“I had the great privilege of dialoguing with Jayadvaita Swami as he reflected on the message of Ecclesiastes and the singular pleasure of reading his book in manuscript form. As a scholar of Ecclesiastes, I am deeply impressed with his grasp of the book’s message. And as one who knew little about Krishna consciousness (Krishna-bhakti) I came to a deeper understanding and appreciation of its spiritual value. I enthusiastically recommend this book to all.”
Tremper Longman III
Robert H. Gundry Professor of Biblical Studies
Westmont College
“Jayadvaita Swami was raised in an American Jewish family and received a Reform childhood training in his younger years. He tells of two greatly transformative moments. The first was discovering an important Biblical book from the same skeptical Biblical wisdom tradition that produced the Book of Job. Qohelet (Ecclesiastes) aroused in him existential despair and angst and essentially blew him out of both contemporary Judaism and the materialistic American culture. And then he encountered Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, his teacher, the founder of the Krishna Consciousness movement. Over time, he became Swami Prabhupada’s chief editor.“Jayadvaita Swami continues to live a life of chanting in which he delights, as well as a life of deep study of Vedic texts, which, to my mind, have become for him his Torah. That life, ironically, has much in common with the traditional scholarly rabbinic life of prayer and study guided by the blessings of a great teacher, a rebbe.“In this interestingly ecumenical translation and commentary, the author brings important comparisons from Vedic and Buddhist texts, as well as from other traditions and from modern scholarly research, to illuminate Qohelet’s presentation of all the obstacles to trust, faith and hope in the Divine Stewardship of reality.“As in Jayadvaita Swami’s spiritual quest, so in this volume: The wrenching questions about the sense of meaninglessness that mortality generates, as expressed in the Jewish Biblical skeptical wisdom tradition, as well as in wisdom traditions worldwide, are resolved by the far more transcendental reality map of the Vedic tradition, particularly as transmitted through his teacher. Scholars, seekers and others who find little satisfaction in current cultural reality maps should find good reading in this study of Qohelet!”
Rabbi Shaya Isenberg
Emeritus Professor and Chair
Department of Religion
University of Florida
“Vanity Karma invites us into an exploration of the meaning of life through deep philosophical reflections and a richly layered dialogue. [It] draws upon rich and diverse commentaries, ancient and modern, Jewish and Christian, devout and critical (and many shades between). [In Vanity Karma] both Ecclesiastes and the Gītā speak to us within our own minds and hearts, as they have within the Swami’s, and so each one of us comes into a dialogue with both texts, a dialogue within each of us about the meaning of our own life.”
Graham M. Schweig
Professor of Philosophy and Religion
Christopher Newport University, Virginia
“Vanity Karma is an excellent contribution to the emerging field of comparative Hindu-Jewish studies and Hindu-Jewish dialogue. It brings into an encounter the wisdom of Qohelet known as the book of Ecclesiastes and the wisdom of the Bhagavad gita and other related Hindu sources of wisdom such as the Bhagavata Purana and the Upanishads. An erudite scholar of Hinduism, Jayadvaita Swami reflects upon his Jewish roots through the lenses of Comparative Theology and the result is a fresh and accessible theological and contemplative treatise.”
Ithamar Theodor
Director, The Program for Hindu-Jewish Studies
University of Haifa, Israel
“In Vanity Karma, Jayadvaita Swami holds a bright and steady spotlight on an oft-neglected biblical text, the Book of Ecclesiastes, illuminating our gaze upon this mysterious manifesto from an unlikely yet relevant source—the South Asian tradition of devotionalism dedicated to Krishna, the divine speaker of the Bhagavad Gita. As we follow the verse-by-verse unpacking of Ecclesiastes’ dark vision of the human condition, we are treated to a careful examination from a fresh viewpoint that is attentive to modern scholarship on the text’s rich meanings. At the same time, we are gradually introduced to a vision of Krishna-bhakti (devotion to Krishna) that, by responding cogently to Ecclesiastes, promises to expand our own vision, as contemporary readers, with deeper meaning for our lives, inviting us to rise thoroughly beyond the ‘vanity’ that persistently plagues us individually and collectively.”
Kenneth Valpey
Research Fellow
Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies
“Vanity Karma comprises a remarkable set of spiritual reflections that defies literary genre categorization. This book is part spiritual autobiography with its roots in the counterculture, part exposition of Hindu devotionalism deeply grounded in classical Sanskrit sources, and part analysis of a section of the Old Testament, drawing from its associated body of text-critical academic scholarship. With his own forty years as a monk and Swami in an orthodox Hindu devotional tradition grafted onto an earlier Jewish cultural upbringing, the author brings two equally ancient but culturally disparate voices into conversation, probing life’s ‘big’ existential questions—those of Qohelet in Ecclesiastes and those of Krishna in the Bhagavata tradition. The result is not just a serious contribution to inter-religious dialogue, but a spiritual manual in its own right. Vanity Karma is a unique addition to the spiritual archives of our day and age, offering profound insights relevant to Truth seekers of any tradition.”
