An extract from Mark Durman’s riveting quest across ‎the tapestry of human belief and experience. ‎More than a spiritual exploration, this also navigates the dynamic worlds of politics, ‎dreams, music and sports. Embark a journey that ‎will provoke thought, inspire wonder and ask “why?”

Preamble

“The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space.” – Carl Sagan

We’re born, we live, we die. That’s the fate of every human and of all other species on Planet Earth. The Christian Bible reminds us that we all have an appointment with death (Hebrews 9:27) which comes to the rich and poor alike. Death is no respecter of persons or families. Why do we exist, what is the point of us, what is the meaning of life and what happens when we die? There have been thousands of attempts to answer these questions but there’s still no agreed solution. This book has another go.

The lives of homo sapiens have infinite variations such as place and date of birth, race, skin colour, social culture, religious upbringing, political pressures, birth sign. Some humans are born into prosperous families, live long, healthy lives and die in old age. Others are born into poverty, are ravaged by disease and die young. Some are born into families with strong religious influences and/or become believers in a faith: Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu or one of the many other faiths and sects. Some believe, are even convinced through their faith, they know what will happen to them when they die. The lives of some are dominated by political structures – democratic, fascist, communist. Some people are agnostic, some are atheist, have no religious beliefs but support Darwinian principles of evolution by natural selection. Do we go to heaven, hell or some other place or state or do we just cease to exist with no afterlife, no reincarnation, nothing, nada?

Throughout the ages, many theologians, philosophers, and other influencers have tackled this subject. Examples are:

- The Greek philosophers, for example, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, who had a major influence on man’s thinking for over a thousand years. They still do!

- The Christian “Holy Bible” which remains top of the book bestselling list. The Guinness Book of World Records estimates that more than five billion copies have been printed.

- The Qur’an (or Quran or Koran): the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God.

- The Hindu “Vedas”: believed by Hindus to be the very breath of the supreme Brahman.

- The Buddhist Holy book “Tipitaka”: believed to be the earliest collection of Buddhist writings.

- Theologians, philosophers and scientists such as Thomas Aquinas, Dante Alighieri, Baruch Spinoza, Voltaire, Sigmund Freud, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Charles Darwin, Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, Billy Graham, Martin Luther King, Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins and many, many more.

The works of these learned experts and religious texts reflect a wide spectrum of man’s understanding of our world. I marvel at the vision and academic excellence of so many of these works. But I have a problem. Apart from the wide diversity of opinion whether or not there is a god, a creator, so many works fail to relate to the widely differing characteristics of the human being and to the mundane lives that many of us lead. We stumble along through life, sometimes learning from the many mistakes we make, sometimes not, sometimes leading inspiring lives which might be worthy of advancing to a higher after-life state, sometimes messing up either by intent or circumstance; and sometimes just drifting along. I believe that a principal purpose of religion and philosophy is to understand and relate to the life of the human being. Not some universal, mono-person but real living, breathing, frail, error prone human beings with all our emotions and individual personalities.

I have studied the works of many brilliant academics with professorships and other distinguished degrees awarded by various universities or establishments of spiritual learning. Many live, or have lived in the rarefied world of their university or church environment, mixed mainly with other academics or clerics and spent much of their time lecturing or preaching to others. Their lives had the advantage of living and working at a high academic level; but they often failed to relate fully to the challenges faced by many of us simple mortals; and there are a lot of us around. The most recent estimate puts the world’s population as eight billion with India’s population (1.429 billion) just surpassing that of China (1.426) billion. (The Times 2022).

There’s another thing. Why do so many of the “meaning of life” books, especially those written by theologians lack the human emotion of humour? In my research, I found the odd reference to “joy” but usually in a constrained, prim and thin-lipped manner. Life doesn’t have to be too serious, it can be funny especially when we laugh at our own stupidity!

Part One of this book reviews the main religions of the world. Christianity, Islam and Judaism share some common characteristics that distinguish them from other of the world’s religions: belief in one god and in a sacred scripture – “the book”. They share many similar concepts: one god made the universe and one god will end it. Each human has a soul and at his death, the soul separates from the body and goes into another dimension. There is a judgment to be made concerning the moral worthiness of each human at death for an eternal reward or punishment. Time is linear and there is only one period of existence for individuals and the entire universe. I examine what different faiths mean by saying “I believe.” I look at how the Christian faith has been challenged and modified during its two-thousand-year history. I show how the Muslim faith is interpreted in different national cultures and outline the main beliefs of the Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and other world religions. I also explore the effect that science has had particularly regarding the evolution and convictions of those who do not believe there is such a being as a god or a creator.

I examine what each of the above categories conclude regarding the meaning of our one time on planet earth; or more if we’re reincarnated! I also look at some other factors which have profound influences on us humans. Why, for example, is music so universally popular? Why do some songs endure and are continuously repeated over the years, by all age groups and social backgrounds? Why does sport have such a major influence on people’s lives? Football has billions of followers world-wide. From supporters of local clubs to the devoted fans of today’s top national teams, sport enthrals and probably has far more influence on people’s lives today than do most politicians, religious leaders or philosophers.

In Part Two of this book, I follow the detailed life of one human being, when and where it occurred, how it evolved and matured, what personal, social, professional and political influences it was exposed to and what were the effects, how it transitioned from childhood into old age via all the variants, stages, pressures, thoughts, desires, drives, likes, loves, hates, deceits, dreams, ambitions, disappointments, successes, failures along the way.

I searched for a suitable candidate, male or female, as a model or test benchmark. I considered such religious leaders as Jesus Christ or Muhammad bin Abdullah, or political icons such as Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill or Margaret Thatcher. Then I considered choosing the life of a famous sportsman or woman, or of an author or film star or singer; but there is only so much of the lives of any of these eminent people which is known. For example, although there have been many biographies written about Winston Churchill and he also wrote his own very comprehensive memoirs; yet even with all this available information, there are still major gaps; how did his thoughts evolve from his childhood, what self-doubts did he feel, what jealousies, inner desires, feelings of guilt? Did he have dreams, if so, what about? And what might these feelings and emotions have had on his understanding of the meaning of his life? Such minute details about Churchill, or any of the other candidates that I considered, are not available and yet without a fully comprehensive understanding of the full range of thoughts and emotions, any study of the life of a sample human being is incomplete.

There is only one model life that I know intimately – and that’s my own, already into its ninth decade; longevity has its uses as the mind is a wonderful storehouse of experience. My life has not been extraordinary but nor has it been straightforward. During my lifetime, I have lived and worked in every continent of the world, have been directly exposed to all the world’s main religions, have been with soldiers and others when they died and have many times been close to death myself. At times, my personal and domestic life has been a real mess, often through my own self-inflicted mistakes. I doubt if many of our leading spiritualists or philosophers have had such a wide range of personal experiences. I also doubt that they made as many mistakes as I have. Or if they did, I wonder if they would be prepared to admit them!

In Part Three, I summarise the main points made in Parts One and Two and examine how my personal life’s experiences relate both to the main established religions and to other major influences. I then attempt in Part Four to draw some conclusions about what all the above means and what seem to work best, at least for me!

Why? One Man’s Journey is available now in paperback.