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Aghora #3
Aghora III: The Law of Karma
In this third volume of the Aghora trilogy the Aghori Vimalananda uses the Bombay racetrack as a metaphor for the ultimate game of life.
322 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
January 11, 2025
I will admit, I was a bit worried if things would keep going downhill due to the second book's content in comparison to the first one (despite both being great anyways). However, this book is a pleasant conclusion to this wonderful trilogy, accurately summarizing what Vimalananda stood for as a sadhak and as a guru both.
The Law of Karma deals with karma as the supreme Law (a jurist may call it Natural Law) which rules the universe. It deals with it from a theological perspective, with the perspective on how it affected Vimalananda's life, and how it affects multiple nations and historical figures (like Prithviraj Chauhan being reborn as Akbar, etc), and so on.
While some may take this as non-serious, we should know this is how Vimalananda sees the Law of Karma, and how his practice led to his own world view.
While some of the views of Vimalananda with the orthodox priestly class (despite being the disciple of many priests) may seem problematic to some, and his stories may seem comical, we have to understand that, outside of the Euro-normative notions of purity and pollution; Eastern cultures see religion as a means to get Moksha; moksha from pre-conceived notions, moksha from identity and religion, and moksh from boxing ourselves into a type. Breaking these moulds is as much a part of Dharma as going in depth of a single Sampraday and devoting one's life to it is; it just depends on what one is trying to achieve in their life. If one is trying to clear off all karmic debts of this life, they must fulfill their duty whether it is "tamsik" or "satvik". If one has to create new karmas to attain higher birth, they must do so. And if one is driven to anger or frustration in this process (an Adharma of its own) then they must break free of their shackles of wanting to fix an outcome.
Through anecdotes and experiences of 9 different individuals, Vimalananda explains this concept well through his stories and explanations.
Another thing that becomes clear over these books is that Vimalananda himself is a product of his times. Being a man of the 70's and 80's, after the era of Indira Gandhi, it made sense to see his obsession with Akbar, or his hate for communists, or his song choices, or whatnot. A "modern" Vimalananda would be very different, simply because he/she would be a product of their times, and reflect the environment they are born in.
The entire idea of Law of Karma, of Aghora, and of Sanatan Dharm as a whole is, to be put into yoga (or unity) of self and environment. If one has to become pure, they must become pure and detached from within. Their environment will change if they continue to change from within. But to impose our will on the world is to disrupt our process of undoing karmic bonds. If they are meant to be repaid (as accounted by Chitragupta) they will be repaid, and us stopping them only maximises their retribution (and praying to your deity minimizes their impact, but creates more bonds with your deity).
At least this is a cursory understanding from what I have read. Real learning may only be reflected through actions, culminating over a long time. One may read this series, and for sure come to their own unique conclusions.
This book is great, summarizes Vimalananda too well by its end, and concludes this series fantastically.
9/10
The Law of Karma deals with karma as the supreme Law (a jurist may call it Natural Law) which rules the universe. It deals with it from a theological perspective, with the perspective on how it affected Vimalananda's life, and how it affects multiple nations and historical figures (like Prithviraj Chauhan being reborn as Akbar, etc), and so on.
While some may take this as non-serious, we should know this is how Vimalananda sees the Law of Karma, and how his practice led to his own world view.
While some of the views of Vimalananda with the orthodox priestly class (despite being the disciple of many priests) may seem problematic to some, and his stories may seem comical, we have to understand that, outside of the Euro-normative notions of purity and pollution; Eastern cultures see religion as a means to get Moksha; moksha from pre-conceived notions, moksha from identity and religion, and moksh from boxing ourselves into a type. Breaking these moulds is as much a part of Dharma as going in depth of a single Sampraday and devoting one's life to it is; it just depends on what one is trying to achieve in their life. If one is trying to clear off all karmic debts of this life, they must fulfill their duty whether it is "tamsik" or "satvik". If one has to create new karmas to attain higher birth, they must do so. And if one is driven to anger or frustration in this process (an Adharma of its own) then they must break free of their shackles of wanting to fix an outcome.
Through anecdotes and experiences of 9 different individuals, Vimalananda explains this concept well through his stories and explanations.
Another thing that becomes clear over these books is that Vimalananda himself is a product of his times. Being a man of the 70's and 80's, after the era of Indira Gandhi, it made sense to see his obsession with Akbar, or his hate for communists, or his song choices, or whatnot. A "modern" Vimalananda would be very different, simply because he/she would be a product of their times, and reflect the environment they are born in.
