Our communication and understanding of each other, especially when it comes to God and spiritual life, can be described by the phrase: ‘The deaf heard how the mute narrated what the blind saw how the lame ran swiftly…’. To make this picture of our communication a bit more cheerful from being sadly dismal, and to demolish the wall (of misunderstanding) between us, we need to learn to communicate properly. We will try to briefly mention: where to start to communicate correctly, under what conditions we can hear each other, understand each other, etc.
Our communication is similar to someone coming to a dinner with their own food. What was offered by the host, the guest poured out, and into the dishes (plates, bowls, cups) in which the host served the food, poured what he brought with himself. That is, he eats not what the host served, but what he brought himself and even praises the host for the delicious dinner and fine wine!? Since you do not wash these dishes with ‘Gala’ or ‘Fairy’ (detergents – V.A.) (but only pour everything out from them!), you consume some molecules, particles from the offered meal. And the rest: 99.9…9% – is what you brought. We point this out to the legalists who count percentages and are outraged – how we do not hear each other at all?! We hear, but so little that we can boldly (mathematically) disregard the infinitely small, which swiftly (over time, which moves towards the end of history) approaches zero and say – we do not hear at all! But there are such egoists-isolators who, at the verbal feast (or simply at the feast of communication in any form), come with detergent, and until they wash the dishes (forms in which meanings are clothed: words, rites, sounds, etc.) – they do not eat! This is a state of pride, where a person can no longer help – only God can lead out of this hellish state! Those who do not try to hear their neighbor (the Other), who ‘stew in their own juice’, unfortunately, move towards this hellish abyss of self-isolation. (By the way, egoism and isolationism are different states; an egoist still needs another, whom they can use for their selfish purposes, while an isolator no longer needs anyone). Only by the act of self-renunciation, impartiality, rejecting pre-judgments do we begin to hear each other a little…
The situation is similar at the symbolic feast of the Church – we pour into the vessels (rituals, words, i.e., Scriptures) in which the Church offers us the symbolic nectar of knowledge, having previously emptied the church’s vessels, our own content, our understanding and, consuming, we think we drink the wine of the Kingdom, but in fact, we drink the stale sewage water from the sewer of our madness, hellish egoism, and self-isolation!? What a deception, what ignorance!? We read ourselves, not hearing what the Church says! We read ourselves, looking in the mirror, but we think we hear the voice from heaven!? We impose our own thoughts on the Church, instead of being announced, learning from the Church!? We listen to ourselves, not the Church! We see ourselves, because verbal forms become a mirror for the egoist in which they see and hear themselves, but in their ignorance and self-deception, they think they see and hear another!?
Thus, about what is written in the book, the author and those who have the same experience-knowledge about which the author of the book writes, what he points out (because the word is an indication of reality, advertising this reality, which the speaker invites the listener to experience!), know. The author of the Scriptures of the Church is the Church, i.e., the Eucharistic community-parish!
Since what the author (the father of the word) writes (or says) is known only to him and those who have the same experience-knowledge of the reality being discussed (about which the author writes or speaks), which the author advertises, points out, which the interlocutor (the addressee of the word) is invited to experience, – then for understanding the essence of the word, it is necessary to try with all might, renouncing oneself, rejecting prejudices (this is a necessary condition for understanding the interlocutor when communicating correctly, but insufficient). Since we communicate using analogies, auditory images, which are associated (indicate a certain reality) with a specific, concrete reality (by agreement; for example, we will indicate the word “table” for a table (an object, a thing), the emotion of fear with the word “fear”, etc.), then for understanding the interlocutor there must be a community of life, a community of experience of knowing the specific reality being discussed. This is the sufficient condition for understanding each other! Because if there is no community of experience (when the same reality or experienced state is denoted by the same auditory image, word), then one person denotes one reality or state with the same word, and another interlocutor with the same word – absolutely another, or just different (for example, the word “hope” in the mouth of the Apostle Paul indicated a diametrically opposite reality-state than in the mouth of a person of the 21st century (see Part I); or take the word “God” – the Orthodox with this word indicate One, Catholics another, and Protestants yet another – when you start to look at where these icons of God point, who they call to emulate, it turns out that the directions of movement for those who want to emulate God are diametrically opposite! And this is in Christianity, among those who read the same Bible!? But, if you add to this list pagans, who also use the word “God” in communication among themselves, and indicate with it the ideal, the goal, which one should strive and aspire to!? Then it is understandable that the same word indicates thousands and thousands of different (sometimes diametrically opposite) realities. That is, each individual has their own god, each community has their own god, or, better to say, their own image of God, guided by which, they move, trying to emulate Him! Therefore, it is necessary to ask the interlocutor, whom (or what – when it comes to pagans) do you call me to emulate, what ideal, norm do you offer me, about which god are you talking, what does it mean, etc.?!). In the end, both are in delusion – because one thinks they are understood, and the other thinks they understand what is being talked about, but in fact, there is no meeting between them, no community, no communication (each remains in their own world of egoism and self-isolation)! Therefore, when we said in the first part that before communicating with someone, it is necessary to agree on terms, we did not mean that we can achieve understanding without a community of experiencing the same reality or state (or its components), through re-designating verbal forms with other verbal forms. Therefore, when we agree on terms, define terms, each component of the definition must be equally known by both (i.e., experienced-known these realities- states), so that even using the word in the sense we agreed on, we do not talk about different realities (i.e., we both must know these axiomatic foundations, from which (or on which) the space of communication is built)! Let’s take a mathematical definition as an example: the derivative of a function is the limit of the ratio of the function’s increment to the increment of the argument, which tends to zero (if we understand differently the concepts: limit, increment, function, argument, tend, then with a unified (about which we agreed, having given a common definition) use of the term we will not understand each other, and will talk about different realities, although we will think that we talk about the same reality, because we agreed on the terms!?… Therefore, without a community of life-experience (at least about the reality we are discussing conversation) understanding is impossible, the meeting does not occur!.. You will say, you have complicated everything too much! And I will say that due to our ignorance, which simplifies everything, people are in the hell of self-isolation and egoism, in the country of the shadow of death, in the country of distorted mirrors, where we see ourselves and in delusion think that we hear and see others, when we see our own distorted image and hear our own ignorance! I briefly said, and you develop this intuition, and think about what I did not finish saying due to lack of space…