Sacred place of money and the role of personal gain

"We come to the conclusion that money is so central in our lives because it now embodies most clearly the central problem of man's life on earth-the dominance of the principle of personal gain. The great teachers of the world have always spoken of this as man's main weakness. The ancient and timeless doctrines tell us that we human beings are meant to serve something greater than ourselves--in that alone consists our happiness and our well-being on earth and beyond the earth. But through some profound misperception or inner weakness--what the East calls illusion, or what the West calls sin--mankind continually lives to favor only the bio social aspects of his nature. He has been given ideas that convince him he is meant for something greater, but in fact he lives in opposition to that conviction. Man is not aware that the principle of personal gain is much subtler, much more powerful than he imagines. He is not aware that it concerns far more than outer behavior alone. He is not aware that what he wrongly identifies as his ruling principle, his ordinary mind, is not the real instrument to the Higher."

Jacob Needleman "Money and the Meaning of Life"