Hello and welcome to another episode of One Heart, One Mind.

I'm your host Thomas McConkey.

Thanks so much for listening today.

In this episode, I want to talk about the many layers of self.

In the end, contemplative prayer is a spiritual discipline that can help us know our self,

even, at greater and greater depths.

And as we get to know ourselves in the depths, what we find the tradition of contemplation

teaches us is that our true self is one with God's true self in eternity.

There's a quote from St. Augustine, one of the great church fathers and most influential thinkers, philosophers, theologians, and all of the Christian tradition.

I want to just start out with his words, contemplate them a little bit,

let them tumble around, explore a little

bit in a practical way, and then we'll bring it back to some prayer practice. This is St. Augustine

from Confessions. He writes, I do not understand all that I am. Thus the mind is too narrow to contain itself.

I do not understand all that I am. Thus the mind is too narrow to contain itself. But where is that

part of it which it does not contain?

Is it outside itself and not within?

How can it be that it does not grasp itself entirely?

This is Augustine's question to himself, to all of us.

So how is it that the mind is too narrow to contain itself? How is it that we

cannot actually know ourselves? Now, I am not a trained philosopher. I will quickly spin out on

myself if I try to step through this in too systematic and rigorous and logical away, I want to bring it back to

just some good old folk wisdom. Wisdom tradition, wisdom teachers across the ages have used the

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