“Kama” in Sanskrit means pleasure, or desire, and “Sutra” literally means “stitch” and also lesson.  The Kama Sutra is a textbook of physical pleasure written by an Indian sage named Vatsyayana sometime between the first and fifth century.  It was first translated into English by Sir Richard Burton in 1883.  Since then there are have been many different interpretations.  The Kama Sutra is probably most well known for it’s illustrations of a variety of “positions,” but this is actually just one chapter of a very large text.  Much of the book talks about the goals of life, Kama being the most elementary.  Ultimately the goal is Moksha, or liberation, mastery over our senses, which is spiritual freedom.  The idea is to pursue all of our goals in harmony with each other so that we grow spiritually as much as possible.  There is a lot of wisdom that we can garner from this.  The newest version of the Kama Sutra is written by Deepak Chopra, and with it he includes the “Seven Spiritual Laws of Love.”  Society has changed quite dramatically since the Kama Sutra was first written, but much of its ancient wisdom applies to us just as much today.  Deepak reveals to us these ideas in a contemporary way so that we can apply them to our lives and learn from them.