TITLE: THE TRUE MASTERSHIP OF YOUR BEING: CONQUER EARTH AND MAKE HEAVEN [THE MASTERSHIP SERIES BOOK 1]
AUTHORS: FELIX ABAYOMI DURU
GENRE: RELIGIOUS PROSE
PUBLISHER: WORDS RHYMES AND RHYTHMS LTD
YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2018
ISBN: 978-978-969-287-3
NO. OF PAGES: 298
REVIEWER: EUGENE YAKUBU
“You might be doing so well already; this book will add more colour to your wellness. Perhaps you are not doing so well, this book will cause your rainbow to appear, I promise.”
~ Felix Abayomi Duru
With the above assertiveness, you’d wonder why Duru vehemently promises an epic experience— totally different to readers of his book. The answer isn’t farfetched, it is right here in the book.
The True Mastership of your Being is a spiritual cum philosophical book which carries with it great lessons about life, existence, morals, spirituality and even religion. This isn’t the conventional kind of motivational or spiritual book because its inferences are deeply rooted in philosophical premises and arguments are aligned to the Holy Bible which is considered the ultimate book containing our beliefs and ideas about life.
It has provided enough information and knowledge about life and even the most ruminated philosophical questions that we are more often afraid to ask: Questions about the origin of God and the origin of life, and whether scientific theories have discredited Biblical teachings on God and the creation of the world.
The author’s arguments are deeply personal and based on personal convictions and anyone who has a contrary view may have issues with his theories and belief but in the end, Duru vindicates himself by aligning all his basic arguments to the Bible or an allusion in history or mythology. His voice is no doubt heard reverberating as the reader leafs through the 298 pages of this book.
The author tries to discredit available philosophical and scientific evidence and only recognizes The Bible as the ultimate pillar to understanding human existence. This may not go well with all readers but in the end, the author finds his voice and cemented his Biblical inferences as “creative truth of fiction” while scientific theories are “innovative facts”.
Sometimes the author’s postulations are seemingly baseless and are grounded in hypothetical nothingness but so is our belief in things we cannot see. For instance, even when he doesn’t believe in the Big Bang Theory, he, however, believes that if it was to be true then “God is the origin of the creative force that initiated the bang.”
His writing style is nonetheless applaudable, so much for a spiritual book. He painstakingly uses grand languages and graphic descriptions to drive his point home. This skill of graphic description, however, causes a slight mar, tossing the reader between the book and outside it to other books— Holy Bible, myths, theories and philosophical premises which may distract the reader.
Even though spirituality and religion seem the backbone of The True Mastership of your Being, I see nonetheless Duru’s book as a collection of personal essays on morality, spirituality, virtue, sex, homosexuality, love, sin, pop culture, liberty, and life.
Each of these subplots, and even more, appear here and there in the book and carries with them well-researched arguments premised on religion and faith.
I like his new perspective on queerness which he approaches through a religious and biblical backdrop. To the author, contrary to available researches on queerness, it is neither a biological phenomenon nor a congenital condition. He believes gay men can’t totally overrule how their bodies are formed just for their feelings which he sees as instinctive. He argues that “you can’t just teach people to side with minds when there is a chance they can be realigned with their bodies.”
For him, only the gospel has the power to save man’s “spirit, mind, and body.”
He deconstructs gender and sexuality in interesting ways. He discusses the myths and fiction hovering around sex and shows that premarital sex has the ability to thwart dreams and potentials and can lead to a man’s downfall.
This is a comprehensive book on life and living, I’ll call it the encyclopedia of virtue and morality for the author has discussed issues that many writers shy from— issues like how to take care of your body, how to master your tongue, how to use positive words to attract grace and blessings and virtually everything that will make a person more productive, happier and at peace with his soul and his creator.
The author’s employment of the first person narration makes the book sound more of a memoir than a motivational book. The reader gets to sit and hear the reader talking to him in his head, he is transposed into the world of the writer and the danger of this subtle artistry is, in the end, the reader can barely know what he thinks on an issue but for the writer’s ideas and beliefs.
This book is on a mission to save the sinner drowning in sin, to give hope to dreamers about to give up and to direct our paths walking through life and towards to God.
Virtually everything, and even if not everything then a snippet, of different issues and beliefs are analyzed in this book.
Thus, the reader should prepare to follow the author on a journey to discovering the origin of existence, of life and even God. The author dares to take us back to the creation story in Genesis and uses allusions to mythology, The Bible and even classical history and scientific theories to drive his Judeo-Christian point home.
The True Mastership of your Being is educative and informative. It will help readers to find the “purpose” in their life like David in the Bible found his, Moses, Joseph, and the Virgin Mary. This book is a guide to unlocking the boundless potentials lying dormant in man.
Unlike the everyday motivational books, this one teaches and provides soul-searching instances and avenues in which the reader will come to terms with his abandoned dreams and unattained potentials. The author advises readers to “step into the ring” and take charge of their lives by avoiding sin and its damnation.
Even though you may not wholesomely agree with the author’s brand of spirituality, which seems vigorous and extreme, you’ll, however, agree that this book leaves a lot of soulful questions in your heart for you to ponder on. Especially the author’s famously dubbed Q6 questions which queries man on the why and how of his existence. Every reader deserves to partake in the author’s pool of knowledge. There are lots to learn from the author and he has offered them in the chapters of this book.
The True Mastership of your Being can be a reference to students of religion and the religious, for philosophical students and even philosophers because it has raised a lot of questions that will keep the seminar tables busy with vivacious criticisms.
It is recommended.
