Brothers and sisters ... further details

     If there is any consolation or excuse, that would be not to write to anyone, not even to my brother Philip. I know that it is not nice but I can not help it. But as you can see I succeeded in overcoming one of the bad sides of my personality. I started writing. "This is a small step for the mankind but it is the great step for me" ???

     Here I will try to describe things that happened to me with much more details than on the introductory page of the Declaration of this web presentation. This page is for those people who are really interested in causes for my transfiguration.

     Till the summer of 1999, my life was pretty much the same as any other life in any possible way. In short, it was very sinful. My disease, which I have been struggling with for 11 years now, and everything else is , I am sure, the consequence of my pre-parental, parental and finally my own sins. A sinful man can not realize the first two levels, at least not by himself. The third level can be realized by every Christian who has a true wish to repent, to make oneself a better person and start following the only right way, the way of purifying and salvation of his soul. On the way, a man consciously or unconsciously helps the other people with the same wish.

     The very fact, of being bombed by the people recently known as our "allies" at the beginning of the third millennium and that the Serbs must always pay for everything, for what we have done and for what we haven't, hurt badly.

     There were certain chronological events that made me start asking myself certain questions, which I or anyone else could not answer. I realized that my life, as it was, did not have any good perspective. I was looking for the solution desperately. The possible answers imposed on me but they seemed too ordinary for such serious and crucial moments in my life. Some of them were moving to some other country or moving to a smaller town in Serbia, changing jobs etc. Now I can reveal, to myself and the others, the "preposition" given to me by the devil and that is to do even the worst. As you can see I did not listen to him. Thank God for that !!! Not only that I could not see the causes of my life being destroyed but I was also unable to see that I was physically suffering as well. The lost of life energy was so alarming that I could function only two or three hours a day. I could not even sit and wait for Mirjana to prepare lunch. Instead, I had to have a rest at least for 30 or 45 minutes in order to have lunch. Then I had a problem with my ' voice'- if that was voice at all- it looked more like a whisper. I was in such a condition for a couple of months and it was even getting worse. Since I had further problems with my MS I asked for the doctors help. Soon I realized that they could not help me at all, or what they could do was not good enough. It was hard to find doctors, or at least I could not find them, who made diagnoses and treated the patients by finding the real cause of the disease.

     I believe, as the Holy Fathers say, that the sin is the cause of every disease. I believe, and I am almost certain, that most doctors are interested only in removing or in soothing the pain of the acute- chronic condition forgetting the cause.

     I visited two neurologists. They did the usual check-ups and did not even consider talking to me. They told me that neurologically I was fine. Realizing that they see me just as the people from the control tower see a plane (as a lot of dots and dashes) I left them.

     This way of living did not promise anything. But there was light at the end of every tunnel. Though vaguely, I could see the solution.

     There were two questions asked. I need something or somebody? I did not know the answers yet. Very soon I realized that I needed someone. Who? There were three possibilities. I knew the two of them. First, that person should not be a clever, educated or experienced one, but someone similar to that. That should be a person who could offer me something very precious but not in a material way. Even then I knew that the material wealth could not help me. That could only make the things worse. Second, I did not know anyone who could have been that person at least for the time being, even though I knew some people who had finished two faculties or they were M.A. or PhD. None of them could offer me what I needed. The answer, the only right one, came later.

     There was something else about me that could have been interesting. During the bombing I was sitting a lot in cafes. That was the only thing to do because of the certain circumstances. I started looking at things and people with different eyes. While sitting among, mostly, the young people, listening to them, looking at them and talking to them I felt very uncomfortable, I was sad and disappointed and almost a little scared. What I saw then reminded me of the scenes from a science- fiction film from the 60s, the scenes that appeared in my mind at those moments.

     The film was about a man who was walking in the street when he saw a group of people attacking a man. The man was killed. The killers ran away. The man who was walking in the street took the sunglasses from the victim and put them on. Through the glasses the man saw the killers who were not people at all but the demons, the hell servants. The man tried to fight them but there were too many of them. There were people who wanted to help him but they were not numerous enough. The man did not give up. It was a fight between good and evil. All the institutions - the police, schools, judiciary - became demonic when the man looked at them through those glasses. For the others, who did not have those glasses, they looked like completely normal people. The end of the film was not 'a happy end' of course. You should read a book "St. Jovan Bogoslov's Revelation" and see how this book interprets the Holy fathers, if you want to understand correctly the message of the film.

