Heart Yoga Radio

THE BLUE PILL OR THE RED PILL? PART TWO: EXISTENTIALISM, CHOICE & FREEDOM

Part Two of our series on The Matrix attempts to characterise Neo's choice of the red pill in terms of the kind of human freedom posited by the existentialist philosophers. We draw particularly of Kierkegaard and Sartre. See the blue pill - red pill choice in this four minute clip: https://youtu.be/zQ1_IbFFbzA. [Free. 32 minutes.]

INSPIRATION

In this podcast, we bounce off Nietzsche's account of his inspiration given in Ecce Homo (1888). This should be of interest to meditators, artists, yogis and other folks with time on their hands :) [Free. 28 minutes.]

YOGA AND ANATOMY

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.]

KUNDALINI

This podcast deals with many aspects of the Kundalini phenomenon, particularly the nature of the experience itself, the discourses surrounding it, the theories about it and the practices associated with it. [Free. 40 minutes.]

ON THE BODY [PART SIX]: THE SENSES AND PROCESS

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.]

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.]

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.]

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.]

METAPHORS, JAM ROLY-POLY, THE VERTICAL AXIS & FLATLAND

Anna says that this is a bed-time story. I think it is philosophical comedy. I'm pretty certain sombody somewhere will hear this and get twice as enlightened as Buddy Guy. You can hear the wind and somebody with a megaphone in the distance. Nietzsche looms large as a trenchant critic of the various Platonisms. Meanwhile, this ordinary world is the Buddha heaven, if only we can see it. Hierarchical metaphysics mystify this at the same time as they turn earth into hell with their hierarchical cast systems and vicious patriarchy. Yet still, it's not all surface. The horizontal metaphor is shit too. Convolutions innit?! [18 minutes. Free.]