Heart Yoga Radio
323 episodes - English - Latest episode: 8 days ago - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingWide-ranging talks on all things relating to spirituality, meditation, yoga, current affairs, politics and philosophy. contact me via info AT peteyates.uk.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
TRUMP, MAY, PUTIN AND MEN IN FUNNY HATS [PART ONE: POLITICAL SCOUNDRELS]
July 23, 2018 22:57 - 36 minutes - 50.4 MBThis podcast is a wide-ranging commentary on the Trump charm offensive on Nato, the UK Prime Minister and Vladimir Putin of last week [13/7/18 ff]. It draws on the relevant press conferences, the film The Vietnam War [Ken Burns and Lynn Novick], the film An Inconvenient Sequel [Al Gore] and broadcasts of the UK Parliament. I consider the thesis that the political class are largely scoundrels. [Free. 37 minutes.]
LAOTZU 14
July 09, 2018 18:52 - 20 minutes - 27.7 MBIn this podcast, we consider Chapters 23 and 24 of The Tao Te Ching. We tease out Lao Tzu's advice that meditation is best approached with a light touch. [Free. 21 minutes.]
THE INTERNET AS COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
June 27, 2018 23:00 - 24 minutes - 34.1 MBThis playful ramble likens the internet to the unconscious of the whole of humanity. If we let it, the internet rubs our noses in our being as a species, warts, wonders and all. However, we argue, it is now possible to avoid this stark and partly painful self-revelation by retreating into echo chambers. The monetisation of the internet through advertising is partly responsible. We touch on the desirability of a de-centralised internet which encourages and rewards good content creators. [Free...
LAOTZU 13
June 22, 2018 20:33 - 28 minutes - 39 MBThis podcast deals with Chapters 21 and 22 of The Tao Te Ching. Chapter 21 is poetry impelled by Lao Tzu's encounter with the ineffable and Chapter 22 outlines the non-doing doings that can allow us to experience a similar encounter. [Free. 29 minutes.]
BEING INTO IT
June 14, 2018 21:07 - 15 minutes - 21.6 MBIn this podcast, I examine the state of being 'into it' with respect to both creativity in writing and painting and receptivity in listening to music, engagement with dynamic creative projects, the flow of life itself and meditation. I contrast 'being into it' with its creative partner, critical distance, and its meditative other, self-cultivation - in order to recommend it. [Free. 16 minutes.]
HOW TO MEANDER
May 30, 2018 19:56 - 59 minutes - 82 MBIn this podcast, we outline our top ten [or thereabouts] tips for honing your meandering skills. [Free. 60 minutes.]
PRIDE
May 15, 2018 23:33 - 24 minutes - 34 MBIn this podcast, we evaluate pride and find that its reputation as a deadly sin is undeserved. [Free. 25 minutes.]
MORTALITY, INSECURITY, MEDITATION
May 05, 2018 19:03 - 14 minutes - 19.5 MBThis short squib deals with the insecurity of life, particularly mortality and suffering, and how these invite and potentiate meditation whilst not precluding the perennial human endeavours to secure and enhance life practically. I jump off from Alan Watts' The Wisdom of Insecurity, but thereafter go my own way. [Free. 15 minutes.]
DESIGNING SOCIETY AND EVALUATION
May 02, 2018 01:24 - 19 minutes - 27 MBThis 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 o...
LAOTZU 12
April 28, 2018 12:39 - 42 minutes - 58.1 MBThis podcast deals with Chapters 18, 19 and 20 of The Tao Te Ching. In these chapters, Lao Tzu extols the virtue of alignment with the Tao for individuals and society. Simplicity is the way, he says, to come into that alignment. Instances of misalignment are consumerism, over-sophistication and acquisitiveness. Again, the character of the sage-leader is explored. [Free. 42 minutes.]
REMARKS ON US/UK/FRANCE MISSILE STRIKES ON SYRIA [14TH APRIL 18]
April 15, 2018 20:26 - 37 minutes - 51.4 MBIn this podcast I question the legitimacy the UK government's decision to join with France and the USA in attacking Syria with missiles without Parliamentary debate and without clear evidence of the presence of the chemical warefare agents that were the alleged target. I draw attention to the fact that the UK state is complicit in supplying arms to dictators, which though 'legal', cause horrible human suffering just as efficiently as chemical warefare agents. [Free. 38 minutes.]
