I was 3 or 4 and supposed to be taking an afternoon nap. This was before the polio vaccine.Doctors believed then that exertion and not enough sleep could contribute to getting or worsening of the viral disease. Perhaps I was in that twilight space before drifting into sleep. All I can still remember is that I had an ineffable awareness of connection with everything, associated with a feeling of inexpressible joy. I simply let myself be bathed in that experience when my physician father walked into the room and asked why I was not sleeping. I told him something was happening that I could not explain. He came over and sat on the bed. He asked me to try. I said without thinking ‘I am God.’ He slapped my face and told me to never say such a thing. When he left the room, I told myself I did not care what he said that that was what I felt.
That was the best that a 3 or 4 year old could say when asked to explain a transient ineffable awareness of non-duality. I think the slap helped me remember that experience all these 70 plus years.
"The latticework of our memorized knowledge" is a precise name for something I usually describe as the brain's filtering function, and Heschel's version sharpens it: the filtering isn't just protective, it's actively anesthetic. Everything gets sorted into the already-known specifically so it stops registering as astonishing, which is efficient and also a real cost nobody notices paying.
The lattice slipping rather than being permanently removed is the honest and useful detail, though. Radical amazement was never proposed as a permanent state to achieve and hold. It's a temporary gap in the filtering, brief, uncontrollable on command, and probably meant to stay that way. A nervous system running on constant amazement wouldn't function. The goal isn't abolishing the lattice. It's noticing, occasionally, on purpose, that it was there the whole time, filtering something genuinely extraordinary into something merely familiar.
I was 3 or 4 and supposed to be taking an afternoon nap. This was before the polio vaccine.Doctors believed then that exertion and not enough sleep could contribute to getting or worsening of the viral disease. Perhaps I was in that twilight space before drifting into sleep. All I can still remember is that I had an ineffable awareness of connection with everything, associated with a feeling of inexpressible joy. I simply let myself be bathed in that experience when my physician father walked into the room and asked why I was not sleeping. I told him something was happening that I could not explain. He came over and sat on the bed. He asked me to try. I said without thinking ‘I am God.’ He slapped my face and told me to never say such a thing. When he left the room, I told myself I did not care what he said that that was what I felt.
That was the best that a 3 or 4 year old could say when asked to explain a transient ineffable awareness of non-duality. I think the slap helped me remember that experience all these 70 plus years.
Wow. Did it ever happen again after that?
“the lattice loosened.” “the label peels off the thing.” Nice phrasing.
TY!
"The latticework of our memorized knowledge" is a precise name for something I usually describe as the brain's filtering function, and Heschel's version sharpens it: the filtering isn't just protective, it's actively anesthetic. Everything gets sorted into the already-known specifically so it stops registering as astonishing, which is efficient and also a real cost nobody notices paying.
The lattice slipping rather than being permanently removed is the honest and useful detail, though. Radical amazement was never proposed as a permanent state to achieve and hold. It's a temporary gap in the filtering, brief, uncontrollable on command, and probably meant to stay that way. A nervous system running on constant amazement wouldn't function. The goal isn't abolishing the lattice. It's noticing, occasionally, on purpose, that it was there the whole time, filtering something genuinely extraordinary into something merely familiar.
Yes. Well said.