Heart Yoga Radio

TALK ON PATANJALI'S YOGA SUTRA AT CHORELY

A talk I gave at Chorley on the first few aphorisms of the Yoga Sutra. [Patrons only. 2 hours 11 minutes.]

LAO TZU: PART ONE

In this podcast, we comment on the first chapter of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. Though it is very short, this chapter covers an immense amount of ground, including the paradoxical nature of talk about the ineffable, the creativity of nothingness and the character of 'the sage'. We intend to comment on the entire text over time. [Free. 41 minutes.] 

UTOPIA - HOW & WHY DOES IT HAUNT THOUGHT?

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.]

IMAGINATION, SKEPTICISM & WONDER

This is an account of the philosophical imagination and how it is both freed and rendered circumspect by skepticism. [Free. 42 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.]

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.]

A RAMBLE - IS NIETZSCHE SOCRATES WITH A FLUTE?

This conversation takes the form of a ramble around our house on a rainy Friday afternoon. We start off with a discussion of Nietzsche's 'eternal return of the same' which leads to the question of Nietzsche's attitude to Socrates. From there, the Socratic question emerges for consideration. We talk about both its existential and political dimensions, drawing out the questioning of desire and its relation to future thinking and utopianism.  There's lots more and even a concluding guitar improvisation entitled 'story'. [43 minutes. Free.]