Edwin Bryant
Professor of Hindu Religion and Philosophy
Rutgers University
“Commenting on another’s scripture is fraught with potential problems—reading one’s own religious views into the text, ignoring the text’s meaning in its native context, failing to consider prior commentaries and scholarship, and much more. But Jayadvaita Swami, with roots in both Jewish and Hindu traditions, has succeeded in writing a commentary that is at once scholarly and accessible, incisive and respectful. Swami’s commentary is not only deeply thoughtful but is also fine literature, and readers will find themselves drawn into the worlds of Ecclesiastes and the Bhagavad Gita. I highly recommend Vanity Karma to students of both the Bible and the Gita, and to anyone who seeks meaning.”
Ravi M. Gupta
Charles Redd Chair of Religious Studies
Utah State University
“Adds a distinctive Hindu-Jewish bounty to the burgeoning field of interreligious studies. . . . Jayādvaita Swami aims for a wide and not specifically academic audience. Indeed, one of the book’s corresponding strengths lies in its accessible, conversational tone. . . . A cross-cultural spiritual autobiography from one who yearns to share his soulful questions and the answers he has found.”
Holly Hillgardner
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
Bethany College
“Many people today, whether they know it or not, are most familiar with the Bible’s Book of Ecclesiastes from the lyrics of a 1960’s folk rock hit by the Byrds (Turn, Turn, Turn), with its refrain ‘to every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.’“Jayadvaita Swami adds immensely to our appreciation and understanding of Ecclesiastes, bringing to bear his transcultural perspective. Today, many of us are transcultural—that is to say, we are cultural hybrids. Jayadvaita Swami is such a cultural hybrid, by birth Jewish, by choice a Gaudiya Vaishnava, a member of the International Society for Krishna Concsciousness. This transcultural stance is reflected in the title of his book on Ecclesiastes, Vanity Karma.“Karma is a Sanskrit word, and refers broadly to the principle of working in the material world for some material result, which will come to one either in this life or the next. Most people work to obtain some good material result, in terms of wealth, followers, romance, fame, power, etc. But the author of Ecclesiastes tells us again and again, in many ways, that all such worldly accomplishments, the results of one’s work, or karma, are ‘vanity’—not just in the sense of being motivated by self-glorification (‘you’re so vain’), but in the much stronger sense of being ultimately worthless (‘all in vain’).“But then what? Once you understand all is vanity, all is in vain, what do you do? The ultimate message of Ecclesiastes seems to be this: fear God and be satisfied with whatever bit of material happiness does come your way.“Jayadvaita Swami, mining his Vedic sources of inspiration, suggests we can move beyond the sorry dilemmas of ‘vanity karma’ to transcendental action that grounds one’s existence in the higher happiness experienced in love of God. Perhaps some of his readers will follow his lead and make their own explorations in those Vedic sources, such as Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam.”
Michael A. Cremo
Author, Forbidden Archeology and Human Devolution: A Vedic Alternative to Darwin’s Theory
Vanity Karma is “an important exercise in reading across traditions. . . . It provides us with the only example of a comparative theological exegetical reading of a Jewish (biblical) book and a part of Hindu scripture. The exercise is valuable.”
Alon Goshen-Gottstein
Scholar of rabbinic literature, former lecturer at Tel Aviv University, Israel, and the founder and director of the Elijah Interfaith Institute.
“Vanity Karma: Ecclesiastes, the Bhagavad-gita and the Meaning of Life by Jayadvaita Swami raises the most profound question asked by human beings over the ages, namely, ‘Why are we here on earth; what is the meaning of our existence?’ The swami exposes this question as the theme of Ecclesiastes and then answers the question with themes from the Bhagavad-gita. The book presents the Bhagavad-gita in language and images that speak to universal audiences. One of the strengths of the book is that mystical and deeply philosophical issues are described in language that is clear for the layman. It is essentially the journey whereby the swami answered the basic question that troubled his early years when he discovered and began living the life outlined in the Bhagavad-gita. It is both an academic and deeply touching story of the peace and serenity that is possible when human beings respond to the One Sacred Being of the universe.”
Helen Rose Ebaugh
Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Houston
