I am convinced that the philosophy of Augustine can still be a source of inspiration. That concerns especially his emphasis on the interiority as a source of spirituality. It will be a counterbalance against the general tendency to go far from home, to search the center of your life outside yourself. Augustine’s view of the Inner Teacher points already at a property in man that can serve as a compass to find direction and purpose in life. Augustine assumes that in the consciousness of every man can by nature be experienced a track of a divine presence, which is at the origin of his search for truth and his ever-further reaching desire for happiness.
This image of the Inner Teacher as a compass and guide deserves further explanation. It is clear that this consciousness is not ready given, but a creative power that has to be developed in the experiences of life in order to bring man to what he in essence is. When we apply this to the life of Augustine himself, it appears from his description in the Confessions how relatively late he has found his way. And even after he has turned himself to the service of God, it is clear that he considered his mental development not as complete.
From his report in the Confessions we have to conclude that his path to God was a long and difficult journey. And although it was a personal one, he regarded it too as exemplary for the way that every man should go.
The journey to the haven of the happy life
Many years before he wrote his Confessions, Augustine describes already his development as a long, arduous journey. In the prologue to the dialogue About the happy life (De beata vita) he compares his quest for happiness with a tempestuous voyage that brings him at last into the haven of rest in God, which he enjoys in the country house Cassiciacum. Again, he puts the journey in a more universal context. In the picture he paints all people find themselves in this world as on a rough sea, on which they are initially floating aimlessly. Everyone looks in his manner for a direction. What could serve them as a guide is the philosophy, which can show the direction to the haven of the happy life
He distinguishes three types of travelers.
The first group uses their mind immediately and keeps the mainland from the beginning in mind. Therefore they risk themselves not far at sea, so that they can reach the safe harbor without traveling a lot.
The second group however does not care for their goal and has little interest in the philosophy, which could give them direction. They let themselves drift along by favorable winds and the pleasures of the moment. And gradually they forget their homeland. What only could save them is a storm that drives them back to the safe harbor.
Augustine himself counts himself among a middle group. This consists of people who are guided by philosophy and remain mindful of the homeland. But they are held up by all kinds of false lights and temptations. Rather late, after many wanderings, usually by storms in their lives, they are driven to the haven they had in mind
Augustine grafts here his views on the existing images that you might call the classic archetypes of human life. There is life as a wandering and pursuit of happiness, life as a rough sea, full of uncertainties and risks, in which man sees himself unwillingly dropped. There is the homeland as a image of origin and destination and the safe haven as a symbol of the found happiness. There is finally the philosophy as a summary of human reflection about which direction you have to take in life. It must keep alive in human consciousness the memory of the homeland.
These images show that the life of man must be understood as a circular movement. The goal of his journey is to return home, to the haven from which one has departed.
The long or the short way?
The view that life is a circular movement evokes several questions. Should the first group of passengers, which mentions Augustine, be considered as ideal? Is the purpose of life to return home, as soon as possible? Counts for Augustine only the goal or also the journey itself?
It must be said that Augustine underlines in his description of the journey especially the negative points (the dangers, the false lights, the temptations), but that does not mean that the journey itself has no meaning for him. It is thanks to his many experiences that he has come to his goal. There is the curious emphasis on the storms in life who have pushed him in the right direction. Therefore many experiences in life are also for him important to find one’s destination.
The long way Augustine has gone seems the most realistic of those three outlined options. Goal and direction can be known by philosophical reflection, but the journey of life should necessarily be a quest and a wandering, because the way and means must be found experimentally. Augustine puts the journey of life in the classical tradition. His journey is a kind of Odyssey, a difficult journey back home through numerous errors and temptations from which he could hardly get rid of. Therefore he praises himself happy in his dialogue, that he has not collapsed for the temptations of the Sirens, but reached in time the safe haven of the happy life.
The journey inward
At the end of the dialogue About the happy life Augustine concludes that one cannot be entirely happy in this life. As long as we are not fully satisfied and we still try to seek that complete fullness, the goal of the journey is not reached. Therefore the fatherland is more than this life. It is fully participating in God's life: possess God, that means in Augustine’s own words enjoy God.
Augustine’s spiritual aspiration beyond this temporary life, does not mean that his spirituality would be from another world. His dialogue About the happy life shows on the contrary that happiness in this life can and should be sought. He refers to his own situation, when he, free of many obstacles, finds in Cassiciacum the peace he was looking for. In this dialogue it is clear that you have not to wait at the end of the journey of life to enjoy God. He can be enjoyed here and now. But then you need an journey inwards.
Just before the period that he writes About the happy life, Augustine gets acquainted with some philosophical treatises of Plotinus. One is titled About happiness, another About beauty. In the last treatise Plotinus speaks about returning to the homeland, the land where we come from and where the father is. Unlike Augustine, who uses the image of the ship to return to the homeland, Plotinus declines for the return all means of transport. The journey is not on foot, nor by horse and wagon, nor by ship, but: You have to close your eyes and have a different kind of seeing. You have to appeal to the ability which everyone possesses and is used by very few. (Enneads 1:6.8)
For who develops this ability the journey takes place not only horizontally in time, but also vertically in the deeper layers of consciousness. In principle, the homeland is present here and now, when you turn into your inner self and may experience God as the source of your own life and existence.
In the Seventh chapter of the Confessions Augustine gives report of that inner journey. How he, encouraged by reading scriptures of Plotinus, with God as a guide, turns in his inner self. With an inner eye he perceives in himself the ground of being in the form of an all-encompassing light. The light has such a blinding power, that he recognizes it as his God and enflamed for it with love. This spiritual form of seeing is not unrealistic. It looks through life itself, not to another world, but to the essence of existence itself.
When I first came to know you, you raised me up to make me see that what I saw was Being, and that I who saw was not yet Being. And you broke through the weakness of my sight by the strong radiance of your light, and I trembled with love and dread. (Confessions VII, x, 16)
Augustine, however, is aware that in his own life this ability to experience God as inner ground is weak and needs to be developed. This weakness means that he experiences himself far away from himself, while God is near:
I found myself far from you in a land of alienation.
The alienation is that the ego lives outside itself far removed from its own deepest being. The journey to the haven of happiness is the return of the ego from its alienation to itself, that is to the depths of consciousness common to all people, where God is present as a creative force.