Does anything mean anything?

At the Southernmost tip of India, I met a sadhu who sat at the East gate of the Sri Kanniyakumari Amman temple. I was lost, not physically, but spiritually. I felt I was having an existential crisis—or perhaps, a spiritual experience, depending on how you looked at it. You cannot be found unless you're properly lost.

He ushered me over with terrible English while saying “Good English” over and over.

In a state of flow, I accepted.

I sat down with him at the East gate which was closed and clearly locked. I felt the same way, something was locked up but it didn't feel right. Something was wrong and this man knew exactly what to say for me to see him.

He assured me again he had good English, clearly not true, but I didn't care. He proceeded to pull out a variety of boxes from behind him.

People started to gather to watch but he shooed them away. This moment was just for us despite us being literally next to the street overlooking the Indian Ocean at the southernmost tip of India. We were so close we could smell the salt of the ocean blowing up the nearby rocky cliff.

He asked me to pull a card from a box that looked like one of those white boxes you’d get hundreds of Magic cards from.

I pulled a card with Hanuman on it, leaping across the sea to Sri Lanka. The mythological leap of an incarnated god leaping miles for a noble cause. The sadhu looked at me and said “Strong!” while curling his arm then pointing at me, "you strong!"

Little did he know, perhaps, that I had just finished teaching myself how to chant the Hanuman Gayatri mantra using this exact image.

Then he replaced the card, grabbed a few objects like a couple of small fruits I didn’t recognize, and some leaves from the bilva tree.

He then pulled out another box, this one much smaller but also containing an assortment of cards. I pulled another card and this one had a picture of a very happy cheering man with his arms overhead. Now, I was experiencing some depth of reality that made “happy” the furthest thing from my mind, but nonetheless, this sadhu looked at me and exclaimed, “Very happy joy!” or something of that effect in broken English.

I just stared back at him… My mind was in a void, lost. I didn't have a reaction, just surrender, acceptance of the moment exactly as it was.

He then busily opened another box. This one was filled with a variety of metal objects. He poked around for a minute before choosing one. He laid it with the other objects on a piece of newspaper.

He then rolled some shells. One fell off the ledge we were sitting on.

He looked at them, at me, back to them. Then asked my age, 33. He rolled the fallen shell again then said, “You live long time! 88!” I fell out of my void for a moment as the thought—“Only 88!?”—floated by but only a momentary feeling of being grounded as I surrendered back into the moment.

But he didn’t appear to notice, or care. He gathered a few more objects, shooing more passersby away (again). He then pointed to the edge of the walkway that overlooked the ocean and Vivekananda Rock Memorial.

We walked over there. I looked out at the massive statue being built, down 50 feet at the ocean over massive jagged rocks. He handed me the bundle of objects in the newspaper and pointed.

He didn’t know how to say it, but he motioned for me to throw this bundle into the ocean.

A flood of drive-by thoughts occurred… How can I throw this into the ocean? Is this just trash? What am I doing? And back to the existential crisis.

I eyed the destination. The ocean was down 50 feet but also at least another 50 feet away from where I stood in a horizontal line. I felt I had to follow through; when in India, listen to the sadhus. So I threw this lump bundle hoping it wouldn't fall apart and thankful for all the moments of playing catch with my dad growing up.

I watched it fall, mesmerized... I had always loved throwing a ball growing up.  But this throw felt heavier, like I was letting go of something I couldn’t name, aiming for an ocean that swallowed it without hesitation. It landed in a wave a few feet off the rock-lined coast. He then asked me to return to the East temple gate. We sat down, and he shared some insight with me.

But the question I felt after all this;
Did this mean anything?

Quickly followed by the next question;
Does anything mean anything?

The thought struck like a wave against the rocks below, persistent and unrelenting. Everything I had seen—the boxes, the cards, the strange rituals—felt both absurd and intentional. Was it guidance? A scam? Or simply an attempt to give structure to chaos? My mind weaved through possibilities as the question echoed deeper, each repetition stripping away certainty. Meaning, it seemed, wasn’t something given; it was something we either accept or create. But in that moment, I wasn’t sure if I wanted either.

As we finished our conversation. His image burned into my mind's eye, and his words resting in my empty heart. I took a few moments to let the experience be while he shooed another group of people that had started to gather. At this point, people had taken a dozen photos of me with this sadhu.

So what was the meaning of this? Well, maybe it was like the locked gate—closed but waiting for something to open it. Or the ocean—vast and indifferent, yet carrying what I threw away. We make our own meaning, or maybe we let go and allow meaning to find us. And I felt the depth of this. There is no meaning, I throw it all away, it's not for me, and in my surrender, everything grows meaning.

Ready to be alone again, I asked him for a photo, this photo, before departing to carry on my wanderings.