     Looking at the people around me I had the same impression. Girls and boys are mostly dressed in black. Girls were half- naked, nine of ten of them dyed their hair blond. There were too many girls with hair- pieces, wearing lenses, with silicone breasts and lips!!! They had diamonds in their noses, teeth or navels. Boys, and the older ones, with their heads shaved (the only people who used to have shaved heads were the prisoners) believed that they looked better and more attractive that way. Their real wish was to 'look' cruel and powerful. They had a lot of gold around their neck, drove expensive cars (which they got illegally) and had a big cross with a bead hanging under a mirror. That should have made other people think that they were the Orthodox and the real ones as well. They all had self- phones but their bags and pockets were empty.

     "A man should exist according to God's will… If he doesn't follow the God he begins to feel some emptiness inside of himself. He feels that something is wrong with him. He tries to fulfill the emptiness with different things but still never finds true happiness. By suffocating a man creates an imaginary, superficial, small and limited world in which he makes himself nothing but a prisoner. In this world he is never left alone, he is never with himself. What some people try with drugs, he tries with a noise, tension, television or radio (using an excuse 'I need to rest my mind') and with all kinds of information in order to forget, not to think or worry, not to remind himself that he is on the wrong way and that he is getting further from his goal…And what is the final goal? That is the union between man and God but not a superficial or sentimental union but the true one." (Archimandrite Georgie Kapsanis).

     "When there is no Christ in Your heart then money or property or people enter it."

     "Because of the general spoil people can not comprehend that the spiritual love exist." (Elder Amfilohie Makris)

     I know where that leads and that is why it makes me feel uneasiness.

     Now comes the plot. In that critical period a woman appeared. She was the symbol of the beginning of my transfiguration. Her name was Dusanka. She liked to be called 'teacher'. She used to be an English teacher in an elementary school and now she was retied. She was Serbian, an Orthodox. I believed she had been baptized. While still working she found out that she was suffering from a malign tumor. The first operation made her feel better but only for some time. The disease attacked again now even more severe. At the last moment, when no one could help her, appeared a man. He was a Muslim from Bosnia who wanted to treat her by acupuncture. The treatment lasted for two years with more or less continual progress. At the end she was cured!!! At the same time she accepted the Far East philosophy. 'The professor', who was responsible for the result of this treatment, spent four years in China and four years on Tibet. He represented himself and almost insisted on being called as the professor of Chinese and Tibetan traditional medicine and fitness. Beside that he was master of the ninth day of kung fu. That is all about him for the time being because I will mention him later again.

     After a few years of assisting him and learning from him, Dusanka 'left' the professor and started treating people by herself. She did not get a diploma from him because she left him too soon, but that was not matter! Now I will come back to the moment when I met Dusanka and the professor.

     I heard about professor Smaja from our mutual friend. Then I went to meet him and to start my therapy. In a rented flat there was his doctor's room completely in Chinese and Tibetan tradition. I heard a lot about him. There were a lot of people in the doctor's room asking for help. They talked about the improvement in their health so I accepted and started my medical treatment. My first contact with needles was pretty good. There was no pain at all. It was more like a mosquito bite. During the treatment you could hear a relaxing Chinese music. After a few days the noise, made by the girls who were assisting the professor, started annoying me. Their slamming the door and the pattering of their clogs were destroying the moments of peace and relaxation. Whole this atmosphere reminded me of a small news agency, except the music of course. After six days (I should have been coming here for 30 days) I left the professor and came back seven months later. Then I met Dusanka and her daughter who worked there as a receptionist. I had my therapy for twenty days and then I stopped again. One of the reasons for that was that I actually wanted to talk to the professor since I had heard incredible stories about him and about his 'powers'. I thought that it might have been the answer to my question 'Who?' that happened in the summer of 1997. Even then Dusanka told me about her own treating at home. She tried to 'steal me away' from the professor but without imposing, with gentleness and warmth. I found out later that the professor had known about that.

     Then came the historical and unforgettable year of 1999 and the damned March. We could hear about a possible bombing on television a couple of months before it actually began. We believed it was just a threat to make Milosevic's quasi - communistic, then quasi - socialistic, repressive, corrupted regime change its political course and stop making 'problems' to people from FRY, which was almost unimportant, and to the rulers from the shadow who operate legally through the United Nations or through Security Council.

