Heart Yoga Radio

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.]

ON THE BODY [PART ONE]: YOGA AND THE BODY

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.]

HEALTHY THOUGHT? WHAT IS IT, IF ANYTHING?

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.]

THINKING ABOUT THINKING [PART FOUR]: ZEN MONDO AND THE USES OF UNREASON CONTINUED

This fourth part of our series THINKING ABOUT THINKING concludes the discussion on Zen mondo and the uses of unreason. [Free. 30 minutes.]

THINKING ABOUT THINKING [PART TWO]: TYPES OF REASON

In this short second part of the four part series on thinking, I outline a taxonomy of types of reason derived from Habermas'. [FREE. 17 minutes.]

THINKING ABOUT THINKING [PART ONE]

In this podcast, Anna and I engage with a subject that we have been gnawing upon for many years, namely, the nature, scope and potential of thought and how it is intimately entwined with spirituality. We take issue with those who recommend the exclusion of thought from spiritual life and who see it as inimical to meditation. By contrast, we celebrate thought and relish the manfold vistas it opens up for us. This is a vast and juicy field and we will return to it!  [Free. 47 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.]

BELIEF, SYSTEM, STRUCTURE

This podcast gets off to  a slow start. Stick with it! It deals with belief and certainty, faith and doubt, movement and stasis, dogma and openness to revision, religious institutions and power. [Free. 20 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.]

LOVE & COMPASSION

This podcast delineates types of love and locates compassion in the resulting schema. The vajrayana interpretation of enlightened consciousness as an erotic coupling between wisdom and compassion is elucidated. All of this is viewed through a lens of scepticism towards ideals and a gut-conviction that all phenomena are pure. [Free. 40 minutes.]