Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The most important thing in the world for Thomas Merton is to find God, and for Christians, this means knowing God and yourself. Failing to know yourself deeply results in a spirituality that is not well grounded in experience. #2 The pastor in the story above was a perfect example of how the gap between a person's inner reality and their external appearance can be extremely large. The pastor had crafted a public self that was completely different from his true experience, and this led to an enormous chasm between the two. #3 Self-knowledge that is pursued apart from knowing our identity in relation to God can lead to self-inflation. It can also lead to self-preoccupation, as we spend more time studying ourselves than studying God. #4 The false self is a part of all of us, to one degree or another. It is our attempt to project a pretend, idealized self to the world. The truth is that we are all just pretending, and we all have a false self.