     "The basic thing about modern technology is that it turns everything upside down. People used to use the science for better knowing and ruling over the nature but today the science does against the nature. The results of that might be positive but there is always a possibility of dangerous and endless affects on the very laws of nature. The questions is where could all that lead us." (Archimandrite Emilian Svetogorac)

     Most of them would do anything just not to be normal. What about the soul? The soul is the most important of all!

     "The worst enemy that the post- industrial culture of an informative technology made was a terrible occupation of a man. Because of the millions of pictures and different situations on television or in medias people lost the peace of their mind, their self-control, the power of prayers and thinking. They wandered in the world and became strangers to each other. In a word, they became deaf for the voices of their mind. If people, especially the children, watch television 40 hours a week, as the statistics shows, it is natural for them to be endangered by Scila and Haridba, by the devil and a dark sea depths. Most of the believers said that they could not pray, that they could not give up all the things that worried them in this world and made their soul anxious, things that destroyed their internal balance, their work, family peace and social life as well. The world of post- industrial picture transformed itself into the world of real worship. In the industrial epoch people became slaves of the things they themselves created. In the post- industrial society they became the slaves of pictures and information that fulfilled their lives." (Archimandrite Emilian Svetogorac)

     Unfortunately, the things that happened could be called 'believe it or not'. During the bombing and after it everything seemed like a nigthmare or a bad film to me. On one of those days we had a close encounter. I was sitting with my family and friends in one of the Belgrade parks when suddenly two Tomahawks flew only 100 meters above us. Only 60 seconds after we heard a strong bang. We were out of electricity and water for days but we tried to keep normal, pretending that nothing was happening around us. The bombing lasted three months. A man should not be allowed to destroy life, not his own nor any other as well. Only God could make a life and take it away from us. There is a saying "You could do anything you want but you can not do it as much as you want". It is sad, but most of the time we forget the one of the ten God's commands "Do not do the things that you do not want to be done to you".

     "Everything that is an Orthodox is God-man focused because it has God-man Christ as a center. Everything that is not an Orthodox - popery, protestantism, masonry, atheism - has one thing in common: the center is a man. For us, Christ is the center. That is why it is easy to become a mason or a heretic but it is difficult to become a true Orthodox. In order to become an Orthodox a man must accept Christ, not himself, as the center of everything.

     The beginning of the union with God is the awarenes that hte meaning of a life is not about us but about our Father, our Creator."

     Finally everything finished ??? I am coming back to my story about Dusanka now.

     In the summer she called me several times to come to her for a treatment. I accepted. My first visit to her lasted two hours. Of those two hours she was talking almost one hour and fifty seconds. I came to her very depressed but after the visit I felt much better. Most of the time she talked about Yin and Yang, using a lot of simple and logical examples. So my third acupuncture treatment started. I went to the seances every day ( they lasted 20-30 minutes ), laid on the sofa and listened to an unavoidable voice of a Tibetan monk continuously repeating a mantra "aoomm, aoomm". The rest of the time I was listening to Dusanka's monologue. She talked to me about Lamaism, Hindu Buddhism and Taoism. I was completely open-minded for everything that was spiritual and all that seemed to me all right. I felt evidently better only three days after. I felt a kind of a positive energy around me. I felt better physically and mentally, I read books on eastern philosophy. The first of them was a small book published in London by the society of madam Blavack 'Letters of a Tibetan's sages'. That book was an embryo of mine that helped me in my spiritual research and finding of possible answers. That lasted one year. I went through three phases of treatment with a varying success.

     During my summer holiday in Budva I became, for the first time in my life, as I can remember, truthfully interested in many different books that were sold there. Of course, I was mostly interested in books with spiritual contents. I tried for several times to find the book about eastern philosophy but unsuccessfully. I bought one from the third time. Was that a kind of a sign or not, I did not know, but I let my eyes and my feelings to decide upon that. Now I know for sure how that decision was made. It was the book "Glassy Eyes of India" published by "Svetigora". In this book you can find the testimonies of the lost sheep that were saved and which sought their comfort at the well-known gurus of India (Sai Baba, Oschoa). They felt on their skin and soul that 'hidden magic' that their teacher had offered them unselfishly. Now when I look on that I can tell to myself and to the others: "If you want a good ripe grapes, do not go to far, to someone else's vineyard. You have the same grapes in your own yard!"

