Episode 120

Awakening Practices from PRACTICAL WORK ON SELF, "Harmless Whim", Part Two

THE THREE-HEADED MAN reflects on spiritual exercises designed to cultivate conscious will and pure attention.

By performing "harmless whims," such as tugging an earlobe or scratching the forehead, the guys attempt to interrupt their automatic behaviors and "awaken the machine" of the physical body. They describe how these brief moments of intentionality cut through the "hamster wheel" of daily life, though they struggle with the fleeting nature of such self-awareness. Jimmy shares a story about a friend with a brain injury to illustrate the concept of pure attention existing independently from the biological mind's filters and commentaries.

Ultimately, the group explores the difficulty of escaping the fixed patterns of their personalities and the necessity of external "shocks" to maintain a path toward higher consciousness

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The Three-Headed Man
Talking To Ourselves For Over 25 Years

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About your host

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Fred M Schill

I like to do. I like to make things. And, I like telling stories. I tell stories to myself and to others.

First, a short biography, which is, of course, is a story. I was born in Cleveland, played sports, and attended university. Later, after a few years in the radio business, I returned to university to study education and literature.

With a teaching certificate in my file folder, I began working in high schools, first as a strike-breaking scab substitute teacher in Cleveland's far suburbs, and then in Chicago, mostly in private high schools.

Cleveland and Chicago. My two main towns, and I escaped them both. Presently, I live in a tiny, isolated, mountain village in Spain. I am reluctant to write the name of the town because I don't like tourists. When the tourists arrive, they look at me as if I am an animal in a zoo.