Building Your Desires 2

After bathing together, you might consider massaging each other before you make love. In the Kama Sutra, massaging and washing the body is referred to as 'shampooing'. This can be done with or without oil and of course you can enjoy massage whilst you are in the bath - luxurious bubble bath and bath oils give your skin a slippery, sensuous sheen that can be irresistible.

Ready-made body oils for massage can be purchased, or you can make your own massage blends using aromatherapy oils just for the occasion. Keep in mind however that you should not use aromatherapy oils if you are pregnant or if you have any serious conditions, such as cancer, that requires medical care as essential oils are very potent. Seek medical advice if you are unsure.

Building Your Desires 1

Taking a bath together is one of the best ways to relax and sensitise your bodies, allowing each of you to touch the other with affection rather than with passion. When you touch each other's bodies, pay attention to what you are doing and and be aware of every little action and reaction.

One of the greatest secrets to lovemaking is Slow Down.

What ever you are doing it will be better and more effective at half the speed. If you are having a bath, you can tease and tantalise, which will build an appetite for the more intense pleasures to come.

Creating a Love Temple

Creating a sacred or special place for love tells us that love, and our partners, are important. In the Kama Sutra, Vatsyayana lists sixty-four desirable arts and sciences. He includes:

• The art of making beds, and spreading out carpets and cushions for reclining
• Spreading and arranging beds or couches of flowers, or flowers upon the ground
• The art of preparing perfumes and odours
• Proper disposition of jewels and decorations, and adornment in dress
• the art of applying perfumed ointments to the body, and of dressing the hair with unguents and perfumes and braiding it
• Knowledge of the art of changing the appearance of things, such as making cotton to appear as silk, coarse and common things to appear as fine and good.

The ritual of transforming you bedroom into a place of sensuality focuses your attention on connecting with your beloved. By physically clearing space - tidying the room putting fresh linen on the bed, arranging cushions and throws - you can lift the energy of the room, so it becomes a nest of desire and comfort.

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In the pleasure room, decorated with flowers, and fragrant with perfumes... the citizen should receive the woman, who will come bathed and dressed, and should invite her to take refreshment and to drink freely. He should then seat her on his left side and, holding her hair and touching also the end and knot of her garment, he should gently embrace her with his right arm. They should then carry on an amusing conversation on various subjects, and may also talk suggestively of things which would be considered as coarse, or not to be mentioned generally in society.

They make then sign, either with or without gesticulations, and play on musical instruments, talk about the arts and persuade each other to drink.

At last, when the woman is overcome with love and desire, and the two are left alone, they should proceed as the Kama Sutra described.

The Story of the Karma Sutra

The great god, Shiva, the terrible destroyer of the world, the ultimate teacher of all yoga, meditation and magic, was in the mood for love. Shiva and his wife, the beautiful goddess, Parvati, locked themselves away in their room in their palace on Mount Kailash.

A year passed, and another, and the divine couple did not emerge. Ten thousand years went by, and still they remained secluded. Only Nandi, the white bull, on guard outside the doors of their room, knew of the activities.

What was happening was lovemaking of a kind that most human beings will never experience. Theirs was a passion that annihilated time. Of these things, Nandi was sworn never to speak.

But he could not help himself. What he had overheard was so overwhelming that it could by no means be kept a secret. But even as Nandi broke his vow and spoke, the words turned to flowers that dropped from his mouth. These flowers were collected together and strung on threads, and wise men meditating upon them composed the first ever texts on lovemaking. This first book was such a tome that it took teams of sages, working for over a thousand years, to condense the sacred love teachings. At last, the entire Indian love tradition was distilled into a mere 4,000 stanzas by Vatsyayana, the give us the Kama Sutra that we have today.

Kama Sutra Introduction

The Kama Sutra is the most famous book every written about lovemaking. The Sanskrit term kama means ' love, pleasure, sensual gratification'; it also refers to the Hindu god of love. Sutra means 'aphorisms, compressed expressions' - a way of expressing complicated doctrines.

Previously reads were cultured Hindus who aspired to three principles; Dharma, or religious merit, Artha, or worldly wealth, and Karma, the science of love and pleasure. This trinity of good living is not dissimilar to what many of us strive for today - love and money, certainly , and our own kind of soulfulness.