“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” — Hebrews 4:12
When I reflect on our time, it increasingly seems that the world has forgotten that there once existed a boundary between the sacred and the ordinary. Everything now flows together in a single stream, carrying both the eternal and the fleeting, the holy and the trivial — on the same information feed, within a single click, a single glance. Ancient texts appear beside tabloid news or sports updates, and no one even flinches if an advertisement for sneakers appears next to the Gospel.
And I notice: when a person pauses just for a moment, and no longer, they scarcely feel the difference – as though everything has become equally important and equally empty. The temptation arises – and how could it not? – to make the texts lighter, to turn them into a kind of “spiritual fast food,” adapted to the taste of “modern perception.”
Instead of stopping, becoming silent, and listening — instead of entering into a living, thoughtful encounter — we usually just keep scrolling, through paper pages or digital ones, without ever catching our living breath.
Through the digital stream, sacred and philosophical writings flow together in a confused mixture — from Plato to the Gospels, from Jacob Böhme to the Bhagavad Gita. Not long ago, inattentiveness to the sacred seemed like an accident; today, it has almost become a natural state.
Reading increasingly turns, not into a dialogue with the text, but into a signal for a like, a comment, or a reply – so that the algorithm may note: “thought viewed – recommendation confirmed.” Even profound mystical works — from Master Eckhart to The Alchemical Wedding of Christian Rosycross by Johann Valentin Andreae, where the union of the soul with the higher principle is symbolically revealed — are sometimes simplified to the level of easy, “digestible” reading, losing in the process the delicate thread of inner transformation toward which they lead.
So gradually, a habit forms of seeing spiritual knowledge as something that should be accessible, brief, and effortless. I understand this desire – not long ago, it lived in me as well. But behind this habit lies more than a craving for ease: it is a symptom of profound shifts in consciousness – that inner image of the world through which a person perceives reality, themselves, and God. And this image, alas, seems trapped in a closed loop of already simplified meanings, much like a stomach accustomed to ready-made meals: only the quick result matters, not genuine engagement of the mind, not inner immersion, not the quiet work of the soul that a true encounter with the living Word requires.
From a Gnostic perspective, this is particularly palpable. Gnosis is not information to be “downloaded” or instantly grasped. It is a quiet, almost imperceptible awakening, requiring not so much effort as trust, attention, and inner stillness. It manifests in silence, in attending to oneself, in listening to one’s own heart and thoughts — not as a student completing an assignment, but as a human being heeding the mystery that whispers from within.
As outlined by Jan van Rijckenborgh in The Universal Gnosis, true understanding demands personal discipline and inner experience, not the passive consumption of texts.
The desire to preserve a text in its canonical form is not a conservative whim. It is one of humanity’s oldest spiritual practices. Consider the tradition of the soferim — Torah scribes — who for over two millennia copied the sacred text with such meticulous care that not one letter, not one mark, was lost. Why? Because the Word is not merely a vessel for meaning; it is a living Presence. To alter it is to sever the connection to its Source. Thinking of this, I feel not a fear of error, but a reverence for how the letters reveal something far greater than ourselves.
This is not literalism. On the contrary, the text’s stability is a conduit to its multidimensional depth. Jewish tradition teaches of Pardes — four levels of interpreting Scripture: peshat (the literal sense), remez (the hinted, symbolic meaning), derash (the ethical interpretation), and sod (the secret, mystical sense). Each deeper level emerges not in spite of the text’s fixed form, but precisely because of its fidelity to itself.
The Gnostics, also, recognised this layered nature. The Gospel of Philip states: “The Lord did not reveal the mysteries to everyone, but only to those worthy of them.” This is not elitism, but a spiritual law: not everyone is prepared, not everyone can bear the silence in which understanding is born.
Today, even the word “God” itself can become a barrier. Upon hearing it, many are quick to close the book — dismissing it as the language of a bygone era, a language of fear and power. The temptation arises to replace it with something more contemporary: “Energy,” “the Absolute,” or “Higher Consciousness.” I, too, once thought this would make discussing the eternal easier. But the longer I contemplated on this, the clearer it became: the words are not the obstacle; our inability to perceive the depth behind them is.
In the Apocryphon of John, we read: “He is incomprehensible, ineffable, and invisible. He is not a god as the existing ones understand god, for He surpasses God and transcends everything.” Here, the very word “God” is already a symbol – an attempt to express the Inexpressible. Sometimes it seems to me the problem lies not in the word itself, but in our lost capacity to read symbols and sense the light hidden within them.
It is crucial to understand: this is not about freezing the language of the past. Words and forms do evolve as a people’s language changes – without translation, Ancient Greek and Old Church Slavonic are largely inaccessible today. But there is a fine line between translation and free adaptation, between conveying the text’s breath and tailoring it to the tastes of the age.
Translation builds a bridge that preserves the source’s power. Arbitrary adaptation for the sake of convenience is a substitution that dilutes its very essence. I come across such texts – smooth and understandable, yet nearly lifeless.
A text’s archaic form is not a museum piece, but a living filter. It separates those seeking easy understanding from those ready for inner work. It is where familiar words become unfamiliar that space opens for genuine experience – for an encounter with oneself, for a silent dialogue with the text.
In our rush to “modernise” sacred texts, we often strip them not only of their form but of their breath – and with it, their capacity to awaken the soul. For the Living Word does not require updating. It waits only for the moment when a person grows silent – in mind, heart, and soul – and in that inner quiet, perceives the vibration of that subtle string of living breath, which gradually dissolves the habitual boundaries of perception and opens the path toward the union of the soul with the Divine Spirit.
