Heart Yoga Radio

PRIDE

In this podcast, we evaluate pride and find that its reputation as a deadly sin is undeserved. [Free. 25 minutes.]

ON GUILT

Here I sketch out and contrast various ideas of what guilt is and how it arises. These are firstly, that conscience, the capacity to feel guilt, is innate, [biologism and Kant], and secondly, the result of social processes, [Nietzsche and Freud]. Books mentioned are New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (Third lecture: 'The Dissection of the Psychical Personality' 1933) and Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals (1886). [Free. 39 minutes.]

VIKING INTENSITY

This podcast is a mischevious engagament with a fagment from the TV series Vikings in which a protagonist confesses his desire to live each moment with the maximum possible intensity. [Free. 25 minutes.]

ON TABOOS

This podcast is a rambling discussion which seeks to elucidate the nature of taboos. This involves considering law, superstition, transgression, the unconscious and Freud's metapsychology. We find ourselves questioning the coherence of the notion of the unconscious whilst at the same time finding it almost indispensible. Do we have to have taboos? We conclude that theoretically a society could be without taboos but that it is unlikely in the near future. However, minimising the play of irrational forces is thought to be desirable. The one thing that taboos have in their favour is their connection with the transgressive element in erotic jouissance. Contains a discussion of swearing and an account of a tantric exorcism. [Free. 38 minutes.]

MUSIC AND THE BELOVED

In this podcast I elucidate devotional music which a great sufi called "Nothing other than the portrait of our beloved". It covers modal music and raga, the role of culture in our experience of music, and improvisation as an expression and communication of immediate emotions, particularly of love. [Free. 29 minutes.]

SELF-DECEPTION

In this podcast, I consider Wittgenstein's contention that "Nothing is more difficult that not deceiving oneself". I draw on resources from Heidegger, particularly the notion of "authenticity". I consider the role of projection in self-deception but temper that with Wittgenstein's and Heidegger's criticisms of Freudian psychoanalysis. I note that we can bullshit ourselves that we are not bullshitting ourselves and that this opens up an infinite regress. I suggest that Patanjali's practice of satya, truthful silence, may well cut through this problem, but that even if it doesn't, it is still a very great, emancipatory good. The discousre is clearer than I've made it sound! [Free. 29 minutes.]

LAO TZU: PART SEVEN

In this podcast, we consider Chapter Twelve of The Tao Te Ching. In this Chapter, Lao Tzu advises against sensory overload and excess in general. We contrast this approach with the Dionysian spirituality which uses excess, intoxication and the senses. We find that these seemingly contradictory approaches to living are not stark opposites and that Lao Tzu's advice, that we use a honed intuition to help us to know how and when to use the different modes of being available to us, is good. [Free. 25 minutes.]

THE GATELESS GATE OF HUMAN PASSION

In this podcast we tease out the implications of the proposition that all phenomena are pure. [Free. 17 minutes.]

FEMINISM 101

In this podcast, we roughly sketch out types of feminism including liberal, socialist, marxist and essentialist varients. We try to draw out the theoretical and practical difficulties encountered by these various approaches in the hope that a view of the terrain thus exposed might be useful to anybody currently struggling with the widespread and pathological back-lash to all emancipatory aspirations. [Free. 55 minutes.]

SYNCHRONICITY

Synchronicity is the phenomenon in which we encounter meaningful coincidences. It tends to occur if we are in dialogue with our unconscious mind, whether through meditation or psychoanalytic types of engagement. In this podcast we consider the nature of this phenomenon and its possible use  for self-enquiry. The book Synchonicity [1952] by C G Jung and Wolfgang Pauli is drawn upon as is Jung's approach to the I Ching. [Free. 25 minutes.]