ON GUILT
March 22, 2018 21:19 - 38 minutes - 52.9 MBHere I sketch out and contrast various ideas of what guilt is and how it arises. These are firstly, that conscience, the capacity to feel guilt, is innate, [biologism and Kant], and secondly, the result of social processes, [Nietzsche and Freud]. Books mentioned are New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (Third lecture: 'The Dissection of the Psychical Personality' 1933) and Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals (1886). [Free. 39 minutes.]
ON BREATH
March 16, 2018 22:18 - 26 minutes - 35.7 MBIn this podcast I give a brief outline of breath disciplines described by Patanjali and Svatmarama and discuss their practicality and significance. I draw attention to the common tendency to manipulate the mind-body complex and endow the resultant effects with significance derived from received models of the human being and metaphysical narratives. I ask, 'how do these fit in with the fact that this is it?' [Free. 26 minutes.]
NUMBERS ONE: SEDUCTIONS OF THE ALGORITHM
March 14, 2018 10:29 - 33 minutes - 45.7 MBIn this podcast, I consider the mysticism of numbers of the Pythagoreans and its influence down the ages on Plato, Aristotle, Kepler, Newton and on to the scientism of the modern age. I contrast this with a mysticism of endless, unfathomable mystery and tease out the ramifications for the Socratic question of how life is to be lived. [Free. 38 minutes.]
VIKING INTENSITY
March 11, 2018 20:25 - 24 minutes - 34.1 MBThis podcast is a mischevious engagament with a fagment from the TV series Vikings in which a protagonist confesses his desire to live each moment with the maximum possible intensity. [Free. 25 minutes.]
EVERYDAY MIND
February 23, 2018 20:14 - 14 minutes - 19.7 MBA Zen master was asked,"What is the Tao?" He replied, "Your everyday mind." How can this be? Shouldn't the Tao be something exhalted, unlike the most ordinary everyday mind? In this podcast, I attempt to dissolve this conundrum in the hope that it may help someone. [Free. 15 minutes.]
LAO TZU 11
February 19, 2018 20:40 - 22 minutes - 30.6 MBThis podcast deals with Chapters 16 and 17 of the Tao Te Ching. Lao Tzu revisits the character of the sagacious ruler who is rooted in contemplation, this time drawing on a metaphor of plant growth and nuture by deep roots. Not only is contemplation to be nurtured by our roots in the earth, but the sage should quietly nurture those around him. This leads on to considerations of styles of government of which a pure anarchism is evaluated as the most desirable. We suggest that this would only ...
NIETZSCHE'S METAPHORS OF WAR AND PLAY
February 15, 2018 20:23 - 22 minutes - 31.2 MBRather than using our usual spontaneous exposition, this podcast is a reading of a formal paper. It deals with the way in which two metaphors structure Nietzsche's engagements with our culture and philosophical tradition. [Free. 23 minutes.]
POSTMODERNISM: A FEW REMARKS
February 11, 2018 20:23 - 26 minutes - 36.4 MBIn this podcast, I draw attention to the way in which the term 'postmodernism' has become a derogatory term. I attempt to clarify and rehabilitate it by unpacking J. F. Lyotard's addage that 'postmodernism is suspicion towards grand narratives'. [Free. 27 minutes.]
LAO TZU 10
January 30, 2018 23:40 - 28 minutes - 39.6 MBIn this podcast, we discuss Chapter 15 of the Tao Te Ching in which Lao Tzu delineates the character of an ideal ruler. For Lao Tzu, this ruler, though a politician, is deeply grounded in meditation and oneness with the Tao. [Free. 29 minutes.]
ON TABOOS
January 26, 2018 21:17 - 37 minutes - 51.6 MBThis podcast is a rambling discussion which seeks to elucidate the nature of taboos. This involves considering law, superstition, transgression, the unconscious and Freud's metapsychology. We find ourselves questioning the coherence of the notion of the unconscious whilst at the same time finding it almost indispensible. Do we have to have taboos? We conclude that theoretically a society could be without taboos but that it is unlikely in the near future. However, minimising the play of irrat...
