Heart Yoga Radio

EDEN REVISITED

In this podcast, I examine the  Genesis story and the notion of original sin, considered as a kind of foundational myth for "the West". I entertain the suspicion that this foundation myth doesn't provide a viable answer to the question of why we humans suffer and what to do about it. Not only that, it actually inhibits our abilities to use our ingenuity to secure and enhance human life. (Click the link to  buy me a coffee.) [Free. 20 minutes.]

TAOIST DIALECTICS

In this podcast we playfully and seriously outline our eccentric take on 'Taoist Dialectics'. This entails brief encounters with Plato's The Sophist and Hegel's Logic as well as an engagement with a parable told by Taoist master, Chuang Tzu. We relate all this to personal resilience in these apocalyptic times. [Free. 32 minutes.]

TWITTER BANS AND FREE SPEECH - INTERESTING TIMES 21

This episode in our current affairs series is a wide ranging analysis of the significance of the banning of the POTUS, Donald Trump, by Twitter and other social media platforms. This leads into considerations of the benefits and drawbacks of free speech, and the multi-stranded power dynamics that surround it in our current discursive world, dominated by vastly influential information technology as it is. I make recommendations on how to situate ourselves in this situation and note the skills we need to proceed towards understanding and independence. [Free. 39 minutes.]

GRASSROOTS AND ASTROTURFING

In this podcast we analyse the phenomenon of astroturfing in which billionaire money is martialled to produce artificial facsimiles of authentic grass roots movements. As well as giving some examples,  we outline some methods which can be employed to detect astroturfing and similar ruses to mystify the nature of society and the economy.  The discourse follows on from our recent podcast,  What Can We do? [Free. 42 minutes.]

LAO TZU 22

This podcast offers a reading of Chapter 35 of the Tao Te Ching. It deals with the character of Lao Tzu's ideal leader who is a sage with connection to the Tao. We tease this out and relate it to modern leaders of the 'strong man' type and ideals of social organisation. [Free. 19 minutes.]

LAO TZU 20

In this episode of our Lao Tzu series, we explore themes of judgement, desire, non-violence, and longevity: all in the light of Lao Tzu's meditation 'method' of aligning with the Tao. [Free. 24 minutes.]

LAOTZU 19

In this podcast, we consider Chapter 32 of The Tao Te Ching. Here, Lao Tzu emphasises the ineffability of the Tao even whilst urging the sage/ruler to follow it if he is to be a good ruler who is able to care for the people well. The implications of the ineffability of the Tao for the nature of language, that it cannot exhaust the world with its names or propositions, is suggested in the text and we tease it out. [Free. 29 mins.]

WHAT IS ART?

This podcast is the first part of an open-ended and ocassional series on issues in philosophical aesthetics. I examine problems in defining art in the strict sense and in applying Wittgenstein's account of family resemblances in language use. I then look at the consequences of Dada and the way in which artists can act by fiat to declare event or object X a work of art. I sketch attempts to give an account of art in terms of the psychology and/or phenomenology of the creative process, and approaches which contextualise artist and/or work of art in culture, the economy and social relations. There is a small detour into the way in which Wittgenstein's account of family resembalces upends Platonism. [Free. 29 minutes.]

LAO TZU 15

In this podcast, we comment on Chapters 25 and 26 of The Tao Te Ching. In the first part, we elucidate Lao Tzu's cosmology and the categories of earth, heaven, the human and the Tao. We particularly highlight how, for Lao Tzu, the transcendent and the immanent are mutually dependent and how this precludes life-negation. Lao Tzu, we take it, arrives at this tremendous vision through his own contemplation and goes on to point out to us how we might do the same and how simple that task is. We flesh out Lao Tzu's contemplative [non] method, hopefully with some practical pointers. [Free. 37 minutes.]

DESIGNING SOCIETY AND EVALUATION

This podcast is a rambly continuation of some previous considerations of value. In this case, I claim that calls for designing society around resources available [rather than money], though inspiring, need to make good a lacuna around value. [In particular, I consider the Zeitgeist project.] The question needs to be asked, 'What future should we value?'. Prior to that though, we need to figure out how to tackle that question and elucidate the process of evaluation. I also point out that we ourselves, with our desires, are at stake in any cogent appraoch to evaluation. [Free. 20 minutes.]