SARUJ
Imagine there is no more money
On 22 February 2026 we celebrated in Auroville. the launch of the english translation of Saruj.
The eBook is offered to whatever amount
feels fair to you. A print version will soon be available.
I would be very grateful if you spread the word among everyone you know. If you have contacts with international influencers who could do an interview
with me, or journalists who might like to write about
the book, that would be a great help.
Thanks a lot 🍀🙏
At their deepest core, people, even before the Transition, have always yearned for peace and for a world without money.
Yet, their dream was dismissed as an unrealistic utopia.
Breaking free from this belief has been the Transition’s heaviest challenge.
‘Saruj - Imagine there is no more money’ is the offspring of the project The Bear Soup (Die Bärensuppe), which also explored the vision of a money-free society. The Bear Soup was an interactive exhibition inviting visitors to experience trust and collective decision making. Guests brought the ingredients and cooked a soup together. There was no head chef, only one shared goal: that the soup should taste good.
Who is bringing much or nothing at all is irrelevant, be it ingredients, hunger, or active participation. The exercise lies in mutual attentiveness, expressing one’s wishes, experiencing abundance – there was always ‘more than too much’ – and dissolving resistance. It offers a foretaste of a non-hierarchical system that is still alive today.
Through the doubts of visitors, I was compelled to confront the limits of this idea and to search for tangible solutions. After five years, I was ready to weave these questions into a novel, proposing practical ways in which new paths can unfold.
Whether a money-free society will truly emerge within forty years, I cannot promise. Yet it was important to me to describe a near future, so that a few witnesses of the ‘Transition’ could still speak about their personal experience. I also wanted this vision to feel real enough to give hope to those living now and to spark action.
As an artist, my concern is the final vision, the perfect diamond. No one knows where the journey will ultimately lead. This book aims to inspire and give courage. Every step towards a more peaceful society is a step in the right direction.
If you are interested to know how the book came to life, check the movie:
EXPERT VOICES
Michael Karjalainen-Dräger
Editor & Host
With eager curiosity I set out with Kevalam on his journey into a new, utopian society, which the author Bilbo Calvez, together with Saruj, lets him discover in a wonderfully eloquent and vivid way. There, not one stone is left upon another – and that is a good thing. The “root evil” of money no longer exists, mindfulness and healing take centre stage, small communities once again breathe life into the world – in the truest sense of the word – and show readers how the saving of the world, referred to as the Transition, can succeed. Inspired, I follow the protagonists and gradually begin to sense what I myself have to contribute.
Madita Hampe
Journalist
“Saruj – Imagine There Is No More Money is marked by an extraordinary gentleness. The invariably loving gaze on all the characters and their individual development makes it clear that the vision of a money-free society is far less a politically propagandised goal than the logical consequence of a transformed consciousness of living together, whose cornerstones are no longer praise and blame, but kindness and radically practised trust. On every level, Saruj is a radically unconventional book that takes readers on a journey out of their mental comfort zone, bringing them, if they allow it, a step closer to themselves.”
‘Saruj – Imagine, there is no more money’ is a work of fiction, a love story set in a future where there is no money or trade, no borders or governments, no police apparatus or wars. A society striving for complete freedom.
Saruj (‘Empathy’ in Sanskrit), twenty-nine, was born on the day money was abolished. She grew up in a community in the Pyrenees, and for more than a third of her life she has wandered the world on foot as a nomad.
She is an idealist and, in the story, she represents freedom.
Kevalam (‘Alone’ in Sanskrit) is the last son of the ultra-wealthy patriarch, Saman. As money lost its importance, the father believed that this new money-free society would not last long. Therefore, he built a self-sufficient settlement for himself and his family, completely cut off from the outside world. His son was told that beyond the magnetic dome that surrounded them, only murder and mayhem reigned.
The story begins when Saman dies. Kevalam escapes the settlement in one of his father’s vehicles and soon causes an accident. This is how he meets Saruj.
At that very moment, the young woman is on her way to a Sannyasinii who, together with other mystics, is preparing a pilgrimage to purify the soils, lakes, and buildings on an energetic level. Some of these mystics are more than a hundred years old and thus still living witnesses of the so-called ‘Transition’.
Kevalam decides to follow Saruj and join the pilgrimage. At first, he struggles to believe that a world without money can function peacefully. He fears a loss of security and justice, both of which in his view can only be ensured through control and therefore through money. With Saruj’s support and the patient guidance of the Sannyasins, he opens himself to this new society in time and begins to see its beauty.
This work is intended to become a trilogy:
Book 1 deals with the resistance of Kevalam – and thus also with that of the readers.
Book 2 deals with healing.
Book 3 takes place in a later future and explores the tipping point between utopia and dystopia.
Regarding distribution: The German free edition is sold out.
With this edition, the buyer could decide how much to pay for the book. This edition, which was in fact not a book but an artwork – since, by law, a book must have a fixed price – was limited to 500 copies.
The German classic edition in paperback can now be purchased at a fixed price of €19.80 (including shipping costs within Germany) in bookshops or directly from the publisher MEIGA. There is no English paperback edition yet.
The eBook version will be available here in the shop starting on 22 February 2026.