Kama

history

Kāma (Skt., Pali; Devanagari: काम) is pleasure, sensual gratification, sexual fulfillment, pleasure of the senses, desire, eros, the aesthetic enjoyment of life in Sanskrit. In Hinduism, kāma is regarded as the third of the four goals of life (purusharthas): the others are duty (dharma), worldly status (artha) and salvation (moksha). Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the Bhagavad-Gita, a New Translation and Commentary, Chapter 1-6. Penguin Books, 1969, p 427 (v 23) Kama-deva is the personification of this.Kama-rupa is a subtle body or aura composed of desire, while Kama-loka is the realm this inhabits, particularly in the afterlife.

Kama in Buddhism

In Buddhism's Pali Canon, the Buddha renounced (Pali: nekkhamma) sensuality (kāma) en route to his Awakening.See, for instance, Dvedhavitakka Sutta (MN 19) »(Thanissaro, 1997a). The Buddhist lay practitioner recites daily the Five Precepts, the which is a commitment to abstain from "sexual misconduct" (kāmesu micchācāra).See, for instance, [http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/khantipalo/wheel206.html#precepts Khantipalo (1995).] 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 ".(Ireland, 1982).

Theosophy: kama, kamarupa and kamaloka

In the Theosophy of Blavatsky, Kama is the fourth principle of the septenary, associated with emotions and desires, attachment to existence, volition, and lust.Farthing 1978 p.210.

Kamaloka is a semi-material plane, subjective and invisible to humans, where disembodied "personalities", the astral forms, called Kamarupa remain until they fade out from it by the complete exhaustion of the effects of the mental impulses that created these eidolons of human and animal passions and desires. It is associated with Hades of ancient Greeks and the Amenti of the Egyptians, the land of Silent Shadows; a division of the first group of the TrailƵkya.

Sources

  • H. P. Blavatsky, 1892.'' The Theosophical Glossary''. London: The Theosophical Publishing Society

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