Heart Yoga Radio

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.]

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.]

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.]

HOW DO WE KNOW THAT EVERYTHING ISN'T AN ILLUSION?

In this podcast, we address a question asked by a friend. "How do we know that everything isn't an illusion?" The question quickly turns into a discussion of genealogy, vedanta, maya and myth, the role of the possibility of illusion in the genealogy of philosophy, perception, science and yoga. [Free. 44 minutes.]

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? (2) - PSYCHOLOGY, BIOGRAPHY

In this podcast, we discuss how identity can be construed as the sum of an individual's past, his/her particularity. We also consider the idea that an identity is acquired through the drama of infanthood and the shaping of education. Simund Freud hangs around at the side. [17 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? (7) - LIVED EXPERIENCE

In this podcast, the seventh and last in the series Who Am I?, Anna and I reflect on our own lived experiences of engaging with the most far-reaching conundrum [23 minutes. Free.]