The entire idea of Law of Karma, of Aghora, and of Sanatan Dharm as a whole is, to be put into yoga (or unity) of self and environment. If one has to become pure, they must become pure and detached from within. Their environment will change if they continue to change from within. But to impose our will on the world is to disrupt our process of undoing karmic bonds. If they are meant to be repaid (as accounted by Chitragupta) they will be repaid, and us stopping them only maximises their retribution (and praying to your deity minimizes their impact, but creates more bonds with your deity).
At least this is a cursory understanding from what I have read. Real learning may only be reflected through actions, culminating over a long time. One may read this series, and for sure come to their own unique conclusions.
This book is great, summarizes Vimalananda too well by its end, and concludes this series fantastically.
9/10
February 16, 2014
I was completely fortified by the first one. However, in the third volume Svoboda had not much to offer than what was explained in Volume one. Volume three is a detailed narration of events. I lost interest after a few chapters. Stephen Knapp has written about Karma and reincarnation more beautifully.
Read
April 17, 2015Aghora series bring in the esoteric teachings of Tantra..Spiritual practices without any Dogmas. Even though I have my reservations on many of the teachings and their implications, I agree with the essence of spirituality and many laws that govern them....All in all a good read and highly recommended for anybody interested to breakout of their shells of conditioned religion and related practice
July 5, 2007
The completion of the Trilogy. Only for hard-core sadhaks.
August 16, 2011
i could read this book over and over and still learn something new. if you want to truly understand karma this is the book for you.
April 17, 2013
The Law of Karma could not have been described in better way than it is in this book.
November 20, 2021
This book uses a lot of comparisons to racehorses and racehorses and Hinduism are hard to connect, and he does it, but I don't have a huge interest in racehorses so....
December 9, 2025
2022 it was. It was a world slowly learning to breathe again after the shock of Covid-19. These books had become both compass and companion. All the works reviewed here, reviewed back then, reflect my collective reckoning—stories of endurance, rupture, memory, and meaning. Each book offers a shard of clarity in an age still stitching itself back together.
Warning: These books are intended strictly for academic study. Attempting to practise any of the Tantric methods described in them without proper initiation and guidance can be extremely harmful.
If the first two books in Svoboda’s Aghora series were about peeling back layers of taboo, ego, and energy, the third turns that peeled self toward the moral architecture of existence: karma, causation, consequence, and the strange cosmic dance, that underlies everything from the flutter of a thought to the collapse of a lifetime.
And Svoboda doesn’t preach; he narrates, refracts, and interprets Vimalananda’s teachings with that trademark blend of rawness and razor-sharp clarity.
At its heart, this book argues that karma is not a cosmic policeman but a cosmic pedagogue. It isn’t punitive but pedagogic — and that alone changes the flavours of how one reads the text.
Karma becomes neither destiny nor judgement, but curriculum: the coursework of the soul. Vimalananda insists that everything we do — the impulses we indulge, the emotions we repress, the truths we hide from ourselves — has a radiating moral and energetic footprint.
The magic of the book is in how Svoboda translates this metaphysical idea into psychological literacy. The chapters unwind the ways we self-sabotage, the traps we walk into with our eyes open, the grooves of habit that become grooves of fate.
But this is Aghora, so nothing stays in the polite lanes of philosophy. Vimalananda’s examples are unapologetically earthy, sometimes unsettling, often laced with a street-smart wisdom that refuses abstraction.
Karma is not an ivory-tower concept here; it is lived through hunger, jealousy, desire, grief, obsession, compassion. It’s felt in the body and witnessed in the world.
This makes the book feel less like a treatise and more like sitting with an elder who has seen things you aren’t sure you want to see — but who speaks with enough tenderness that you trust him.
What stands out is the book’s consistent emphasis on responsibility — not the heavy, guilt-trip kind, but the liberating kind that comes from understanding cause and effect deeply.
Svoboda and Vimalananda push the reader to examine intention with almost forensic honesty:
Why do you do the things you do?
Why do you attract the patterns you attract?
What unexamined emotional debts are steering your life?
The book doesn’t offer easy answers because Aghora never indulges in the comfort of shortcuts. But it offers frameworks, especially through storytelling, that linger in the bones.
Another compelling layer is the subtle dialogue between the personal and cosmic. Karma isn’t just yours; it’s inherited, shared, entangled with the karmas of families, communities, even nations.
There’s a whole undercurrent in the book about collective fate — how group actions accumulate in invisible reservoirs of consequence. This makes the book unexpectedly contemporary, because our era is saturated with collective crises shaped by generations of choices.
