SELF-SEEKING TOWARDS SELF-KNOWLEDGE IN THE CONFESSIONS’ BOOK WRITTEN BY SAINT AUGUSTINE

This study aims to investigate Self-Seeking towards Self-Knowledge which plays an essential role for the life moment of the famous and distinguished Christian mystic namely Saint Augustine. He seeks and asks about himself as a human being, both horizontally [his relationship with another man], and vertically [his relationship with God the Creator]. He also reveals the answers toward his questions and searching. It can be explored in his masterpiece entitled ‘The Confession’. This study also relies on this book, as the primary reference, to explore and analyze Self-Seeking and Self-Knowledge in Western Mysticism. Therefore, the present study addresses research questions as follow: What is the definition of true Self-Seeking in general? What kind of Self-Knowledge offered by Saint Augustine inside the circumstance of the Western Mysticism Treasury? What is the significance of the Self-Seeking and the Self-Knowledge which is relevant with the current context?      

in the exploration of his intellectual memoirs in 'The Confession' book, the present study attempts to analyze the process of Self-Seeking towards Self-Knowledge proposed by St. Augustine.
It is because this theme is fundamental to discuss general mysticism discourse as well as specific Western mysticism. Isn't it right that most mystics ordinarily explore themselves comprehensively? They are great and influential figures who originally have a desire to acknowledge themselves. They want to know their God; would like to explore and deepen their faith to their Creator. They also want to understand their position with the other man, their existence with the True Reality in mortal life. They want to really live up to their existence as servants For this reason, there are a number of fundamental questions that I propose in this paper: What is the true Self-Seeking and Self-Knowledge in general? Who was Saint Augustine? What kind of Self-Knowledge is offered St. Augustine in the treasures of Western mysticism as he mentioned in the Confessions? What is the significance of the Self-Knowledge to the current context?
To answer the questions above, this paper will discuss four important points.
Augustine and the number of views or suggestions for the readers in the present era. "I kept company with these Subverters and felt a kind of shameless shame for not being like them. I went about with them and there were times when I enjoyed their friendship, though I always hated their actions-that is to say, their "subvertings", which were a kind of wanton persecution of the modesty of ordinary unknown people, a persecution carried out for no reason at all except that by jeering and mocking they were able to give themselves a malicious amusement." 5 Saint Augustine, who is also known as Augustine of Hippo9, died at the age of 76, on August 28, 430, when the Vandalis besieged his city 10 . In the tradition of Western mysticism, he was in the category of early Christian mystics who received a Doctor of Church 11 along with Saint Gregory the Great, Saint Ambrose, and Saint Jerome 12 .

Self-Seeking Towards Self Knowledge
Self-Seeking is a soul-searching journey that involves a person with himself, the world of internal life, and his Lord. He seeks to find the essence of himself: Who am I? Why am I in this world? For what I was created? What is the true happiness?
Because these questions are fundamental and existential, not strange, that the moment of Self-Seeking in order to achieve Self-Knowledge becomes very important.
It is philosophical, reflective and spiritual matter. And natural that this behavior is Basically, what the mystics experienced is the basic character of human being that before themselves also have been done by the prophets, such as Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. Or also by the Greek philosophers such as Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle.
In this case, every human being should also investigate the existence of himself: Who am I? Why was I born? Who is my God? And so on 16  Unfortunately, with the changing periods and history, the character of Self-Seeking to determine the nature of Self-Knowledge slowly disappearing, drowning in information and technology trends that often alienates man from himself.