     Late in the autumn I did not visit Dusanka that often. I felt tired by those continuous repeating. Then the most important thing happened. The initiation - that I was told about by Dusanka and her daughter Nena (she is an astronomer) - happened in November of 1999, somewhere around St. Arhangel Mihailo's Day.

     At that time I used to go to a friend of mine. We spent hours talking about spiritual topics and we were listening to some music as well. It was usualy a jazz or classical music. On that, I should say, judgement day he asked me what would I like to hear. I said jazz. By that time my interest in music evolved. I was familiar with all the music stiles and I changed myself biologically through them: Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jimmy Hendrix, hard rock, heavy metal, pop music, country music, soul and jazz. Since I was ten I had been followed by a special kind of music. Fashion changed and new music streams were accepted by hundreds of millions of listeners. When I would hear only the first sounds of man polyphonic voices of any Dalmatian group my heart would always be fulfilled with some kind of sadness and pleasure at the same time. I felt the harmony of those voices like something close to me. How was that possible? I had no special connections with that region or those songs.

     I am coming back to my friend again. While we were sitting in the room I saw an LP record in the corner of the room. I saw an Orthodox icon on it. It was the record with Serbian Orthodox spiritual music. I told him to play that record. He did so. It was the record of the singing for the holy service. We were talking to each other all the time but when we heard the polyphonic voices, without instruments following them, we both kept silent. I was totally relaxed by the music. I looked at my friend out of the corner of my eye. He did the same. Then came the most precious part. At the beginning of the third singing something magnificent happened inside of me. I felt an extremely strong energy coming from my stomach. I felt very excited by this, so far, non-experienced emotion. Then the energy came into my head and I felt my head like 'a large balloon'. The warmth, power and energy were the most beautiful thing that I had ever experienced. 'The energy' disappeared as it came. All that lasted about 15 seconds. I did not want to discuss the experience with anyone. Now I think I know why!!!

     After a few days I made another important decision. I was going to church on Sunday for the first service in my life. Before that I did not go to church very often. I could even say that I did not like priests very much then. I felt uncomfortable when passing by the church at night. My father was a baptized Christian but he was under the influence of communism so he forgot about God, tradition or customs of an Orthodox church. He joined partisans when he was sixteen. My grandmother was a great supporter of Lenin. Those were the hard days and I guessed he did not have a choice. Many people suffered in different ways. You could never hear about God or Christians from my father. On the other hand, my mother (she was from Montenegro) felt much more for the Orthodox, and for the faith in God. But she had to keep her feelings for herself. The faith in God was something that you could not have been proud of in those days. You could have been nothing but laughed at or insulted. It was considered 'not normal'.

     Then I made one more decision. I started with the Christmas fast. It lasted 41 days. That revealed another sacred secret - Communion. Until then the fast was something that I could not understand. How can we live without eating or drinking what we like? I had no special preparation for that. I had no one to advise me about that. Actually, I was ashamed to ask a priest about basic things and principles. I learned by myself, step by step.

     I did not visit Dusanka as I used to. Every time I went to see her I tried to tell her about my new experiences and the pleasures I had felt. I wanted to share it with her. Unfortunately, she died in April 2002. I guessed she had felt like 'losing me'. She tried to look happy but inside of her she felt some emptiness or lost because she was losing her 'best student'. She was showing that by calling St. Sava (the greatest Serbian saint) a mason. That made me realize that was the end of our friendship. So it was. After that I visited her a few times just out of courtesy and gratefulness for what she had done for me.

     Now I am coming back to the professor. At the end of the spring of 2000 my MS made a counter-attack. Having realized that Dusanka could not do anything else for me, concerning my medical condition, I went to her teacher. It was my third and the last visit to him. Then I told him: 'As You know, I stopped my two comings here in the middle. The reason for that was a crowd. I hate crowds. I would not take even something that was given for free if there had been a crowd. I would kindly say thank you and move on. There are only a few exceptions, of course. What I hate even more is when people try to commercialize their work.' After that we started my treatment. After two rounds I stopped my treatment because there were no evident improvement. This time it was for good. I had no contact with the professor any more. I heard a lot of stories about him. Now I see all those stories about him in a completely different light. A monk told me, when I described him the professor, that he had herd about him and that the professor had practiced black magic on the highest (the ninth) level (!!!).

     So I finished with those foreign studies and activities for good!!!

     Having read the book I bought in Budva I found out many things.

     How did I start Children Care Charity Organization?

