Episodes

Monday Jan 23, 2017
Monday Jan 23, 2017
This is my contribution to a public meeting put on by the Independent Yoga Network [IYN] to clarify the attempt being made by BWY and Skillsactive to institute a National Occupational Standard for a Yoga Teacher in the face of concerted and reasoned opposition from key players in the UK Yoga Community. The meeting was held on the 14th January 2017. I am introduce by Ellen Lee, Chair of the IYN. Other presenters were Swami Ambikananda Saraswati [Traditional Yoga Association], Jim Gough [IYN Treasurer], Nick Elwell [BGi Insurance], and Satish K Sharma [General Secretary, National Council of Hindu Temple (UK)]. The complete proceedings, which run to over 3 hours, will be available from the IYN online magazine, namaskaram, shortly. [Free. 22 minutes.]

Thursday Sep 22, 2016
UTOPIA - HOW & WHY DOES IT HAUNT THOUGHT?
Thursday Sep 22, 2016
Thursday Sep 22, 2016
In this podcast, we run with the the observation that 'thought is haunted by utopia'. In passing we discuss literary utopias and dystopias, revolutions, and the effect of intimations of vulnerability and mortality on human future thinking. [Free. 53 minutes.]

Tuesday Sep 13, 2016
YOGA REGULATION? NO THANKS
Tuesday Sep 13, 2016
Tuesday Sep 13, 2016
This podcast addresses a situation current on planet Yoga in the UK and will be of special interest to UK Yoga teachers and teacher trainers. The situation I allude to is the decision made by a government licensed body [Skills Active] in conjunction with the British Wheel of Yoga to institute a 'National Occupational Standard' [NOS] for a Yoga teacher. This was attempted 12 years ago and didn't succeed, most likely because of considerable opposition from the Yoga Community. I give an outline of the history and the players in this mad game and then demonstrate that Yoga should not be regulated by any governmental agency or narrow interest. Rather, I contend, it is necessarily diverse and therefore beyond the scope of regulation. I then give an account of the Independent Yoga Network which was set up 12 years ago in the face of the first attempt at NOS to defend freedom and diversity and promote Yoga. [Free. 44 minutes.]

Friday Aug 26, 2016
Friday Aug 26, 2016
In this podcast, I take issue with a couple of examples of a common new age trope that promises the fulfillment all your desires easily if only you partake of this or that snake oil. I assert that this idiocy both exaggerates and underestimates the promise of meditational quietness given that its motivations lie in a quest for profit and influence. The discussion briefly explores will, desire, the tendency to wish-fulfillment fantasy and suggests what the real possibilities for meditation might be. [Free. 18 minutes.]

Wednesday Jul 27, 2016
GETTING INFORMED IN THE INFORMATION AGE
Wednesday Jul 27, 2016
Wednesday Jul 27, 2016
In his podcast, we consider the problems of negotiating the unprecedented access to information that characterises the modern age. We note that too much information becomes no information unless we have the means to evaluate what is relevant to our questions, to discern what is reliable and what not, and unless we have some grasp of interpretation and how it relates to states of affairs in the world. We go on to consider the struggle for the internet and the broad shape of the power which tries to determine and exploit our lives. [Free. 60 minutes.]

Sunday Jul 24, 2016
TURBULENCE: TURKEY, BREXIT, THE STRUGGLE FOR THE INTERNET
Sunday Jul 24, 2016
Sunday Jul 24, 2016
This podcast starts with a discussion of flux which I characterize here as 'turbulence' and 'fragmentation'. The turbulence in Turkey [where there was an attempted military coup the day before this was recorded], the fragmentation in UK politics post Brexit, and the struggle for control of the internet are then considered. [Free. 36 minutes.]
![RE BREXIT [PART TWO]](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/771447/hyradiologobig2_300x300.png)
Tuesday Jul 12, 2016
RE BREXIT [PART TWO]
Tuesday Jul 12, 2016
Tuesday Jul 12, 2016
Further comment as things move on. I entertain a conspiracy theory or two: looks like the corporations will do well, less so workers unless they resist, network and build. [Free. 34 minutes.]
![RE BREXIT [PART ONE]](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/771447/hyradiologobig2_300x300.png)
Saturday Jul 09, 2016
RE BREXIT [PART ONE]
Saturday Jul 09, 2016
Saturday Jul 09, 2016
I recorded this podcast a couple of days after the UK Referendum on EU membership and the people's decision to leave. In tend to follow up shortly with further reflections as things have moved on. [Free. 22 minutes.]
![ON THE BODY [PART FIVE]: SEX, NATURE, CULTURE & ENLIGHTENMENT](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/771447/hyradiologobig2_300x300.png)
Friday Apr 01, 2016
ON THE BODY [PART FIVE]: SEX, NATURE, CULTURE & ENLIGHTENMENT
Friday Apr 01, 2016
Friday Apr 01, 2016
As always this is wide-ranging. We discuss the nature of sexual arousal, sexual practices and the ideas people have about sex, attempting as we go to free ourselves from the conceptual straight-jacket imposed by the popular binary nature-culture. This naturally {!} leads to a consideration of sexual taboos and the transgression of them in Dionysiac/Tantric orgies and a fleeting analysis of the emancipatory potential of raw joy - ananda. We find it useful to identify two recognizable modes of consciousness aroused by sex. In one, fantasy is intensified. In the other fantasy is attenuated and 'immediate' sensations take over. [Free. 53 minutes.]

Friday Jan 01, 2016
NIETZSCHE, GURDJIEFF AND DISGUST AT MAN
Friday Jan 01, 2016
Friday Jan 01, 2016
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.]