Does Life Have a Meaning?

The sadhu’s story

What is the chief end of man?
A. Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever.
Alice and Humpty-Dumpty
Vagarthaviva sampraktau…..the shabda and artha word and its meaning, mimamsakaras versus the social
Rupam rupam pratirupam
Rasovai saha
conventionalism of the Buddhists form and content. Formalism
Meaning of Meaning, Abidha lakshana Vyanjana
Universals and Particulars of Socrates
Homo Mensura
Meaning as Signification
The structualists and post structuralists
The View of the structuralists and their successors
Doing, Being, Having, Becoming, the comparison of meaning “the story I missed the bus” Naimish.
4 Purushartha, 4 rinas, 4 ashramas
anataa or no self, decentering, atman as inclusive and non centred
Inaccessibility of truth
Linguistic bias and language games
Noun of Nouns Socrates and problem of universals
Nihilism
Metaphors Architecture-constructivist, Structure and embedded, contingent,
Human dissatisfactions Recompense
The margins
Religion
Art & Culture
Sexuality

It was those evening hours at Rishikesh a score of years earlier, when life seemed simpler and the world
full of certainty. In the gloaming, the riverside Ganges would soon be reverberating with the evening
vespers and prayers to the accompaniment of great drums and cymbals. That twilight of neither day nor
night, neither inside nor outside; neither earth, sky nor river seemed to make man contemplative of his own
confusions. Probably in that confusion lurked in some corner that which was really sacred, far from the
fierce assertion of the gong drum and sanctimonious recitation. I was twenty with a mind immature,
impressionable and inquisitive, seeking earnestly for what I thought would be the proper end of man; a
search for purpose amidst the archaic and hoary sanctuary of scripture and anchorite. We were a group of
motley pilgrims who emerged from a three week retreat at Dharamshala in the lap of the Himalayas
travelling to Uttarkashi to reflect upon the holy texts of the Geeta, the Upanishads etc under the instruction
of an ochre clad monk, trained in argument over scripture and commentary. I seemed smug in my belief
that I was early to choose what seemed like the definite path of wisdom and my fellowship with this group
seemed natural and mutually protective. There was amongst us a young Brahmacharini, a female acolyte
who was the natural leader of the pack of lay devotees, to whom her knowledge and probable spiritual
attainments gave comfort and direction. We were all dusty and weary after a long bus ride across the stony
and ill kept roads that wove through the hills and were awaiting our next bus which would transport us to
our final destination.

At that bus stop littered with banana peel and plastered like a palimpsest with political posters from various
parties, spiritual orders and traditions, I sat on a concrete bench, feet firmly on the ground, tired and small.
Next to me sat a mendicant, dressed in ochre and white, a cloth bag slung on his shoulder, hair tied in a top
knot, forehead smeared in ashes, and garlanded by several strands of holy beads of rudraksh and tulsi. He
seemed not conspicuous in a town populated by various holy denominations, wearing their holiness on their
sleeves. Suddenly without warning, he pulled out from his bag, dog eared texts of Geeta, Upanishads,
Ramayana etc and started to throw them on the dusty littered ground. Startled I looked up at his blasphemy
trying to figure out what he meant by that. He seemed wracked with pain and in a choked voice told me
that for 18 long years of privation, he had left home and had wandered every pilgrim trail, heard many holy
men of repute and otherwise, pored over many scriptures and genuflected many gods, reflected on many a
truth, but could not fulfil his quest. He cried in anguish and was incoherent. He raised his helpless and frail
hands and groaned at the utter futility of his quest and the seeming vacuum in his heart and told me to take
whatever I wished. He seemed to be crushed under the collapsing weight of all his beliefs and desires to
find that which would transcend everything and make meaning of his little life. Flushed with confusion,
anger and sorrow I could find no words at what seemed to me a monumental tragedy and myself burst into
tears. I was whisked away by the others and our leader the stern novice nun told me “Look this is what
happens when you don’t heed your Guru”. She went on long after our bus departed probably justifying to
herself her own life choices, despite my deaf preoccupation with what seemed such a tragedy. I have never
since forgotten that scene of such demolition and defeat at what seemed so earnest a quest for the meaning
of life. Yet though I departed I know he would have, like many of us started all over again, the tragic and
Sisyphean human endeavour of making and perhaps deciphering the meaning of our lives.

I would imagine a passing cow chewing up the books and wonder what the brouhaha about meaning is
when these scriptures seem so bland.