Confessions of St. Augustine - Essay Example

To know God, one needs to substantiate the inner awareness about God. The humans are the hearers of the Word of God; God communicates to us. The Word of God does not hard and fast refer to the divine, holy, and religious books; but for this it needs to establish a relationship between human beings and God. This relationship is nothing but that what we call "prayer." Praying to God exhibits our intention to hear and respond to God who is well coexisted within the souls of all of us. The prayer asks for surrender to the faith associated with the path full of suffering toward God. St. Augustine says "For Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless till they rest in thee"with reference to these sufferingsor in other words the "spirituality" which is like an opportunity forinternal emotional growth.

The terms "heart" in a broader sense refers to the soul or spirit with adding to its limited meaning of affections andsensations. This heart remains filled with restlessness in terms of desire for, with real consciousness and an urge toward, the unconditional, ultimate, and unrestrictedTruth. The life of Augustine, until he found the internal relationship with God, remained full of miseries, sins, lusts, wicked thoughts, etc. These words of Augustineindicate that the true essence oflife lies at"conversion" of human with God, the Creator.

The image of God is coexisted withinallhumans ever since the onset;but due toour sins that image gets lost causing a barrier between us and God. Since there isthis barrier, in between, wecontinue to be restless and unhappy; when the reunion is establishedthrough the conversion we feel the ecstasy. The early life of Augustine was highly influenced by negative episodes that filled hislife with sinfulness. He viewed the human nature as wicked and proneto doingnothing good. If anything good comes, it comes from and through the power of God; Augustine praises the power of God.

This is the reasonwhy he was led to the knowledge ofhuman nature and finally to achieve true happiness when he found God.The carving for something beyond is a natural tendency in all of us. We just cannot feel the peace of mind through the experiences of our life for which we pose questions to meaning. There always remains a thirst for satisfying light and some inner security with regard to the mysterious world around. This process starts from the birth till the moment we die. If we start surrendering ourselves to the mystery of life, at least then onward, we happen to be on the way of searching for something indefinable; and this search find us to arrive at the greater realities that surround us.

The definition of spirituality could be given as to be the response to man's awareness of God whenhuman sees God as present and responds to Him. The method of this may vary among different religions. To converse the path of life made of "materialistic" success into the path of "spiritualistic" gains, we needthe awareness ofGod. Augustine was, maybe, the greatest man in this regard who found his triumph tosolve the queries and mysteries of life with mastery over the awareness of God.This is the result why his "confession" standsunique with no comparison in spite of