

Is the love of money really the root of all evil?

Obviously you are referring to the biblical phrase here.

To sum up my view in a nutshell, I don't think the love of anything is the root of all evil.

The primary fault I find with that phrase is there is no evil. Evil just means you didn't get what you want. When we classify a person as evil, they are simply not behaving in a way that we or our personal philosophy/religion/society thinks they should.

I remember reading the following quote from Gurdjieff when I was younger and it had a profound impact on my view of how people behave.

One may say that evil does not exist for subjective man at all, that there exist only different conceptions of good. Nobody ever does anything deliberately in the interests of evil, for the sake of evil. Everybody acts in the interests of good, as he understands it. But everybody understands it in a different way. Consequently men drown, slay, and kill one another in the interests of good.

G I Gurdjieff

When we classify a thing (like money) as evil, we are saying that this thing causes behaviors that we think are evil. But again referring to the above quote, I would suggest that these behaviors are more about our personal moral-based view of the world rather than any universal truth.

So having established that nothing is the root of all evil, I would like to look at the first part of that original quote which talks about the love of money being the root of all evil.

The love of anything implies attachment to that thing. It implies we want this thing so much in our lives that we love it. And the implication is that this love is affecting our mental equilibrium so that until we have that thing we love, we are unhappy.

There are many philosophies and religions that believe that because attachment creates this unhappiness within us, then attachment is wrong. And so we get all kinds of guidelines, rules and regulations that stop us from getting too attached to anything in our lives, all with the noble purpose in mind of helping us live more happily.

I don't doubt that these philosophies are all well-intentioned but I would like to gently suggest (using bold and italic text) that they are all wrong :)

Instead, attachment gives us a reason to focus...a purpose in life (see the poem Ithaca ).

I guess I am actually daring to agree publically with Gordon Gekko's Oscar-winning Greed Is Good speech from Wall Street which surely has to be one of the ultimate love-of-money-is-the-root-of-all-evil movies...and one which I love because it backfired so spectacularly and made the intended villain Gekko into a modern-day role model.

But back to the point...

Attachment only causes unhappiness because we notice that there is a vibrational gulf between what we want and what we have in the present moment.

The philosophies that despise attachment are basically saying not to notice that vibrational gulf and look somewhere else. To use an analogy, they are effectively saying that if a fire alarm is going off, we should wear our headphones and listen to happy music to drown out that annoying noise. I would like to say instead that a better approach would be to put out the fire. :)

When we address that vibrational gulf between what we want and what we have, we align our belief with our desire and then the universe must deliver it to us. I've rambled previously here and here (at least) about how I believe this process works so I won't dredge up the details again.

So what I am trying to say is that the philosophies that present us with statements like the love of money is the root of all evil did not probably understand the nature of the manifestation process well enough to be able to present the people of the time with an alternative solution to getting what they wanted, so they advocated instead the solution of not noticing you don't have what you want and not to even try to get it. ("It's evil - don't get involved with it")

So let me try and draw some conclusions...

Is it wrong to gain wealth and prosper? No, of course not. Because right and wrong don't exist.

Can we do more good for others if we have more material wealth? Yes, certainly. Because what material wealth is, is simply the result of applying Universal Law in such a way that we have manifested the wealth (even if we don't know how). And that ability to flow energy in that way (money is just stored energy) can have useful results in whatever it is applied to.

Can wealth be a stumbling block for our spiritual growth? Money has nothing to do with spiritual growth. It's just a result of how we have previously flowed our energy towards our physical manifestations. As mentioned before, often money gives us a reason to focus in our lives and in this respect the accumulation of money is a great focusing tool for bringing the human race to a higher state. (Greed is good!)

What attitude should we have toward material things and wealth? I would suggest that the best attitude is one of indifference. It's just a game that we are playing and often the game board is controlled by others so why not play a different game instead if you prefer? An increasing number of people these days choose to drop out of mainstream society totally and not play the game at all - a perfectly valid personal choice (in my view).

I'd better stop there. Apologies for the length of this answer (if you've managed to read this far). It's Sunday morning here and I got up a little earlier than usual and couldn't resist it :)

I don't think it is wrong to gain wealth and prosper as it is just a desire like any other, like getting married and having kids. All these desires give you something to aim at, gives your life purpose and pushes your abilities in most cases which makes you grow as a person.

You have mentioned that many believe that riches are an unworthy pursuit. I think there are 2 reasons for that:

1. Everybody is different. Some people think that having close family and spending lots of time with them is important in life whereas some people think that earning money and buying lots of material things is important and will give them ultimate joy.
2. I think people who say that are normally experiencing some sort of lack of wealth themselves and they use the excuse that it must be wrong to make them feel better for not being wealthy.