THE USES AND ABUSES OF THE CONCEPT OF NATURE
January 22, 2018 22:58 - 32 minutes - 44.5 MBIn this podcast, I consider the concept of nature and its ideological uses in justifying inequalities of wealth and power in ordinary discourse. I find that its use in the form of 'state of nature' arguments in political philosophy is also ideological as is the idea of human nature in most of its articulations. I suggest the concept can have a less ideological use for helping us picture our situation. In this positive use, nature is understood as a complex system which embeds the human being...
MUSIC AND THE BELOVED
January 19, 2018 20:36 - 28 minutes - 39 MBIn this podcast I elucidate devotional music which a great sufi called "Nothing other than the portrait of our beloved". It covers modal music and raga, the role of culture in our experience of music, and improvisation as an expression and communication of immediate emotions, particularly of love. [Free. 29 minutes.]
ON INVENTION: THE CASE OF DISTRIBUTED LEDGER TECHNOLOGY
January 12, 2018 12:38 - 39 minutes - 54.7 MBIn this podcast, I draw attention to the question of the role of technological innovation in social, cultural and economic change. This leads to a consideration of various aspects of distributed ledger technology, including the internet of things, crypto-currency and blockchain. [Free. 40 minutes.]
LAO TZU: PART NINE
December 18, 2017 22:31 - 19 minutes - 26.9 MBIn this podcast, we discuss Chapter Fourteen of the Tao Te Ching. LaoTzu, here, points out the lack of qualites of "The One" and the boundary-less-ness that allows us to encounter it. We hasten to add that there is no boundary between the ten thousand things and their boundaries [which are the luminous ordinary] and the One. [Free. 20 minutes.]
ON BOUNDARIES
December 11, 2017 21:52 - 27 minutes - 37.3 MBIn this podcast I discuss the boundaries that demark the concepts we use and the 'things' that we perceive. I draw on the chapter entitled 'The Will to Power as Knowledge' from Nietzsche's Will to Power. I suggest that a certain moveability of boudaries provides us with analytic and hermeneutical tools. Other philosophers I draw on are Smullyan and Kolakowski. I also suggest that this discussion underscores the significance of the Dionysian. This podcast provides some of the background for L...
LANGUAGE AND SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
November 26, 2017 20:14 - 23 minutes - 32.6 MBIn this podcast, I consider the attempts of Lao Tzu and Wittgenstein to urge upon us that the ineffable cannot be spoken of whilst themselves continuing to speak of it. This can be made sense of if we inderstand that language has many more possibilities than just fact-stating and indeed that it can point us in the direction of 'spiritual experience'. [Free. 24 minutes.]
WITTGENSTEIN 101
November 22, 2017 22:14 - 23 minutes - 32 MBThis podcast offers a broad summary of Wittgenstein's work, drawing mainly on the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus to describe the early Wittgenstain and the Philosophical Investigations for the later Wittgenstein. [Free. 24 minutes.]
TIME TO STOP AND STARE
November 13, 2017 22:06 - 20 minutes - 28.4 MBMisquoting W. H. Davies, I recommend taking time to stop and stare in this podcast. I draw attention to resonances between Davies' sentiment and the nature paintings of the Sung and Yuan dynasties which often feature tiny figures dwarved by vast landscapes. [Free. 21 minutes.]
SELF-DECEPTION
October 27, 2017 21:37 - 28 minutes - 38.5 MBIn this podcast, I consider Wittgenstein's contention that "Nothing is more difficult that not deceiving oneself". I draw on resources from Heidegger, particularly the notion of "authenticity". I consider the role of projection in self-deception but temper that with Wittgenstein's and Heidegger's criticisms of Freudian psychoanalysis. I note that we can bullshit ourselves that we are not bullshitting ourselves and that this opens up an infinite regress. I suggest that Patanjali's practice of...
