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Lyssna när som helst, var som helst

Daniel Simpson

Timeless wisdom for modern dilemmas, combining yoga philosophy, practical insight and critical thinking. Hosted by Daniel Simpson. 

ancientfutures.substack.com

Ancient Futures

"What are we doing wrong that requires us all to be so resilient so often?” That’s the basic question that frames a new book by Elliot Cohen. The Psychology of Slow Living investigates ways to avoid being frazzled by a culture of urgency fuelled by quests for instant gratification via digital technology and overconsumption.

Drawing on ideas from Buddhist, Hindu, Daoist and Jewish traditions – as well as social psychology – the book explores how to slow down from a range of perspectives. It warns against seeking quick fixes, but highlights the value of meditative practice, communion with nature and social rituals, from tea ceremonies to the Sabbath.

We also talk about the mental effects of surroundings – from the impact of urban environments to natural examples of living with balance. In the process, Elliot cites teachings on the “usefulness of uselessness”, promoting some renouncing without dropping out. You can find out more about his research here.

📅 Join me in March to explore authenticity in yoga (in London or online).

🙏 Donations make this podcast sustainable – please consider subscribing or buy me a coffee... Your support is greatly appreciated!
 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ancientfutures.substack.com/subscribe

Slowing Down – Elliot Cohen

What does it mean to be human, and how can one access one’s innermost self? Robert Rowland Smith writes popular books about practical philosophy, including a memoir that discusses what he’s learned from his relationships – as well as a career as an Oxford don, a strategic adviser and a personal coach, among other things…

Our conversation explores the extent to which people can change, and how to get attuned to an inner alarm that reveals when it’s necessary. We also talk about intuitive ways of knowing, the role of fate and how inherited patterns shape our lives. Along the way, we consider the importance of facing mortality, why it might be scary to experience awakening and how to find purpose by asking good questions.

If you’d like to learn more about Robert’s approach – including family constellations – he’s running an online “retreat” from January 5 (available on-demand at other times). He’s also co-host of regular philosophy slams, where he and Mark Vernon respond to audience prompts with impromptu ideas.

🧘‍♂️ Join me in London or online for a weekend immersion in yoga philosophy (March 1-2, 2025)

🙏 Donations make this podcast sustainable – please consider subscribing or buy me a coffee... Your support is greatly appreciated!
 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ancientfutures.substack.com/subscribe

Who Am I? – Robert Rowland Smith

How can we address global problems – such as catastrophic climate change – when individual actions make very little difference? What’s the right thing to do when there aren’t easy answers? Is it wrong to do nothing? Is everything relative, or are there better ways to think about solutions?

As Travis Rieder writes in Catastrophe Ethics, we need our own frameworks for making decisions. Two common pitfalls get in the way. One highlights universal rules and the other rejects them. To avoid being distracted by either, we need to think for ourselves about right and wrong, inspired by ideas drawn from moral philosophy.

Our conversation explores how this works to make life meaningful. In the process, we talk about illusions of purity, the need to find reasons to justify actions and the value of “doing our part” – however limited it may be – to minimise harm. We also reflect on life’s inevitable compromises, the complicated ethics of creating new people, and why personal integrity means being transparent not wearing a hair-shirt.

Travis works as a professor at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. He’s also the author of In Pain: A Bioethicist’s Personal Struggle with Opioids, which expands on a TED talk about his experience.

🎓 Join me in London – or online – for a weekend immersion in yoga philosophy (March 1-2, 2025)

🙏 Donations make this podcast sustainable – please consider subscribing or buy me a coffee... Your support is greatly appreciated!
 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ancientfutures.substack.com/subscribe

Catastrophe Ethics – Travis Rieder

How do people cope with uncertainty? What differentiates ways of predicting the future from scientific study of patterns – be that in epidemiology or forecasting weather? Might techniques of divination reveal as much about the past and the present as what happens next?

Michelle Aroney is a historian at Magdalen College, Oxford, and co-curator – with David Zeitlyn – of an exhibition at the Bodleian Library titled “Oracles, Omens and Answers”. As we discuss, there are fascinating links between modern sciences and older approaches – particularly astrology. Yet we also examine what distinguishes their methods, and how different cultures do similar things.

The exhibition focuses more on social function than predictive accuracy – though it does say all systems have limits. You can find out more in an accompanying book that covers two dozen disciplines – or see recent articles by the co-authors here and here. Michelle also posts on X, and the Bodleian Library shares pictures on Instagram.

🔭 To explore yogic views on clairvoyance – and much else besides – join me for a weekend immersion (March 1-2, 2025)

🙏 Donations make this podcast sustainable – please consider subscribing or buy me a coffee... Your support is greatly appreciated!
 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ancientfutures.substack.com/subscribe

Historical Prediction – Michelle Aroney

How closely connected are yoga and politics? Many people today try to keep them apart, but an ancient tradition sees yoga as politics. Although its theories might be distinct from yogic philosophies and mind-body disciplines, they’re nonetheless part of a broader understanding of what yoga means.

