Episodes
Tuesday Sep 13, 2016
YOGA REGULATION? NO THANKS
Tuesday Sep 13, 2016
Tuesday Sep 13, 2016
This podcast addresses a situation current on planet Yoga in the UK and will be of special interest to UK Yoga teachers and teacher trainers. The situation I allude to is the decision made by a government licensed body [Skills Active] in conjunction with the British Wheel of Yoga to institute a 'National Occupational Standard' [NOS] for a Yoga teacher. This was attempted 12 years ago and didn't succeed, most likely because of considerable opposition from the Yoga Community. I give an outline of the history and the players in this mad game and then demonstrate that Yoga should not be regulated by any governmental agency or narrow interest. Rather, I contend, it is necessarily diverse and therefore beyond the scope of regulation. I then give an account of the Independent Yoga Network which was set up 12 years ago in the face of the first attempt at NOS to defend freedom and diversity and promote Yoga. [Free. 44 minutes.]
Sunday Sep 04, 2016
MORALITY: CONTINGENCY, LOVE & SELF-ENQUIRY
Sunday Sep 04, 2016
Sunday Sep 04, 2016
This podcast is a ground-work for some future engagements we hope to make with this vast and important topic. We touch on the matter of the contingency or morality, drawing loosely upon Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals (1886). The formation of super-ego / conscience is sketched and the importance of child-rearing and educational practices is thus underscored. We recommend naturally occurring communism as a tendency to be encouraged within communities and enterprises and observe that the love will shout if only one enquires into one's entanglement with morality. [Free. 47 minutes.]
Wednesday Jul 27, 2016
GETTING INFORMED IN THE INFORMATION AGE
Wednesday Jul 27, 2016
Wednesday Jul 27, 2016
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.]
Wednesday Jun 01, 2016
TRAVELLING LIGHT
Wednesday Jun 01, 2016
Wednesday Jun 01, 2016
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.]
Tuesday May 17, 2016
CHAOS AND COSMOS PART FOUR
Tuesday May 17, 2016
Tuesday May 17, 2016
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.
Friday Mar 04, 2016
ON THE BODY [PART ONE]: YOGA AND THE BODY
Friday Mar 04, 2016
Friday Mar 04, 2016
This is the first part of a series on the human body. It deals with various attitudes to the body found within yoga culture and texts and attempts to evaluate them against their usefulness for life. I also propose that the affirmation of the human body and the attribution of the highest value to it is essential to Yoga practice. Accordingly, the value of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika lies in the fact that it refrains from condemnation of the body whilst reminding us that "Hatha is for Raja". This recording was first put out on YouTube some time ago. We're repeating it here because it touches on many of the themes we want to explore in more detail in this series. [Free. 30 mins.]
Tuesday Mar 01, 2016
Tuesday Mar 01, 2016
This short ramble investigates 'ruts' or repetitive patterns of thought, feeling and behaviour and how some are necessary and others cause us to suffer and to be discontected from the glory of life. I make the observation that in many cases, such patterns are held in place by our very own expenditure of energy to the extent that they become a part of our identity. Refraining from this expenditure, i.e. relaxing and forgetting, is often sufficient to rlease us from the suffering of endless circling. [Free. 19 minutes.]
Sunday Feb 21, 2016
HEALTHY THOUGHT? WHAT IS IT, IF ANYTHING?
Sunday Feb 21, 2016
Sunday Feb 21, 2016
In this podcast we chew on the notion of 'healthy thought'. Whilst seeing that the notion can be used ideologically as a conformist moral cudgel, we consider the idea that certain patterns of thought, feeling and behaviour can cause unnecessary suffering to self and others. [Free. 38 minutes.]
Sunday Feb 07, 2016
Sunday Feb 07, 2016
This fourth part of our series THINKING ABOUT THINKING concludes the discussion on Zen mondo and the uses of unreason. [Free. 30 minutes.]
Sunday Feb 07, 2016
THINKING ABOUT THINKING [PART THREE]: ZEN MONDO AND THE USES OF UNREASON
Sunday Feb 07, 2016
Sunday Feb 07, 2016
This podcast is the third part of our series THINKING ABOUT THINKING. In it, we deal with the uses of unreason, particularly focusing on Zen mondo. This is a big topic so we have also dedicate part four of the series to it. We touch upon the dialogues of the Buddha, Bodhidharma,and Joshu and the works of Nagarjuna, Wittgenstein and Freud. [Free. 1 hour 15 minutes.]