Of course, you can do lots of good for others if you are wealthy like give money to charity or helping a friend. But you need to give some thought to helping people this way as when you give money to charity, do you really know how this money is being utilised or whether your friend is going to learn from you helping him or are they going to carry on doing the same things again.

I don't think that wealth is a stumbling block at all to spiritual growth as I think that everything adds to your spiritual growth whether you consider it good or bad. I think wealth is as good a pursuit as any other if that is what people want. My attitude personally towards material things and wealth is to focus on what I want as I have realised that people do not really want money but they want the things that money can buy, in other words the material things or the power that comes with it. So, I tend to focus more on let's say I want a big house or a nice holiday instead of I want lots of money that will then allow me to buy what I want.

You can't help the poor if you are poor.

Those who seek wealth for the sake of having wealth can become spiritually dispossessed, because they are not focusing on things that will nurture their soul.

However, those who seek to create value for themselves and others, by utilizing their own spiritual gifts and helping others, can have both spiritual and material wealth.

Great questions!

So is it wrong to want to gain wealth and prosper? Depends what you want to do with your wealth. If you just want more and more wealth for yourself only and want to sit like a dragon guarding it, it definitely is not good for you.

Can we do more good for others if we have more material wealth? - If we think of wealth as accumulated energy, having wealth gives many advantages of helping others which people with no wealth would hardly have.

Can wealth be a stumbling block for our spiritual growth? - When we look around at people in pursuit of wealth, we notice that for many people it is. Then there are also wealthy people who genuinely believe in charity and try to help others. There are many poor people, who don't have money but are in no way interested in spiritual aspirations either. So not having wealth doesn't guarantee freedom to pursue spiritual aspirations if we are not free from a hankering for wealth.

What attitude should we have toward material things and wealth? - Almost all humanity's spiritual traditions say that we should treat material things and wealth as necessary but potentially dangerous elements for our own spiritual development. If we acquire material things and wealth, we should also learn how to use them wisely so that we can help others rather than becoming slaves of money and things. It does not do any good to hate money and things. That makes us forge a negative bond of attachment to them.

I think the word ''love'' is not the correct word to be used here. and that's the root of confusion. the correct word - in my opinion - should be ''greed''. pure love - for anything - could never lead to evil.

No, wealth is not an stumblling block for spiritual growth providing we keep our eyes on the prize which is God is our creator and we are trying to learn more about him, thankful to him, and become one with him and treat others as we should be treated as we continue on our spiritual journey.

It is alright to acquire wealth for their is no chance of helping others financially in a large degree if you are in poverty your self. Also having wealth enables you to pursue your goals, dreams and desires to the fullest and be of help to others as well.

Money is very helpful in providing us an medium of exchange to get and received the things we want or desire that can be bought or made. There is nothing wrong with acquireing this wealth to help yourself, your family, the environment, mother earth, and other human beings.

Now having money or wanting money can lead to many people doing the wrong things that are hurtful to people just to show your power with money like buying out another company because you simply dislike the owner which cause many people to lose their jobs, or stealing something from someone simply because you wanted it and I am not talking about the poor stealing I am talking about the rich stealing from one another. Yes the poor steal too but I am not on that now. It isn't the money people so hung up on it is what money can help you acquire in life, the power it gives you over things, other people, and the status it propels you to like being on top of the world.

It is not the money it is the power that sometimes corruptes people and turn them into non-feeling, number crunching, power grabing scruge.

Money shouldn't be the root of evil. Only man chooses it to be the root of evil. Why? because of temptation. Temptation is and will always be there. Corruption and bribery takes place because man cannot resist temptation. For example, in most third world countries corruption is very rampant. In times of difficulties and hardships, overworked and underpaid workers (with five to ten mouths to feed) couldn't resist the temptation to accept bribery for quick job to be done. And so they are labelled as dishonest, cheaters, etc. etc.

We have to allow ourselves to receive if we want to be able to give. Receiving in the form of money or otherwise. When we have enough we can lead as an example for someone who might need helping up if not directly show them how their thoughts are preventing them from receiving themselves. Their resentment is just a programmed response and is not truth. The universe is limitless and so is money- there is no lack of money despite what people believe. Why would people need money to eat if it was not something that is abundant? The truth of nature is more life- meaning an oak tree will grow from a seed and then it will shed seeds once its grown. An oak tree doesn't have to do anything else than that and it doesn't have to feel embarassed about being an oak tree and it doesn't have to shrink to a dandelion to prove its power. Both of those things are metaphors of what we expect from the rich. But to have money takes alot of growth and courage- we have to clean out our conditioned gunk that hides from our true purpose of being our best selves and giving. If we are worrying about money can we live our true purpose? No of course not. (Think about why you want to follow your true purpose- is it to shine your light for others is it to give your light to others?)

Hope that helps