Kama (Desire) is the first of Arishadvarga, the set of six enemies.
Kama means the desire which is very much desirable if it manifests as aspiration, ambition, undeterred determination, appetite for knowledge, relentless effort to make progress, eagerness to venture, motivation to relish the success, zeal to achieve, fervour to endeavour, yearning to reach a goal, etc. Without such kind of positive desires which are useful to an individual as well as to the society, there is no meaning and purpose to life.
Desires become problematic if they make a person extremely self-indulgent in all kinds of sensual and materialistic pleasures such as wealth, property, honor, status, fame, indulgence in luxury and craving for instant gratifications. Such desires are like the paper tissues packed in a box. Pull out one tissue, another is raised up automatically to be pulled out. Trying to control such desires by satisfying them is like trying to douse a fire using gasoline. Intense desire leads to lust making a person crazy and become restless to satisfy it at any cost. There is a Sanskrit saying, “Kamaturanam na bhaya na lajja”, meaning a person blinded by lust has neither fear nor shame.
As a desire becomes stronger and forces a person to engage in actions to satisfy it, there will be doubt and uncertainty until the desire is fulfilled, which results in the sense of fear and anxiety to creep in. Even after the objective is achieved, say the possession of a property or acquisition of some wealth, the fear and anxiety could continue as the desire now shifts to maintaining the possession safely and securely.
If the desire is not satisfied, it results in Krodha (anger). Krodha has this relationship with all other components of Arishadvarga as Krodha is the end result if the objective is not achieved.
Thus, we see that if not careful, one has to live in fear while pursuing a desire and sometimes even after the desire is satisfied the fear might continue if there is a responsibility of secrecy, safety and security. The other alternative is that one has to live with Krodha (anger) if the desire is not satisfied. Desire can toss us between fear and anger if we do not use prudence and lose our common sense.
If the desires are controlled, then all other components of Arishadvarga can be held under check. To warn us against the pain and suffering caused by the endless selfish desires, Buddha emphatically said, “Desire is the root cause of all evil”.
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