Vanity Karma: Ecclesiastes, the Bhagavad-gita, and the meaning of life - the strangest book in the Bible, begins with a powerfully expressed 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.Work for pleasure brings emptiness, says the speaker of the book, and seeking knowledge brings only greater frustration. The sun forever rises and sets, generations forever come and go, and there is nothing new under the sun. Vanity of vanities, cries the speaker. All is vanity! All is in vain.The power and eloquence with which this bleak view is explored, the beauty of the book's celebrated poem on time and seasons, the richness of the book's proverbial insights, and a refusal to settle for dogmatic platitudes have made Ecclesiastes a perennial classic.