Heart Yoga Radio

NIETZSCHE, GURDJIEFF AND DISGUST AT MAN

In this podcast, we discuss Nietzsche's 'disgust at man' and Gurdjieff's 'horror of the situation'. Both of these, it seems, are due to a propensity on the part of humans to succumb to mass hypnosis, which can nevertheless be avoided. [Free. 32 minutes.]

WAR & PEACE ('GIVE PEACE A CHANCE')

This is a rant against war and the culture of the war machine. It starts off with the presupposition that every sane person desires a peaceful world, now and for future generations. It then ranges quite wide, describing the military industrial complex in terms of its costs relative to those of creating and maintaining peace, arguing against the notion that war is 'natural' and attempting to expose the ideological character of most of the media discourses around current and past conflicts. It concludes that peace must be given a chance. [Free. 39 minutes.]

HUMAN INTERACTIONS: POWER DIFFERENTIALS, MASTER-SLAVE LIVED EXPERIENCE, OPEN RECEPTIVITY TO THE OTHER

In this podcast, I start by considering the nature of a compliment. This opens the door onto all the questions that human interactions give rise to and I sketch out some of them. In particular, I consider mutual recognition and the distorting effect that power differentials have on it. I relate this to the nature of the ego in the psychoanalytic sense and suggest how things could be better. Contemplation of the Other in Patanjali's spare style is, I suggest, emancipatory and not difficult, though elusive. Rumi, amongst others, made this very point. [Free. 18 minutes.]

IS THERE ANY HOPE FOR THE HUMAN SPECIES?

In addressing this pressing question, we consider what a 'yes' answer would be like. Firstly we ask, 'what is hope anyway?' This leads us on to considerations of violence, equality, freedom, desire, future thinking, evaluation and the role of big stories in human destructivity. [Free. 45 minutes.]

CHAOS AND COSMOS PART THREE

In this, the third of four episodes of Chaos and Cosmos, we discuss the process nature of reality and how this impacts on boundaries. We entertain the idea that the dancing and insubstantial nature of boundaires is interpreted for practical reasons and to a large extent through language, which projects a stasis onto the flux of existence by valuing some lines in the swirl of stuff over others. Our sense of separate identity is just such an interpretation made under the yolk of grammar and socialisation. This can be glimpsed in an investigative meditation but is rendered obscure by cultivation in the name of morality, spirituality and/or particularity. There's audience participation. The previous two episodes are still here - you might have to scroll down! [51 minutes. Free.]

WHO AM I (1) - OVERVIEW

This is the first of a series of seven episodes entitled Who Am I? It gives an overview of the various perspectives we entertain in the following six episodes. We planned six episodes and say as much throughout the series. But when the time came, we realised we needed a final episode in which to get to the nitty-gritty of lived experience. [20 minutes. Free.]

WHO AM I? (3) - ADVAITA AND OTHER WHOLENESS TALK

In this podcast, we discuss how advaita answers the question 'Who am I' by asserting the identity of an individual human atman with the universal Brahman. There are many ramifications of this position, a few of which we explore. [22 minutes. Free.]

WHO AM I? (4) - ZEN KOAN

In this podcast, the fourth in the series Who Am I?, the question is seen as a zen koan which blows the fuses of the apparatus of reason revealing the already-everywhere-always-present Buddha Nature in the proccess. [21 minutes. Free.]

WHO AM I? (5) - PHENOMENOLOGY & PATANJALI

The fifth episode in this series approaches the question Who Am I? from a perspective which is consistent with the phenomenological turn of 20th century so-called continental philosophy and the first and most pristine of Patanjali's meditations. [18 minutes.Free.]

WHO AM I? (6) - LANGUAGE

In the sixth episode of  the series Who Am I?, we question the question itself. Does it make sense? Or is its very asking a case of 'the bewitchment of our intelligence by language'? And if that is the case, shouldn't we dissolve the question rather than imagining that we have an answer to it? Wittgenstein looms large, urgently calling to a hapless fly trapped in a bottle, 'Over here, over here!' [24 minutes. Free.]