yama v0.23: Artha and Kama

bramacharya is interesting as it mean’s celibacy. But celibacy is actually limited to the monks. A householder is not expected to uphold celibacy. Forcing this is a big failure of the spiritual path as it is repression. It is celibacy in terms of the extremes. So have a middle path for artha and kama.

yama contain the principles of behavior in the world while seeking the purushārtha of dharma, artha, kama, and moksha. As Hindus we are not limited to just going after Dharma and Moksha. We can and should strive after wealth and pleasure as well as those are part of life. We should just constrain them with the practices of yama.

For example, in terms of artha we should not perform violence when achieving wealth. We should be truthful while getting wealth. We should not steal while getting wealth. We should have self-control when accumulating wealth, the wealth should not control us. We should not covet wealth but do the actions that will lead to its growth. This above example can be used across all the purushārtha.

Artha and Kama are not to be avoided as they are a part of life. But they are to be sought after with the five yama principles.

What this means is that Artha and Kama need to be studied as much as Dharma and Moksha. If there are four aspects of life and we ignore three of them because we want to be monk like we will face difficulties in life as we are denying ourselves these other paths. And even monks aspire for artha and kama in their own way.