     I will mention only those details that I can remember best. Everything that I m going to say is closely related with Christ gospels. As I said before, my parents were baptized but my brother (born in 1953) and I (born in 1958) were not. I plan to talk about my disease (I was eight times in hospital for 20 days), about my sinful life, that is the life before I was baptized, some other time.

     As usual, the turnover in my life began with something good. That was the birth of my son Luka in June 1992. My wife and I decided to baptize our son on his first birthday. But I was not baptized. I was ashamed - I was 35 and I was not baptized. On 6th June 1993 my son and I were baptized. We did not know then that the very baptizing meant the absolution of any sin that we might have made before. The baptizing was our ticket for the eternal life then my interest for the Orthodox religion ended. Not realizing the meaning of the baptizing I lived my life in a wrong way.

     I spent years unsatisfied with many aspects of my life. I tried desperately to find solutions. Then appeared the germ of an idea for the charity work. In the conversations with my friends and acquaintances we often talked about money, material goods, sport, politics and many other useless topics. Until then I was very active in those conversations bit now I started feeling sickness and emptiness. We would talk about great sums of money, what would we do with that money, what would we buy, where would we go etc. I would say this: ' I guess I won't earn that money since I have not done that so far. If by any chance I win a prize money I would leave 30 % for me (now it would be 10%) and the rest of it I would give for charity.' I was laughed at because of my words. I tried to justify my attitude and to explain to them that the point of man's happiness (the word I do not like using very much) has nothing to do with the material goods. If there were some material goods, anyway, they would be welcome only if used rightly.

     The Holy Fathers say: "God created good. Evil became by the misuse of good."

     I made no further comments. I stopped discussing with anyone who had different opinion on this matter. My desire became stronger though I was afraid of doing that by my own. I found the answer in a book. I was happy but at the same time I felt like crying. I went to St. Archangel Mihailo's Church (that is my family St.'s Day) in order to thank God, Jesus Christ.

     When we started the Organization Mira, Luka and I searched our clothes, shoes, toys and some books that we found in our flat and gave them to the charity. Two years after we have realized twenty actions and some of them are to happen. I wish to find some nice place for my office from where I could realize all my ideas concerning this Organization. I hope sincerely this will happen.

     Now again I am coming back to the question: "Who?".

In 1999 I was thinking about that when I saw a picture in my head. The picture was familiar to me, though I had seen it a long time ago. It was a picture from a fairy tale: there was a mountain and a gray-haired old man with a beard sitting on a rock. He was giving answers to everyone. But that was just a fairy tale or a film. Where could you find the sage like that in the real life? I was not sure he had really existed. But he did! Some of them were so close to me. Those sages were the Orthodox monks who proved by their lives all the blessing of holy secret life. They abandoned everything material and dedicated their life to God. They used to be the Holy Fathers who made miracles by their faith and the way of life on the Earth. They continued making miracles even after their death. Many people made themselves sure about that, not only the Orthodox Christians but the people of the other religions as well. The number of them lessens every day but it is good as long as they exist.

     Among the nowadays saints I can mention two Russians, Johns, who I am very fond of and I respect them very much: St. Jovan Kronstatski and St. Jovan Sangajski (San Francisco).

About St. John Kronstatski

     He was a true friend and a spiritual father to the whole Russian people. So the hundreds of thousands of people from different classes came to Kronstat. They all wanted his prayers because God had listened to them. Now when someone else's worries do not affect us, when there are people starving, when there are a lot physically destroyed people, Father John comes and helps them.

About St. John Sangaiski

     He is one of the last Holy men in the 20th century. For some time he lived and studied in Yugoslavia (Bitolj). He was a Russian. He was born in 1896 and died in 1996. He helped many people during his life on the Earth and he continued the same after his death. He helped the believers when no one else could do that. The believers used to write their names on a piece of paper and put them on his grave. When he died his body laid in an open coffin for six days without spreading any unpleasant smell, his hand was not stiff... "So his life ended, the forty years of it...He was a healer, a real ascetit, a good shepard, a feeder, an Apostole in a mission and the saint of the great importance" (taken from the book "St. John Shangay")

     My spiritual life is double. I try very herd to live in Chrisr according to the canons of the Orthodox church. I am pleased with myself but I feel that I can do better. I need peace for that. I have much more of it now than I used to have but life is unpredictable. If I look around I can see that I moved quite a lot, but when I look in front of me I can not see the end. I pray and hope for visiting mountain St. Atos and our monastery - Hilandar.

     God bless You.