Vanity Karma – Eng.

“Both books deal with questions crucial to the life of an intelligent human being,” he says. “And people have turned to both of them, over the centuries, as books of profound wisdom.”

Ecclesiastes is a book of the Old Testament of the Bible, featuring a first-person account by a sage seeking answers about the meaning of life. It’s considered the most radically powerful wisdom book of the Hebrew scriptures.

In it, the author describes how he sought value first in the pursuit of pleasure, then in wisdom, but found them both meaningless. The wise man and the fool, he writes, both go to the same grave. So what is the use?

The sage argues that life on earth is pointless, that we spend it working hard for “vanity,” for nothing better than vapor—and then die and disappear into oblivion. Still, he notes that God has given us a small amount of enjoyment, and that we should accept this as a gift.

Despite this somewhat bleak outlook, in the course of his thoughts the sage expresses many deep and profound thoughts and raises questions relevant to devotees on the path of Krishna consciousness — and to anyone seriously seeking the meaning of life.

As a young Jewish American in the 1960s, Jayadvaita Swami was one of these seekers, and was profoundly moved by the themes of Ecclesiastes.

“The author cries out, ‘All is vanity!’ referring not to pride but to uselessness, emptiness, pointlessness – all is in vain,” he says. “When I first read the book, that hit me hard. It at once struck me as true: This whole world is meaningless. And, back then, I didn’t know of anything higher.”

But reading Ecclesiastes set him on a quest that led him to the Bhagavad-gita, India’s preeminent book of wisdom.

Now, after being a follower of the Gita’s teachings for more than forty-five years, Jayadvaita Swami is presenting the themes raised by Ecclesiastes from the perspective of a follower of the Bhagavad-gita in Vanity Karma.