Across it all, Svoboda’s writing retains the casual intimacy that makes the trilogy so addictive. He never pretends to be a guru; he’s a witness. He offers these teachings like someone passing on a flame that isn’t his to claim, only to preserve.
And that humility — that refusal to turn Vimalananda into a brand — gives the book a rare sincerity.
As a conclusion to the trilogy, Aghora III takes the emotional and philosophical intensities of the earlier volumes and channels them into insight rather than spectacle. It’s less sensational, more distilled. Less about the transgressive edges of Aghora, more about the ethical center that makes the tradition meaningful.
And it leaves the reader with that unsettling, transformative feeling: that every action matters, every thought echoes, and every moment is a crossroads.
It’s a book that whispers rather than shouts — but the whisper hits deeper.
If you’ve come this far with Svoboda, this final installment feels like the quiet, powerful exhale you didn’t know you needed.
Warning: These books are intended strictly for academic study. Attempting to practise any of the Tantric methods described in them without proper initiation and guidance can be extremely harmful.
If the first two books in Svoboda’s Aghora series were about peeling back layers of taboo, ego, and energy, the third turns that peeled self toward the moral architecture of existence: karma, causation, consequence, and the strange cosmic dance, that underlies everything from the flutter of a thought to the collapse of a lifetime.
And Svoboda doesn’t preach; he narrates, refracts, and interprets Vimalananda’s teachings with that trademark blend of rawness and razor-sharp clarity.
At its heart, this book argues that karma is not a cosmic policeman but a cosmic pedagogue. It isn’t punitive but pedagogic — and that alone changes the flavours of how one reads the text.
Karma becomes neither destiny nor judgement, but curriculum: the coursework of the soul. Vimalananda insists that everything we do — the impulses we indulge, the emotions we repress, the truths we hide from ourselves — has a radiating moral and energetic footprint.
The magic of the book is in how Svoboda translates this metaphysical idea into psychological literacy. The chapters unwind the ways we self-sabotage, the traps we walk into with our eyes open, the grooves of habit that become grooves of fate.
But this is Aghora, so nothing stays in the polite lanes of philosophy. Vimalananda’s examples are unapologetically earthy, sometimes unsettling, often laced with a street-smart wisdom that refuses abstraction.
Karma is not an ivory-tower concept here; it is lived through hunger, jealousy, desire, grief, obsession, compassion. It’s felt in the body and witnessed in the world.
This makes the book feel less like a treatise and more like sitting with an elder who has seen things you aren’t sure you want to see — but who speaks with enough tenderness that you trust him.
What stands out is the book’s consistent emphasis on responsibility — not the heavy, guilt-trip kind, but the liberating kind that comes from understanding cause and effect deeply.
Svoboda and Vimalananda push the reader to examine intention with almost forensic honesty:
Why do you do the things you do?
Why do you attract the patterns you attract?
What unexamined emotional debts are steering your life?
The book doesn’t offer easy answers because Aghora never indulges in the comfort of shortcuts. But it offers frameworks, especially through storytelling, that linger in the bones.
Another compelling layer is the subtle dialogue between the personal and cosmic. Karma isn’t just yours; it’s inherited, shared, entangled with the karmas of families, communities, even nations.
There’s a whole undercurrent in the book about collective fate — how group actions accumulate in invisible reservoirs of consequence. This makes the book unexpectedly contemporary, because our era is saturated with collective crises shaped by generations of choices.
Across it all, Svoboda’s writing retains the casual intimacy that makes the trilogy so addictive. He never pretends to be a guru; he’s a witness. He offers these teachings like someone passing on a flame that isn’t his to claim, only to preserve.
And that humility — that refusal to turn Vimalananda into a brand — gives the book a rare sincerity.
As a conclusion to the trilogy, Aghora III takes the emotional and philosophical intensities of the earlier volumes and channels them into insight rather than spectacle. It’s less sensational, more distilled. Less about the transgressive edges of Aghora, more about the ethical center that makes the tradition meaningful.
And it leaves the reader with that unsettling, transformative feeling: that every action matters, every thought echoes, and every moment is a crossroads.
It’s a book that whispers rather than shouts — but the whisper hits deeper.
If you’ve come this far with Svoboda, this final installment feels like the quiet, powerful exhale you didn’t know you needed.
