Kama
Traditional Kama (Sanskrit: काम, IAST: kāma) is the concept of pleasure, enjoyment and desire in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism.
[2][3][4] However, the term is also used in a technical sense to refer to any sensory enjoyment, emotional attraction or aesthetic pleasure experienced in connection with the arts, dance, music, painting, sculpture, and nature.
But while kama is viewed as an obstacle for Buddhist and Jain monks and nuns, it is recognized as legitimate domain of activity for laity.
However, Kama more broadly refers to any sensory enjoyment, emotional attraction and aesthetic pleasure such as from the arts, dance, music, painting, sculpture, and nature.
Ancient Indian literature such as the Epics, which followed the Upanishads, develop and explain the concept of kama together with Artha and Dharma.
Just like the Mahabharata, Vatsyayana's Kamasutra defines kama as any pleasure an individual experiences from the world, with one or more senses: hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling, and feeling, in harmony with one's mind and soul.
In its discourse on kama it describes many forms of art, dance, and music, along with sex, as the means to pleasure and enjoyment.
[17] Kama is one's appreciation of incense, candles, music, scented oil, yoga stretching and meditation, and experiencing the heart chakra.
The heart chakra is associated with love, compassion, charity, balance, calmness, and serenity, and is considered to be a seat of devotional worship.
Gavin Flood describes[23] kama as experiencing the positive emotional state of love whilst also not sacrificing one's dharma (virtuous, ethical behavior), artha (material needs, income security) and one's journey towards moksha (spiritual liberation, self-realization).
Objectors claim that the pursuit of pleasure encourages individuals to commit unrighteous deeds that bring distress, carelessness, levity and suffering later in life.
The majority of the book, notes Jacob Levy,[28] is about the philosophy and theory of love, what triggers desire, what sustains it, how and when it is good or bad.
[33] Some[11][34] texts in ancient Indian literature observe that the relative precedence of artha, kama and dharma are naturally different for different people and different age groups.
The bow is made of sugarcane stalk, the bowstring is a line of bees, and the arrows are tipped with five flowers representing five emotions-driven love states.
[6] The other names for deity Kama include Madan (he who intoxicates with love), Manmatha (he who agitates the mind), Pradyumna (he who conquers all) and Kushumesu (he whose arrows are flowers).
The upper two levels of the cosmos are inhabited by beings who have either severely attenuated or nearly eradicated sensual desire through advanced meditative practice.
Such enjoyment is therefore regarded as a positive reward for ethical conduct, a result of one's merit (puñña) or good karma.
[39] Some Buddhist lay practitioners recite daily the Five Precepts, a commitment to abstain from "sexual misconduct" (kāmesu micchacara กาเมสุ มิจฺฉาจารา).
[40] Typical of Pali Canon discourses, the Dhammika Sutta (Sn 2.14) includes a more explicit correlate to this precept when the Buddha enjoins a follower to "observe celibacy or at least do not have sex with another's wife.
[13] The term kāma-guṇa is used in the Pali Buddhist literature to refer to the kinds of objects whose use or appropriation is believed to give rise to sensual pleasure.
