Heart Yoga Radio

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.]

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.]

IS THERE ANY HOPE FOR THE HUMAN SPECIES?

In addressing this pressing question, we consider what a 'yes' answer would be like. Firstly we ask, 'what is hope anyway?' This leads us on to considerations of violence, equality, freedom, desire, future thinking, evaluation and the role of big stories in human destructivity. [Free. 45 minutes.]

CHAOS AND COSMOS PART THREE

In this, the third of four episodes of Chaos and Cosmos, we discuss the process nature of reality and how this impacts on boundaries. We entertain the idea that the dancing and insubstantial nature of boundaires is interpreted for practical reasons and to a large extent through language, which projects a stasis onto the flux of existence by valuing some lines in the swirl of stuff over others. Our sense of separate identity is just such an interpretation made under the yolk of grammar and socialisation. This can be glimpsed in an investigative meditation but is rendered obscure by cultivation in the name of morality, spirituality and/or particularity. There's audience participation. The previous two episodes are still here - you might have to scroll down! [51 minutes. Free.]

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? (3) - ADVAITA AND OTHER WHOLENESS TALK

In this podcast, we discuss how advaita answers the question 'Who am I' by asserting the identity of an individual human atman with the universal Brahman. There are many ramifications of this position, a few of which we explore. [22 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.]