Sony Kumar's BLOG

More than a decade ago, in the quiet sanctity of a Buddhist temple in Putuoshan, China, I found myself seated across from the head monk, sharing tea and exchanging thoughts that would linger in my mind long after. The encounter was unexpected, initiated by his curiosity about my connection to Bodhgaya, the sacred place of Buddha’s enlightenment. It was in that setting, surrounded by incense and the hushed murmur of monastic life, that we embarked on a conversation that traversed the depths of existence, divinity, pain, and purpose.

His questions were precise, yet expansive. Each one is an invitation to strip away assumptions and confront the essence of being. He asked me, “If you were to become the best friend of a tiger, and it so happened that the tiger was hungry for days because there was no food left, what would you do?”

Without hesitation, I answered—I would ask the tiger to be true to its nature and eat me. There was no resistance in my response, no plea for survival. The tiger is a tiger; hunger is hunger. To deny its nature would be to impose my own desires upon the fabric of reality. The monk smiled, as if acknowledging something fundamental in that answer.

Then, he asked if I prayed. No, I told him. Did I believe in God? Yes, in something resembling God. But I did not ask for anything, nor did I seek divine intervention. Again, he smiled. “Hmm! So, you understand God.”

It was in these exchanges that I recognised an essential truth: I did not seek rewards, nor did I harbour any complaints. My existence was not about petitioning the universe for ease or comfort—it was about experiencing life as it unfolds, with all its pain, joy, heartbreak, deceit, and redemption.

Pain, I told him, was the price of progress. To evolve, to understand, to grow—none of it comes without sacrifice. Pain is the sculptor, carving us into something new. He listened, his gaze steady, his posture unmoving—yet each smile was a signal that the words resonated in some way.

When he asked what I would say to God if he were sitting with me, I told him I would say nothing. What is there to ask for when nothing is owed to me? He nodded. “So you are not looking for a reward, and you don’t have any complaint?”

None, I confirmed.

The conversation drifted deeper—toward remembrance, identity, purpose. I told him I did not wish to be remembered; that I sought to live without the weight of opinion, bias, prejudice, or agenda. When I die, I want the atoms that make me to return to everything—to the cosmos, to the earth, to the currents of existence. In that way, I would not cease—I would simply transform, experiencing every agony, ecstasy, and silence that the universe has to offer.

And then, the monk said, “So you know why the universe exists.”

“Maybe,” I answered.

At that moment, it was not certainty that mattered, but understanding—the ability to embrace the unknown without seeking dominance over it.

When he asked why I did business, my answer was simple: because it allows me to create something from nothing. To bring vision to life, to manifest ideas into reality. That is, in itself, a kind of magic.

And when he asked what I could do for God, I told him I hoped I could be the blood in God’s veins—if God had veins. I hoped to be time itself for the dying, and comfort for an angel.

Finally, the monk asked, “So do you want anything for yourself?”

I thought for a moment before responding.

“No—just a cup of coffee and a bit of time with myself every day so I can experience my living fully before I die.”

And if that coffee were poison?

“I would still drink it,” I said, “because sometimes people you love will cost you, but loving them was your choice. I will always do what is true to my nature.”

He smiled one last time.

Leaving the temple, I carried the weight of the conversation with me—not as a burden, but as a quiet whisper in the back of my mind. The monk’s questions had pulled at the fabric of my beliefs, not to unravel them, but to reveal how loosely they were stitched to the great unknown.

For years, I had lived with a quiet acceptance of life’s unfolding—a surrender to the chaos and beauty of existence. But as I stepped into the mist that curled along the temple’s stone paths, a thought settled within me: what if no one knows?

Not the monks, not the universe itself—perhaps not even the Gods, if they exist. What if life is not understood by those who live it, nor by the forces that shape it? What if existence is not the product of knowledge, but of mystery?

The thought did not frighten me. It did not burden me with doubt. Instead, it set me free.

For if no one—human, divine, cosmic—truly knows why they exist, then perhaps our purpose is not to seek an answer, but to live in the question. To experience life fully, not as something to be solved, but as something to be felt.

The realisation that perhaps no one truly knows—not humans, not the universe, not even the Gods—flips the concept of meaning on its head. It moves beyond certainty, beyond answers, into a space where mystery itself becomes the only truth.

With that thought, I walked on—not searching, not expecting, simply being, like a prayer I never speak.