Heart Yoga Radio

In this podcast, we comment on the first six aphorisms of Patanjali's Yoga Sutra. The podcast stands alone but is also intended to supply the background to a practical weekend to be held at The Parkdale Yoga Centre, Wolverhampton on October 22nd - 23rd 2016. This weekend is ideal for yoga teachers, dedicated practitioners and open-minded beginners in Yoga. 

The section of the Yoga Sutra we concern ourselves with here is very direct, un-ornamented, non-technical and revelatory, if only you look in the direction it points in. [Free. 1 hour 16 minutes.]

In his podcast, we consider the problems of negotiating the unprecedented access to information that characterises the modern age. We note that too much information becomes no information unless we have the means to evaluate what is relevant to our questions, to discern what is reliable and what not, and unless we have some grasp of interpretation and how it relates to states of affairs in the world. We go on to consider the struggle for the internet and the broad shape of the power which tries to determine and exploit our lives. [Free. 60 minutes.]

This podcast starts with a discussion of flux which I characterize here as 'turbulence' and 'fragmentation'. The turbulence in Turkey [where there was an attempted military coup the day before this was recorded], the fragmentation in UK politics post Brexit, and the struggle for control of the internet are then considered. [Free. 36 minutes.]

This podcast introduces wu wei and ishvarapranidhana with a view to opening up future discussions on the matter of 'letting be' in life and meditation. 'Letting be' is not to be construed as fatalism or passivity.  [Free. 19 minutes.]

This squib questions the relevance of anatomical study to the practice of Hatha Yoga and the training of 'yoga teachers'. Warning: lots of swearing. [Free. 33 minutes.]

We started this podcast with no topic in mind. Consequently it meanders from a consideration of the plasticity of mind through the matter of the historical variety of cultures and the character formations they produce and require, on through a story about our current situation in which consumerist capitalism requires hyper-individualism as the preferred human character, on through a narrative connecting discomfort with this plasticity with social conservatism and the metaphysics of stasis. Somewhere amongst this, we remember childhood and celebrate and recommend travelling light. [Free. 51 minutes.]

Here, somewhat belatedly, is the final part of Chaos and Cosmos, a talk given at Parkdale in 2015. The main thrust of this part of the talk is to abstract the practicalities implicit in the discourse thus far for practitioners of meditation and creativity. We also hear about Taliesin's shit-or-bust attempt to win the high priestess.

For the sake of intelligibility, I've pruned some labyrinthine Q and A and ribald interaction. The other three episodes are still on this site as you'll find if you go back a bit. [Free. 30 minutes.]

This is a meander which attempts to elucidate the senses and perception. We start off by saying why it is preferable to consider the senses as though processes rather than structures are primordial, as indeed our life-world and lived experience suggest. [The philosophical tradition largely considers the senses through a structural metaphor which understands the human being as like a camera and this is briefly taken issue with.]  The path of thought winds its way towards the intimation that the entanglement of the processes of nature, psyche, culture and consciousness which is human life allows the universe, potentially, to see itself. [Free. 59 minutes.]

The body dies. In this podcast we critically reflect on the existential and cultural consequences of the fact of life that the body dies. [Free. 36 minutes.]

In this podcast we outline and evaluate ancient and Cartesian mind-body dualism. We find both of these doctrines incoherent and life-negating and attempt to point towards more easeful attitudes towards the body and life itself. [Free. 29 minutes.]