Self-Seeking and Self-Knowledge in The Confessions of Augustine
As I mentioned above, discussing this theme in the tradition of Western mysticism, one figure must be referred is Saint Augustine. Moreover, when we read the pages of his monumental work titled: The Confessions 18 . In the book, it is so tasty the aura of Self-Seeking of Saint Augustine in order to know the existence of himself, to understand his heart and his faith to the Lord. Since the beginning of the page, he already told us about it. Let us see his following words: "Our hearts are restless until they can find peace in You. Grant me, O Lord, to know and understand which should come first, prayer or praise; or, indeed, whether knowledge should precede prayer. For how can one pray to you unless one knows you?" 19 Typically, this step proceeds and grows according to the intellectual and spiritual experiences of each mystic. There is who experienced in his early age such as Ibn 'Arabi, or vice versa. But, certainly, it depends on their will and anxiety in their experiences. There is a dialectic that grow slowly in their soul. There is a dialectic of meaning and event that accompany their seeking.
And Saint Augustine experienced it since he decided to return to the Christian faith. As we know, he is from birth to be baptized in the Christian faith, but was not satisfied and choose Manichaeism, and then out again from Manichaeism and choose Christian teachings with deeper perspectives.
For Augustine, the philosophy of dualism where God has two powers: God of light and God of darkness as predicted the Manichean unable to answer his restlessness, unable to reveal his philosophical questions, especially the problem corporeality of God and the problem of evil 20 . He uttered this problem in The "I would certainly say and I firmly believe that you-our Lord, the true God, who made not only our souls and bodies, and not only our souls and bodies but all men and all things-were undefilable and unalterbale and in no way to be changed, and yet I still could not understand clearly and distinctly what was the cause of evil. Whatever it might be, however, I did realize that my inquiry must not be carried out along lines which would lead me to believe that the immutable God was mutable; if I did that, I shoud become myself the very evil which I was looking for. And so I pursued the inquiry without anxiety, being quite certain that what the Manichees said was not true. I had turned against them with my whole heart, because I saw that in their inquiries into the origin of evil they were full of evil themselves; for they preferred to believe that your substance could suffer evil rather than that their substance could do evil." 21 His great attention to the aspect of evil is quite reasonable. The background of his life as a teenager has been in contact with the "dark" behavior--he thought-is not right and wrong.
He was so far-along with his friends-experienced a hedonistic life with superficial physical desires beginning to realize his faults. And he did not find any religious and philosophical solutions for his problems and anxiety in Manichaeism.
No wonder, when described his misleading adolescence, he was very sorry and prayed with humility: "What shall I render unto the Lord because, while my memory recalls these things, my soul is not terrified at them? I will love Thee, O Lord, and thank Thee and confess unto Thy name, because you have forgiven me these great sins and these evil doings of mine. To your grace I owe it, and to your mercy, that you have melted away my sins like ice. And to your grace too I owe the not doing of whatever evil I have not done. "At Milan, I came to Bishop Ambrose, who had a worldwide reputation….a man whose eloquence in those days gave abundantly Thy people the fatness of Thy wheat, the gladness of Thy oil and the sober intoxication of Thy wine. Though I did not realize it…I might be led to you by him….I began to love him Augustine conceived of knowledge in this way, it is hardly surprising that he distrusted systematic reason. The clarity and coherence of formal logic was deceptive, whereas the complexity of personal experience represented true reality." 31 Do not you realized that mystics has experienced it, whether in Western mysticism tradition or Eastern [Islam]?

The Significance of Self Seeking for Self-Knowledge
In New Testament [Acts 17:24-29], St. Paul, one of the Apostles who taught the gospel of Christ, the figure who inspired the Christianity of Augustine in Confessions, mentioned the importance of Self-Seeking: "The God, who made the world and all things in it...made from one blood every nation of men...that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him, we live and move and have our being, as some of your own poets have said, "For we also are his offspring.." 32 Paul messages delivered that Self-Seeking to know God and Self-Knowledge is something highly recommended. Indeed, as far as my observation, Augustine himself based his Self-Seeking and Self-Knowledge is not out of Scripture. Moreover, he put the words of Scripture as a weapon to justify his philosophical searching. Well, not weird, if Brian Stock wrote: "What distinguishes him from purely philosophical thinkers on this issue is the link that he perceives between self-knowledge and an appreciation of God's word, in which the reading of Scripture plays a previleged role." 33 Indeed, in far away days, Jesus asserted in his words about his longing to be found and known by his followers. Therefore, it is natural if Augustine referred him as the most important foundation, namely His words and faith in Him. Let see what Jesus said: "I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in the darkness. If anyone listens to my sayings, and doesn't believe, i don't judge him. For I come not to judge the world, but to save the world. .." [John, 12: 46-47]. 34 "I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life " [John, 8: 12] 35 That is why, Augustine--as a man was sinful and evil, who want to embrace the true happiness and peace along with his Lover-often mentioned about searching of who are at the aesthetic stage, namely a stage where the orientation is fully geared to delight of his life, in order to satisfy his sexual instincts, hedonistic and based on his mood. People who live in this stage is without soul, having no root and content in the soul 41 . They did not enter an ethical stage, namely start accepting the moral wisdoms and choose to tie their soul in them 42 . Moreover, they forgot a religious stage, namely the stage not only in the formal worship, but also jump and really melt into Divine reality. If an ethical stage still use rational considerations to execute, a religious stage no need reason and any rational and scientific considerations to undergo. It takes only a subjective belief based on faith 43 . At his level, a faithful man will be called an authenthic human. And the effort of Augustine as described in the Confession, in my opinion, is to invite a religious person to be an authenthic human as Kierkegard explained above.
Therefore, although Saint Augustine and his foremost work, The Conffesions, lived centuries ago, but his important messages about Self-Seeking toward Self-Knowledge is still relevance, significance and meaningful.

C. CONCLUSION
The discussion of Self-Seeking in order to achieve Self-Knowledge is not a strange In the present context, this theme will remain relevant and very important.
Moreover, many people are uprooted and alienated themselves, who lost their authentic existence due to drift in the flow of information and technology that is shallow and superficial.