LAO TZU: PART EIGHT
October 20, 2017 10:22 - 32 minutes - 44.3 MBIn this podcast, we discuss Chapter Thirteen of The Tao Te Ching. In this chapter, Lao Tzu recommends that we drop 'status anxiety' and reconsider our received notions of success and failure. We relate Lao Tzu's insights to modern life and recommend them for your consideration! [Free. 33 minutes.]
"CULTURE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND"
October 17, 2017 15:32 - 24 minutes - 34.2 MBIn this podcast, I reflect on Terence Mckenna's assertion that "culture is not your friend." I find that, indeed, culture as we know it today, frequently has ideological components, i.e. it plays a role in preserving and promoting social dominance hierarchies. However, it does have pragmatic possibilities, preserving ideas, crafts and technologies that have survival value. And, when not paralysed by conservatism, these possibilites can even develop beyond what can be achieved in a single gen...
LAO TZU: PART SEVEN
September 30, 2017 14:35 - 25 minutes - 34.5 MBIn this podcast, we consider Chapter Twelve of The Tao Te Ching. In this Chapter, Lao Tzu advises against sensory overload and excess in general. We contrast this approach with the Dionysian spirituality which uses excess, intoxication and the senses. We find that these seemingly contradictory approaches to living are not stark opposites and that Lao Tzu's advice, that we use a honed intuition to help us to know how and when to use the different modes of being available to us, is good. [Free...
TRUST
September 23, 2017 15:15 - 34 minutes - 47.1 MBThis podcast is a meandering analysis of trust, starting with the question 'What does it mean when I say, "I trust you."?'. It covers considerations of character, predictability, and behaviour which lead on to a criticism of behaviourism and a phenomenological analysis of the ways we appraise character. The role of trust in exchange, promising and social organisation is outlined with a nod towards Nietzsche's polemical considerations of 'the mnemotechnics of pain'. A picture of our culture a...
LAO TZU: PART SIX
September 16, 2017 17:08 - 16 minutes - 22.5 MBIn this podcast, we consider Chapter Eleven of The Tao Te Ching. This chapter deals with the uses of emptyness, not only in the sphere of practical life but also for meditation. [Free. 17 minutes.]
LEFT-RIGHT: PART TWO [COSMOPOLITANISM, ETHNO-NATIONALISM, HEIDEGGER, NIETZSCHE]
September 09, 2017 19:28 - 43 minutes - 59.1 MBIn this podcast I compare and contrast cosmopolitanism with ethno-nationalism. I discuss the use of Heidegarian tropes by alt-right ideologues to justify their stance which regards cosmopolitanism as the cause of all the ills of the modern world. I show how this move is easily countered and that Heidegger's view of 'the self' can actually be used to counter the notion that cosmopoitanism leads to the modern carelessness with the environment and 'rootlessness'. What is missing from the alt-ri...
LEFT-RIGHT: PART ONE [CHARLOTTESVILLE & THE OLD MAN'S VICE OF BIG PICTURE THINKING]
September 01, 2017 15:55 - 40 minutes - 55.7 MBIn this podcast, I reflect on recent events that took place in Charlotteville, Virginia. The discussion inevitably ranges far and wide and covers such issues as the role of violence in politics, the nature of the left-right binary, the question of the moral equivalence that President Trump et al seem to draw between neo-fascists and their anti-fascist detractors, the natures of free speech and propoganda, the significance of history and future thinking for politics, the nature of the symboli...
LAO TZU: PART FIVE
August 25, 2017 19:46 - 37 minutes - 51.3 MBIn this podcast we consider Chapters 9 and 10 of The Tao Te Ching. Amongst themes we draw out are Lao Tzu's advice on meditation and how it is deeply practical and has ramifications for social organisation and politics, and the value of un-acquisitiveness, quietism and psychological balance for living a good life. [Free. 38 minutes.]
KNOWLEDGE, UNDERSTANDING, WISDOM
August 10, 2017 14:53 - 42 minutes - 58 MBWhy do we have these three cognitive terms? What do they denote and how are they distinct from each other? This podcast is a preliminary investigation of these difficult questions. [Free. 43 minutes.]
PARENTS
July 25, 2017 21:48 - 19 minutes - 27.1 MBThis podcast considers "making your peace with your parents" and why, if possible, it's a good idea. [Free. 20 ,minutes.]
