Interspersed with Jafarieh’s musings about intention, gratitude and the “gnosis of self,” Djokovic delivers a unique moment of introspection about his journeys as a tennis player and a person.

Rather, it is about how a spiritual sensibility can create space for vital ambiguity, contemplation and gnosis — knowledge of the heart — particularly in the face of that omnipresent human experience, suffering.

The Greek word for knowledge is gnosis, but there is another word, epignosis, which denotes “a greater participation by the knower in the object known”.

“We do not demand faith, we offer gnosis,” he began, reading from a MacBook.

The Epistles of Paul, both genuine and spurious, recognize the gnosis, and there were Gnostic sects, as well as individual Gnostics, both before and after the Christian era.