Kāma is also more specifically translated as sexual lust (think of kāma sūttra), but in vedānta kāma is the general force that distracts and deceives me, by drawing me to the attractiveness of objects, so that I do not become absorbed in the bliss of myself.

Kāma is caused by ignorance, and the power to mistakenly assume that I am dependent on (desirable) objects in the world. Therefore, desire for all kinds of apparent objects sustains sanhara. Once in operation, kāma is an important motive to maintain ignorance, because it drives relationships with worldly dynamics because I think happiness is in that. This is how the world keeps turning, and continues to manifest.

Only right self-knowledge sublimates a worldly desire for a desire for freedom (mokṣa), the fourth human goal behind everything.

Īśvara can give the result of saṁsāra only when living beings (jīvā, consciousness plus apparently an experience of individuality) have desires. Thus, desire is the reason and the driving force of life and of the world. And so desire is the potential engine of manifestation. Rigveda (10.129) says: kāmaḥ tad agre samavartatādhi "Desire arose in the beginning." Svāmīs, because of the laws of karma, sometimes say it this way: "Īśvara is compelled to give results, because of the desires of jiva."

In reality, there is only īśvara. Through the apparent duality of īśvara, the non-duality of brahman shines. In its simplicity, īśvara must therefore be one closed, energetic-physical system (entropy). Manifestation stands or falls with the fact that ignorant living beings can realize their nature as consciousness. It is a great facilitating game of desires and desire satisfaction with the apotheosis of satisfying (pacifying) the desire for freedom of a human being, by cognitively seeing through the game, and the recognition that I am the principle in which everything seemingly takes place.

In vedānta all perspectives are aligned. Māyā is the three guṇas, potency for energy. Everything in the closed energy system is in flux, constant change. Change requires a principle, one thing changes into the other. This follows laws. Since every appearance is based on knowledge (sattva guṇa), every desire will produce a result. This movement is provided by the power of projection (vikṣepa). Rajas is the type of energy (guṇa) that goes with it. This brings us to the individual perspective of desire. Namely, a person wants to get out of his sense of limitation, and longs for greatness, value, meaning, security, etc., etc. Why does a person long for that? In reality, I am immeasurably great (the boundlessness, infinity of brahman, which literally means greatness). Through ignorance, a person thinks that he has to make his individual great. This big misunderstanding produces the most silly desires and strategies. The problem is that in the dual world, every satisfaction of desire produces its opposite. This can be more desire, addiction, envy of others, fear of losing what has been acquired (yoga kṣema, bhagavad gītā 9.22). It is not surprising that people live as if the devil (matter) is on their heels.

In addition to the direct results from the world, kāma-karma leaves a trace in the causal body, a so-called vāsanā. This vāsanā will sprout again in the subtle body into a new desire. At birth, people already have a certain package (saṁskāra) of this kind of vāsanās with them, who are looking for a route in life to work themselves out. Karma, action, intensifies and renews kāma and thus drives saṁsāra. This dynamic is facilitated by īśvara by giving it a context, maintenance of results and end through knowledge.

About the dynamics of desire. If I don't get what I want, the desire gets frustrated. This leads to krodha (anger), confusion (moha) and sadness (śoka), and self-destruction (vināśa) (Gītā 2.62-63) sometimes. A desire starts as a thought. The thought takes on the status of a desire when there is a will (dhṛti) behind it (which prompts it to fulfillment). The will is the engine that drives the desire to more mental or physical action of the gross body with corresponding mental and/or physical results. Then new karma is born, which leaves a new vāsanā, which arouses a new desire. People are trapped in these kinds of loops.

Since ignorance is a natural state, desire is natural. But desire that comes from tamas (the material guṇa of inertia) degrades a person in life and prevents spiritual progress. Gradually converting such desires into rājasika desires (by making them discreet and fulfilling them in accordance with dharma) is a step in the right direction. When the rājasika desire is sublimated by puruṣārtha niścaya, the conviction (niścaya) that my human goal (puruṣārtha) is freedom (mokṣa), it becomes a sāttvika desire. Desire formed in sattva is free from stultifying motives. It is as good as non-desire and helps clear the way to freedom.

Removing desires is neither possible nor necessary. As explained in the first section, I desire because I live, and I live because I desire. That is the wheel of existence. Desire becomes a problem when I fall under the spell of it, according to Swami Dayananda. If I act out of a pure dharmic desire, purely to contribute, for the sole purpose of freedom, it is called niṣkāma karma. I get captivated by longing for all kinds of necessities, if I identify with them, if the desire is meant to fill ahaṅkāra, ego. Then I act from a binding desire (sakāma karma or kāmya karma), and I want things from the world/īśvara.

At its core, every desire is a desire to be free from the desiring person. A person seeks the peace of himself. The paradox is that people satisfy desires, precisely to silence the pressure of desire in the mind for a while. The circular motion of kāma-karma-vāsanā on a microscale is similar to the cyclic saṁsāra. Thus a person is a plaything in the divine field of saṁsāra.

Desires are therefore counterproductive. Even in realizing the truth. In the first instance a fervent desire for the truth of myself is necessary, but in order to really be what one already is, this desire must eventually be completely settled.

However, the desire for freedom is necessary to get the focus on the teaching. To stay with it and to confidently create conditions that help with the practice. It is the knowledge (!) of these dynamics that takes the sting of desire out of the circular movements in which we are trapped. Then I can just be what I am. Then I can make a conscious choice, and I can see that it is unwise to respond to a binding desire. Then desire becomes an apparent game, which in reality has been extinguished (nirvāṇa).

With insight into the subtle dynamics of something like desire, we see that vedānta, in addition to the key knowledge that and how I am free, can also be the relative knowledge that hinders knowledge. If I practice vedānta out of desire to do something noble, without seeing that vedānta itself is also an object, that is not enough. I have to apply the right meaning to myself, myself, over and over again. That is real, sincere longing for the free self, the only being that is.