Sadhguru - Karma

The tools Sadhguru provides in Karma bring me to a place of peace within myself. Thank you for your wisdom and transformational guidance.Rosanna Arquette, film actor, director and producer

Karma is a thoughtful and life-affirming reminder of our vast capacity to effect positive change in our own life and in the lives of others. A must-read for anyone feeling stuck and hopeless.Tony Robbins, author, coach and philanthropist

At last, a book about karma that can be trusted. I have never found a book that explainsand solvesthe mystery of karma with the simplicity, clarity, and hopefulness of this invaluable book.Deepak Chopra, author

In Karma, Sadhguru brilliantly demystifies the concept of karma and how we can harness our perceptions to change our own futures and, in doing so, create a more sustainable, just and spiritually enlightened world. If you want to be the change you want to see in the world, read Karma and begin the journey.Terry Tamminen, secretary, California Environmental Protection Agency for former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

This five-letter word that has baffled humans for thousands of years is finally explained in 270 pages. Its a compass for navigating life. Thank you, Sadhguru.Jay Naidoo, politician and businessman

To all seekers...

The inner journey through an uncharted landscape can be fraught with contradictions of thought, emotion, experience, and action. This book strives to lift the haze of these contradictions in the minds and hearts of all seekers of truth.

It happened.

On a certain day, Shankaran Pillai purchased a boata forty-foot ultra-luxurious yachtfor ten million dollars. He decided to take his new Puerto Rican bride out on the ocean for a romantic cruise.

On the way, misfortune struck. The yacht hit a rock and was wrecked.

As the brand-new boat sank into the ocean, Shankaran Pillai and his wife managed to extricate themselves. They swam for their lives and finally made their way to the shores of a nearby isleta sandy sliver of land floating in the middle of nowhere, completely devoid of vegetation.

Shankaran Pillai and his wife had a few tins of canned food. They knew these would last them only a couple of days. They were in a fix.

Unperturbed, Shankaran Pillai settled down in a yogic posture and assumed a serenely spiritual expression. His wife, however, was of a more volatile disposition.

Were marooned! she wept. Theres no human habitation in sight, no sign of any life hereno animals, no plants, nothing. What will we live on? How will we get out? What a terrible end to our dreams of marital bliss! What a terrible end to our lives!

Shankaran Pillai continued to sit in his yogic posture, unruffled.

His wife was bewildered. How can you sit like this? Dont you realize were doomed? Cant you see were going to die?

Shankaran Pillai looked at her with calm compassion. My dear, dont distress yourself, he said. What I did not tell you before our wedding is that I have a history. I had previously availed myself of a student loan when I was studying in Tennessee. After my studies, I went to New York without repaying the loan. I was caught by my creditors three months later.

But I managed to elude them and went away to California. There I got myself a car. Since I got myself a car loan, I said, why settle for a small car? I decided to get myself a Rolls-Royce with pure-gold trimmings, and I took a two-million-dollar loan to purchase the vehicle. Since I thought life would be somewhat difficult for me there, I took the car to Oregon.

But they followed me there, too. After that episode, I took a home loan for five million dollars. I then happened to go to Mexico. But they followed me there six months later.

After that, as you know, I married you and bought this yacht in Texas for ten million dollars. I havent paid the first installment yet. So dont worry. Stay calm. Dont panic. Theyll find us. They always do.

Shankaran Pillais faith that he would be found (or more accurately, his realization that he could never escape his creditors!) is a phenomenon that the rest of the world knows by another name.

Karma.

The inescapable basis of our lives. The mechanism that decrees that we cannot evade the consequences of our own actions. The cycle that appears to follow us grimly and inexorably wherever we go.

Although the word is Indian in origin, karma is now a term that has invaded every dictionary. It is not merely the stuff of metaphysical tomes and academic treatises. It is instead a term that has pervaded lexicons across the world, from the esoteric to the pop.

How did this Sanskrit term enter every single language in the world? How do we account for its extraordinary popularity, its capacity to endure across the centuries?

There are many possible ways to explain this. But perhaps the primary explanation is just this: karma is the only concept in the world that addresses human perplexity in the face of suffering. It is the only logic that explains the seeming arbitrariness of the world we live in.