October 28, 2019
Each book of the Aghora series tries to get one point across by means of small tales of India. These teachings in the background of late 1970s Bombay also gives some picture of the society at the time. This series tells us about the extraordinary life of Vimalananda and also shows the importance of a guru in one's life. It also tells us how Sade sati causes Chhatrabhanga when the writer lost his much revered Guru. It also tells us how some people still continue their wayward ways despite being provided with a guru. Despite everything, people continue with their karmas, continue to suffer and blame God.
June 30, 2024
The final book in the Aghora trilogy, I read this one after a long break after completing part 2. Another wonderful book wherein Dr. Svobodha shares glimpses into his life with Vimalananda and his last days with him. He has concentrated a little too much on horses and races but still the tidbits of information we are fed in between kept me hooked. I enjoyed this book as much as the previous ones and will definitely recommend it to anyone interested in spirituality & Hinduism.
April 9, 2023
Finally this trilogy is completed. Thanks, I chose this series, it totally curated my view regrading the Hindu's thought process of viewing, nurturing and 'playing' with the subtle energies around us. The narrative process in this series is very attractive.Its all about the karmic bond or rnanubandhana. A trilogy to remember.
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July 21, 2023Aghora 3 and 1 are the best of the trilogy.
Really liked this third and last book of the trilogy. Understanding karma was so much easier through these accounts of Vimalananda's life. Even if Vimalananda is a fictional character or not, the stories are very important for a life well lived.
Really liked this third and last book of the trilogy. Understanding karma was so much easier through these accounts of Vimalananda's life. Even if Vimalananda is a fictional character or not, the stories are very important for a life well lived.
February 15, 2025
Worth the read!
Amazing!
The book goes into detail about how karma works and gives many examples of the kind of karmas we can, and do perform.
I safely ignored all the passages about horses and horse racing as I found them somewhat distracting; the passages about the law of karma, however, were very enlightening.
Amazing!
The book goes into detail about how karma works and gives many examples of the kind of karmas we can, and do perform.
I safely ignored all the passages about horses and horse racing as I found them somewhat distracting; the passages about the law of karma, however, were very enlightening.
January 4, 2021
Law of karma explained so much in detailed... First two book were foundation.. its a very slow read but detailed in explaining of wheel of times moves.. in somewhat layman language... You may find it too boring and somewhere repetitive also.. as its about karma ...
August 10, 2018
It was my karma, and i read it.
Unforgettable anatomy of Karma.
Unforgettable anatomy of Karma.
November 3, 2019
Simply loved it
December 1, 2019
A good book. Read this as a continuation of the last 2 books. At lot of things conforms with my understanding of karma. Loved the author
March 28, 2020
Great book to understand runanubandh or the karmic debts. I wish that everyone reads it and understand what it is and how it goes on.
June 27, 2020
Amazing book really makes you think and reevaluate everything you do in your life. This story has a good mixture of hindu faith, karma, astrology and about rishis
December 13, 2020
Entertaining.
November 19, 2021
Truly amazing book!
February 4, 2022
Opens your horizon about the laws of karma and how we are creating new karma and its reactions.
April 4, 2024
The first book of the series was by far the best. The rest doesn't have anything new to offer to you. Was expecting more intense and intimate stories about aghories and the cultures and the ritual.
April 12, 2024
Wonderful Book
I loved the stories in the book. I learned so much more about Karma than from what I had previously read before. It’s a must read!
I loved the stories in the book. I learned so much more about Karma than from what I had previously read before. It’s a must read!
February 13, 2025
That was an enjoyable read .I failed in love with many of the stories told in the book
February 10, 2014
Having read all the three of the Aghora series books,ie,Aghora 1,Kundalini & Karma, gave me a better picture of the Tantrik practices in general , how kundalini is connected to our perception of the world around us which makes our perspective on the same ,& then about karma which was the first read among the three above presented a lucid understanding of this perplexing Law of Karma(a lot of references from the Indian history).
These books will surely free us from a negative opinion which we all generally have on Aghoras and their Tantrik practices.
One of the cool features of this series is you will never loose your connect with the topic under narration ,even when it describes ghastly images such as animal sacrifices ,drugs ,sex etc.
I really doubt how did Robert remember such conversation with Vimalananda which took place several years ago,which appear as if they happened yesterday.
Having said a little about the intellectual content of the books ,It would be an injustice if the flair in which the book is narrated is not mentioned,which is purely fun reading, you never know and suddenly you find yourself into those last chapters.
Finally for all spiritual people these series will definitely expand your contour on the same.
These books will surely free us from a negative opinion which we all generally have on Aghoras and their Tantrik practices.
One of the cool features of this series is you will never loose your connect with the topic under narration ,even when it describes ghastly images such as animal sacrifices ,drugs ,sex etc.
