Man lives from the truth and from being loved, from being loved by the Truth itself. Man also lives from a man who has decided for goodness and love. Of course, man also needs bread, food for the body, but above all he needs bread. It is only when he experiences it that he is able to release within himself those forces and possibilities with which he can meaningfully shape his existence, his economy, create and find the good for himself and for others, which he can only have by sharing them with others. These truths are argued through numerous examples of working with people, and as an example I will cite the experience of a person I know who outwardly had everything – status, career, family, children, and money. Returning from a trip during the Homeland War, he was “struck” by a feeling of envy that came over him while observing a refugee family, located in a garage, gathered around a burning fire. They lost all they property, but they had each other. They huddled tightly together because of the cold, and they laughed. They were happy because, despite the losses, they remained in a relationship of love for each other, and he remained with deep sadness and longing for him and his family to be “together”.
It is obvious that happiness includes love. Love is the child of freedom (says an old French song), and the free man is not the one who owns nothing, but the one who is free from everything he has. (cf. T. Ivančić)
As long as we live only on the level of reason, everything entraps us and that is why more and more diseases are registered on both the somatic and psychological levels of man. Neither idealism nor materialism affect reality. You cannot separate the living body from the soul, nor the material living brain from the spiritual soul. Therefore, it is necessary to know the difference between rational and intellectual knowledge, and then harmonize them, because it is about the same reality, only from different starting points of knowledge. Let us remember that intellect is man’s capability to read reality from the inside (intus legere), just as man’s reason (ratio) reads reality from the outside. Rational knowledge through analysis, differentiation, experiments, measurement. The intellect, on the contrary, examines the wholeness of everything, realizes spiritual reality, recognizes the foundations of existence, the meaning of everything and the vision of the future. Intellect or mind knows who man is, and reason analyzes what man would be. The intellect is focused on the truth.
Superficiality, formalism, conformism, as well as exclusive extremes, stop many people from coming to true knowledge, to the ability to read reality from the inside, and because of thins, today many will declare a life based on transcendentals, the laws of the spirit, as “utopian”, and a man who is on the side of goodness is often dismissed as naïve, weak and arrogant, while arrogant, smug behaviour is declared powerful.
Modern man would like “not to be a being in the Being”, but violently and aggressively wants to take life, truth and justice into his own hands, with arrogance and envy to continue life “in the madness” of the false emancipation that stands at the beginning of the history of humanity – to separate himself from the Being. Today, many proclaim this situation with the saying “be realistic”, which would mean that one should firmly establish power on earth, ensure good social contacts, because everything depends on this. It becomes clear to us that being a being, a real human being who is a person, does not mean not standing firmly on the ground or dependance, but the fundamental one – remaining freely in relationship of love that carries human existence, gives it meaning and greatness. And yet, man’s life on Earth fluctuates. It happens that man is left “empty-handed” or comes to a “wall”, and these are precisely the privileged moments in which he has the opportunity to discover his anthropological life as central, and to recognize the transcendentals as the foundations of his existence and happiness.
“How to be more and more human in the right way?”, was an interesting question from a thirty-year-old person who experienced abandonment by her spouse. She was under medical supervision, taking prescribed medication, but the suffering and pain took away all her strength and vitality. Phenomena of the impairment of the spiritual soul were visible in her; from searching for an answer to the eternal “why”, through anger and inability to change anything to the meaninglessness of living and suicidal thoughts, all accompanied by constant gesticulation with hands towards herself in the area of the heart. In the further presentation of this example, I would deal with that key element that was necessary as an indicator of the authenticity of hagiotherapy and, ultimately, the bearer of the results of its effectiveness, based on my own experience of working on that case. It was like meeting a person whose heart has stopped beating and needs resuscitation, air, breath to stay alive. Work with the person took place in several meetings. During the meeting itself, I recognized the guidelines of the founder of hagiotherapy about the importance of the attitude of “being for” a person in suffering, to deeply respect them until we “hear” them from the inside, and how to make that attitude a genuine part of ourselves, not just a formality. The transition from formalism to a genuine part of oneself requires a personal development path and often decides on further encounters. Armed with the knowledge that evil destroyed the laws of the organism of the spiritual soul and its forces, I briefly explained to the person where so much suffering and pain came from in her, and thus answered her question “Why?”.
Suffering and pain arise when wrong and evil actions truncate, destroy and wound the goodness of the spiritual soul, so the forces of the spiritual soul create aggressiveness, depression, guilt, and suicidal thoughts. Evil entered where there was good. Respecting her uniqueness, appreciating her originality and the dynamism of the structure of the spiritual organism, I took the position of the unity of two persons in trust and sympathy. In this way, the person is mediated the “spiritual oxygen” that is necessary for him to recognize goodness and love in himself. “Man is a being who needs the help of others in order to become what he is.” (cf. Newman). This fundamental anthropological structure tells us that something similar to the original memory of the good and true has already been implanted in us, and that is why someone “from outside”, and that can only be someone who himself has accepted the path of trust in the good, can mediate motives for faith and trust that it will be well.
The hagioassistant is a mediator of faith in good, not its verbalization and teaching. That morning, before the meeting, I myself was making my was on the path of faith in good through forgiveness, and that is why the truth was in me, and that is the substance that opened that person to goodness and love. Goodness and love are transparent, and that is why man is in that truth, when man is a reflection of that truth (because no one is good!), it awakens others to life and turns them to good. Then goodness is “attractive” because it comes from the basis of man’s existence, it is not formal, but spontaneous, immediate and effective.
Perhaps today it is so difficult for us to cope with the essence of humanity precisely because we are no longer capable of simplicity – goodness and love need witnesses! Ultimately, everything depends on the heart – because everything is bound, and unbound in the depths of the heart!
Silva Vrdoljak, theologian, mentor in hagiotherapy who has been working as a hagioassistant for 20 years.
