The fire of desire is burning                          Why is it that all religions, all so-called religious people, have suppressed desire? All over the world, the monks, the sannyasis, have denied desire, though they are boiling inside. The fire of desire is burning, but they deny it by suppressing it or identifying that desire with a symbol, with a figure and surrendering that desire to the figure, to that person. But it is still desire. Most of us, when we become aware of our desires, either suppress or indulge it or come into conflict; the battle goes on. We are not advocating either to suppress it or to surrender to it or to control it. That has been done all over the world by every religious person. We are examining it very closely so that out of your own understanding of that desire, how it arises, its nature, out of that understanding, self-awareness of it, one becomes intelligent. Then that intelligence acts, not desire.