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    The Five Jewels: Reflecting Upon Life's Ultimate Questions
    The Five Jewels: Reflecting Upon Life's Ultimate Questions
    The Five Jewels: Reflecting Upon Life's Ultimate Questions
    Ebook71 pages1 hour

    The Five Jewels: Reflecting Upon Life's Ultimate Questions

    By Màrk Gerard Craig

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Whether we are religious or not, there are five key questions we are confronted with by virtue of our humanity. This book is an attempt to respond to these questions thoughtfully and practically. The last thing anyone needs are pious platitudes and spiritual clichés to explain the mystery at the very heart of human experience. "The Five Jewels" provides a welcome change and touch of authentic originality in its response to this mystery. The following series of spiritual reflections is nourishment for the inner self on its journey to deeper connection with reality.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMàrk Gerard Craig
    Release dateJun 19, 2016
    ISBN9781310635045
    The Five Jewels: Reflecting Upon Life's Ultimate Questions
    Author

    Màrk Gerard Craig

    Mark Craig is the author of several books on the topic of spirituality. His special interest is in the conversation to be had between science and religion, particularly quantum physics and existential models of spirituality. However, in more recent books, Craig explores the essence of reality from a more philosophical perspective giving religion a broader context from which to distil meaning. Craig is currently a school teacher in Brisbane, Australia but did serve as a Catholic priest for several years prior to this. He has a Bachelor of Theology, a Graduate Certificate in Religious Education and a Master’s Degree in Education, specialising in Religion. To date, Craig has seven book publications and five published articles in academic Journals, including the Australian Journal of Religious Education (JRE), the Journal of Catholic School Studies (JCSS), now defunct, as well as the EJournal of Theology. His website religiousandspiritualbooks.weebly.com provides further opportunity for spiritual reflection and discussion, hosting a blogpost as well as various other features.

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      Book preview

      The Five Jewels - Màrk Gerard Craig

      About the author

      Mark Craig lives with his wife and two children in Brisbane, Australia. He is a school teacher specialising in Religious Studies. Mark has a keen interest in spirituality and seeks, through his writing, to share his understanding and acquired knowledge in order to inspire genuine connection with the transcendent. 

      Also by Mark Craig

      Does Evil Exist: Unveiling the Mystery.

      The Mysterious Case of God’s Non-Existence: Investigating the Nature of the Real.

      Awakening to Who We Are: The Divine Art of Being.

      THE FIVE JEWELS

      Reflecting upon life’s ultimate questions

      Mark Craig

      Copyright 2014 by Mark Craig

      All rights reserved,

      Including the right to reproduce this book or

      portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

      A Mark Craig book.

      Published: June 19, 2016 on Smash Words

      Words: 17,410

      Language: Australian English

      ISBN: 9781310635045

      Dedication

      This book is dedicated to all those who sincerely seek the truth and who are courageous enough to dispense with their own narrow perspective in order to embrace a more all-encompassing one.

      INTRODUCTION

      I wonder why there are so many people in the world unhappy with their lot in life? Why does a Robin Williams or a Kurt Cobain, who appear to have absolute material success at their fingertips, find death such a sweet alternative to life? Lives that produced so much joy and pleasure for others cut short by abject misery and depression.

      Why is suicide such a prominent health concern in the western world? The Australian Bureau of Statistics report an average of 2,415 deaths per year? In 2012, 1,901 males and 634 females died by suicide, a total of 2,535 deaths. This equates to an average of 6.9 deaths by suicide in Australia each day. In the United States as of 2010, more people died of suicide than in car accidents. Why is misery out stripping happiness and leaving so many people dead?

      When one boils down the broth of human experience to its most fundamental ingredients, five key questions emerge. No matter our cultural context, particular life experience or station in life these questions inevitably arise. Breaking through and disturbing the oft murky and gritty surface of our particular life experience, they challenge us to go deeper. They cause us to look beneath appearances and examine more closely the nature of our existence. Demanding a personal response, these ancient questions emerge and re-emerge in every successive generation demanding a new response. These questions, when unanswered by our personal response to life, generate and become a source of great angst and suffering for us. What are these questions, you may ask? These questions are:

      1) From whence have I ultimately come?

      2) Who am I, really?

      3) What am I to do with my life?

      4) What does it all ultimately mean?

      5) To whom or where am I ultimately headed?

      These five questions are the five jewels in the diadem of spiritual awakening and constitute the basis of all religious and spiritual traditions. This is one of the reasons why formal religion is and continues to be attractive to so many. It provides a ready-made set of responses to these profound life questions. More recently, these same questions have become the focus of post-modern manifestations of scientific inquiry.

      The new physics, Quantum physics, explores the very structure of existence and, by doing so, stumbles into territory once the sole domain of religion. It too asks: Does some mysterious yet deeper intelligence belie existence and is this intelligence observable in the world? Is God or what the word God points to empirically measurable in some fashion?

      Moreover, if one was to examine every major world religion and spiritual tradition it would be of no surprise to discover, these questions comprise the foundation stone upon which is built its most profound philosophical and theological discourses. Furthermore, whether one is affiliated with a religion or not, whether one entertains some spiritual philosophy of life, these same questions usually undergird every human crisis and require some type of response before peace is rendered possible again.

      More often, the natural stages of life mirror the relative significance of each question and, in some sense, they map the stages in human social and psycho-spiritual development. The typical adolescent crisis often hovers around issues of personal identity and belonging. Who am I and where do I fit? As adolescence transitions into young adulthood the question of purpose assumes the foreground. Now that I have some sense of who I am and where I belong the question of what shall I do becomes paramount.

      One then spends the next 20 to 30 years immersing themselves in a particular job or career working hard to achieve certain goals and become successful. Inevitably though, it becomes apparent that so called ‘success’ has not delivered on personal happiness. Enter the mid-life crisis and one is challenged to reflect upon the meaning of what one has done. At this juncture, the why looms larger than the who and what; this becomes a time for re-evaluating personal meaning.

      Relationships and the quality

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