Why am I here? What is my life for? What—if anything—does it mean?

Ecclesiastes, “the strangest book in the Bible,” begins with the argument that our 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.

In the 1960s the themes of Ecclesiastes profoundly moved a young Jewish American boy, starting him on a quest for meaning that led him to the Bhagavad-gita, India’s preeminent book of wisdom. Today, after following the teachings of the Gita for more than forty-five years, that young boy, now old and wiser, looks deep into Ecclesiastes again.

His thoughts and reflections, along with his modern English rendering of the full text of Ecclesiastes, make Vanity Karma valuable for the seeker, for the scholar, and for anyone serious about “the big questions” in life.