NIETZSCHE 101
July 21, 2017 18:15 - 31 minutes - 43.5 MBAn introduction to Nietzsche's thought in which I discuss Nietzsche's "great task" and his ludic, artistic method of persuing it. I touch on Nietzsche's anti-Platonism, anti-systematic approach to philosophy, notions of life-affirmation and life-negation amongst other things. The shifting concept of the will to power is elucidated, showing its various guises. [Free. 32 minutes.]
COMMENTARY ON 2017 SNAP GENERAL ELECTION RESULTS
June 28, 2017 11:49 - 28 minutes - 39.2 MBThis short squib deals with the paradoxical euphoria of the Corbynistas, who did not get to form a government as a result of the election, and asks if the euphoria is justified. I conclude that it is and that a number of important transformations have taken place in the political landscape. [Free. 29 minutes.]
YOGA AND THE FUTURE
June 23, 2017 12:12 - 53 minutes - 73.7 MBIn this podcast we discuss the future of Yoga both in a broad historical context and in the local UK context in which Yoga is being 'claimed' by the corporate fitness industry. The discussion naturally elides into a discussion of the potential roles that Yoga and Yoga practitioners should play in the unfolding of events as economic, cultural and ecological instabilities play out. We conclude that the fitness industry has to be strongly resisted by authentic yogis if Yoga is to be able to do ...
ARE WE IN CONTROL?
June 16, 2017 14:57 - 35 minutes - 48.5 MBIn this podcast, we consider the question "Are we in control?" The discussion takes in the matters of determinism, language, fundamental ontology and meditative yoga practice. We conclude with a recommendation of letting be with bright awareness whilst playfully recognising the role of (what we experience as) will and control in the practicalities of life. [Free. 36 minutes.]
LAO TZU: PART FOUR
May 31, 2017 23:36 - 39 minutes - 53.9 MBThis podcast deals with Chapters 6, 7 and 8 of the Tao Te Ching. Themes covered include breath and the pulsation of the universe, poetry and the attempt to eff the ineffable, up and down mysticisms and letting be, water and flow, the sage, confucianism, politics, desires and political manipulation, maternal nurturing, compassion and strategies for living, etc. [Free. 40 minutes.]
HOMO ECONOMICUS: COMMENTARY ON ROB URIE'S 'ZEN ECONOMICS'
May 29, 2017 20:54 - 43 minutes - 59.6 MBThis podcast is almost a review of Rob Urie's Zen Economics (2016). The thesis of Urie's book is that contemporary economic theory is a pseudo science which functions as an ideological mystification of consumer capitalism and bases itself on a spurious metaphysical conceptualisation of the human being along Cartesian lines. Urie marshals Zen and the work of Heidegger to mount his criticism with interesting results. [Free. 44 minutes.]
THE GATELESS GATE OF HUMAN PASSION
May 17, 2017 23:21 - 16 minutes - 22.7 MBIn this podcast we tease out the implications of the proposition that all phenomena are pure. [Free. 17 minutes.]
LAO TZU: PART THREE
May 05, 2017 21:57 - 38 minutes - 53.4 MBIn this podcast, we reflect on Chapters 4 and 5 of The Tao Te Ching. The cornucopean yet empty and ineffable nature of the Tao is further considered. The logic of the Taoist influence on the development of science in ancient China is explored. We also ponder how Freud's distinction between oceanic and super-ego religions is illuminated by Lao Tzu's account of religious experience. And more .... [Free. 39 minutes.]
THE SNAP GENERAL ELECTION UK 2017 - SOME THOUGHTS
April 25, 2017 10:29 - 31 minutes - 42.9 MBIn this podcast, we reflect on the recently called general election, to take place on June the 8th, 2017. We are particularly concerned with the way the campaign is reported in the media. [Free. 32 minutes.]
LAO TZU: PART TWO
April 20, 2017 22:52 - 42 minutes - 57.8 MBIn this podcast, we engage with Chapters 2 and 3 of The Tao Te Ching. Themes include language and opposites, the pregnancy of emptyness, past, present and future times, human character and the nature of a sage, social organisation and meditation. [Free. 43 minutes.]