I really doubt how did Robert remember such conversation with Vimalananda which took place several years ago,which appear as if they happened yesterday.
Having said a little about the intellectual content of the books ,It would be an injustice if the flair in which the book is narrated is not mentioned,which is purely fun reading, you never know and suddenly you find yourself into those last chapters.
Finally for all spiritual people these series will definitely expand your contour on the same.
November 13, 2024
Insights into karmic life. as they say " Karma never loses an address" / "What you do comes back to you"
December 22, 2023
Astroamerica
AGHORA III: The Law of Karma - Robert Svoboda, $21.95
Contents:
Introduction; 1. Stoney
2. Elan
3. Teasers & stallions
4. Timir
5. Scarlet Ruby
6. The city of delusion
7. Repay
8. Redstone
9. Prakriti siddhi; Epilogue. Glossary.
Comment: The blurb on the back of this book does not quite sum it up. It reads, in part: In this, the third & final volume of the Aghora trilogy, the Aghori [guru] Vimalananda uses the backdrop of the Bombay racetrack as a potent metaphor for the ultimate game of life, where destinies & fortunes are forged or lost on the momentary edge of the finish line... Eg, karma, but not the dull preachy sort.
The Introduction introduces & defines various technical terms (karma, dharma, karmic transfer, sacrifice, pravritti & nivritti, etc.)
The rest of the book is an entertaining story of what happened when a rather ruthless guru took the young Svoboda to the race track & for eight years played the horses, for all they were worth.
Brotherhood of Life & Sadhana Publications, 323 pages.
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AGHORA III: The Law of Karma - Robert Svoboda, $21.95
Contents:
Introduction; 1. Stoney
2. Elan
3. Teasers & stallions
4. Timir
5. Scarlet Ruby
6. The city of delusion
7. Repay
8. Redstone
9. Prakriti siddhi; Epilogue. Glossary.
Comment: The blurb on the back of this book does not quite sum it up. It reads, in part: In this, the third & final volume of the Aghora trilogy, the Aghori [guru] Vimalananda uses the backdrop of the Bombay racetrack as a potent metaphor for the ultimate game of life, where destinies & fortunes are forged or lost on the momentary edge of the finish line... Eg, karma, but not the dull preachy sort.
The Introduction introduces & defines various technical terms (karma, dharma, karmic transfer, sacrifice, pravritti & nivritti, etc.)
The rest of the book is an entertaining story of what happened when a rather ruthless guru took the young Svoboda to the race track & for eight years played the horses, for all they were worth.
Brotherhood of Life & Sadhana Publications, 323 pages.
-----
July 17, 2014
The Aghora Triology - a set of three books that were so fascinating that I finished them all in a fortnight.
The author is an American who had come to study Ayurveda in a college at Poona in the 80s when he meets an Aghori.
The series elucidates about the reasoning and philosophy behind some of the seemingly bizarre practices of Aghora that the society views with contempt and horror.
In addition, the author shed light on the epic poem Ramayana, and explains it in a way that is illuminating for the spiritually inclined. The author deals with Karmic theory, and its implications.
More importantly, the whole larger than life personality of Vimalananda and his Gurus makes you read these books in bated breath.
I highly recommend the series for anybody interested in ancient Indian spiritual practices.
The author is an American who had come to study Ayurveda in a college at Poona in the 80s when he meets an Aghori.
The series elucidates about the reasoning and philosophy behind some of the seemingly bizarre practices of Aghora that the society views with contempt and horror.
In addition, the author shed light on the epic poem Ramayana, and explains it in a way that is illuminating for the spiritually inclined. The author deals with Karmic theory, and its implications.
More importantly, the whole larger than life personality of Vimalananda and his Gurus makes you read these books in bated breath.
I highly recommend the series for anybody interested in ancient Indian spiritual practices.
Read
June 11, 2015The subtitle of this book is "The Law of Karma".
Here the Aghora, the mentor of the author, with whom he spent around 7 years, puts forth his knowledge of the Karmic effects of our acts. All acts are karmic, no act is beyond or above karma...we have to go through the effects of all our actions + thoughts + intentions during all our lives -- when or how or in which birth? -- that only nature decides....
Here the Aghora, the mentor of the author, with whom he spent around 7 years, puts forth his knowledge of the Karmic effects of our acts. All acts are karmic, no act is beyond or above karma...we have to go through the effects of all our actions + thoughts + intentions during all our lives -- when or how or in which birth? -- that only nature decides....
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews