Desires and ignorance are regarded by many spiritual paths as the basic causes of suffering for mankind.

Giving up desires and developing knowledge about who we truly are is regarded as the only way out of suffering.

Yet, if we truly want to give up desires and develop knowledge, we need first of all to know what desires are.

You cannot give up something that you don’t know.

And only when you know it, you can truly decide whether to give it up or not, as an act of direct knowledge.

Hence giving up desires is a dubious point.

As a matter of fact, this is what as human beings we have been doing for ages.

Giving up desires has only led to hypocrisy and further sufferance.

The key to knowledge is to fully embrace your desires, to find out what they truly are and continue to do so until you really know them.

If your desires are legitimate and authentic, part of who we truly are, giving them up will only cause suffering and ignorance.

If you give up your desires you also give up knowledge.

What we need to give up are not our desires, but rather our attachment to the way and the place where we assume our desires can be manifested, which is the result of ignorance.

Desires are the key to knowledge, yet only as long as you allow your desires to show what they are and where they can be fulfilled.

This knowledge will ultimately lead you to the supreme source of all desires, the only place where they can be satisfied: God.

© Franco Santoro