A new book called The Yoga of Power, by Sunila Kalé and Christian Lee Novetzke, unpacks the implications. Initially inspired by events such as a U.S. court case about whether yoga in schools was religious and the Hindu nationalist promotion of “yoga day”, their work studies texts from the Ṛg Veda onwards, showing how yoga describes the exertion of control. Together, we discuss (among other topics):

* The use of yoga-kṣema to refer to people’s welfare

* What links good governance to personal self-discipline

* How yogic ideas inspired anti-colonial resistance politics

* Why texts tell haṭha yogis to find well-governed lands

* Whether sun salutations are yogic or martial arts

We also talk about this film from 1928, in which the Raja of Aundh promotes sun salutations (as discussed in this article). You can find out more about Sunila’s work here, and Christian’s here – both are professors at the University of Washington.

🤿 To dive deep into yoga history, join me for the year-long Path of Knowledge...

🙏 Donations make this podcast sustainable – please consider subscribing or buy me a coffee... Your support is greatly appreciated!
 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ancientfutures.substack.com/subscribe

Political Yoga – Sunila Kalé and Christian Lee Novetzke

Are there limits to what can be said in factual prose? Might poets sometimes do a better job of conveying deeper meaning and emotional truth? Lindsey Hilsum has reported on conflicts for more than 30 years. Her latest book, I Brought the War with Me, juxtaposes poetry with frontline experiences.

Our conversation explores her reflections on a wide range of topics, including:

* Why poetry speaks more timelessly than journalism

* How difficult situations can bring out the best in people

* Some potential limitations of reporting, as well as its value

* The distinction between being an eyewitness and an activist

* Whether locals or outsiders tell more trustworthy stories

Lindsey works as International Editor for Channel 4 News, and also contributes to newspapers and literary journals. Her previous book – about the war correspondent Marie Colvin – won the 2019 James Tait Black Prize for biography. For those outside the UK, this article explains the podcast's reference to Gary Lineker…

🎓 Study with me – a weekend immersion (March 1-2, 2025) and a year-long exploration of yogic traditions (from September, 2025).

🙏 Donations make this podcast sustainable – please consider subscribing or buy me a coffee... Your support is greatly appreciated!
 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ancientfutures.substack.com/subscribe

The Rest is Poetry – Lindsey Hilsum

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit ancientfutures.substack.com

What happens if we think for ourselves, instead of taking things on faith from ancient texts? Peter Blackaby teaches what he calls “humanistic yoga”, based on “modern understandings of neurology, psychology and biomechanics.” This includes "stripping away the culturally specific aspects of yoga that might not be useful or relevant,” such as many of the theories of Indian philosophy. In which case, why call it yoga? Our conversation considers the basis for this, noting overlaps between his ideas and traditional teachings.

If you enjoy the podcast, and would like to fuel more, please consider subscribing or buy me a coffee... All donations are greatly appreciated!

Intelligent Life with Peter Blackaby

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit ancientfutures.substack.com

Traditionally, physical yoga aims to raise vital energy. This is often described as a serpent-like power that dissolves the mind. However, one influential teacher saw Kuṇḍalinī differently. T. Krishnamacharya, who taught B.K.S. Iyengar and K. Pattabhi Jois, said it was a blockage that had to be burned, not a means to liberation. Simon Atkinson's book explains why. Drawing on his experiences as well as his research, this conversation explores implications for modern practitioners. Simon has practised yoga for more than 20 years in the tradition most closely associated with Krishnamacharya's son, T.K.V. Desikachar.

If you enjoy the conversation, and would like to fuel more, please consider subscribing or buy me a coffee... All donations are greatly appreciated!

What is Kundalini? – Simon Atkinson

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit ancientfutures.substack.com

It’s often said that yoga is timeless, but many modern methods are recent inventions. What keeps them anchored in earlier traditions? I recently explored this with Mike De Masi, who runs a discussion group devoted to the yoga of T. Krishnamacharya and his students – from B.K.S. Iyengar and K. Pattabhi Jois to T.K.V. Desikachar and Srivatsa Ramaswami.

Among other topics, our conversation covered:

* What “tradition” means when so much has changed

* Whether stories told by lineages stand up to scrutiny

* How one relates to other worldviews as a foreigner

* What scholarship on yoga can offer practitioners

* Why critique should be balanced with respect

If you enjoy the podcast, and would like to fuel more, please consider subscribing or buy me a coffee... All donations are greatly appreciated!

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RESOURCES

Worldwide Krishnamacharya Yoga Community

Breath of the Gods (a 2012 film about Krishnamacharya)

“The Yoga of the Haṭhābhyāsapaddhati” (Birch and Singleton)

The Goddess Pose (a book about the life of Indra Devi)

Srivatsa Ramaswami’s Vinyasa Krama website

Evolving Traditions – Mike De Masi

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit ancientfutures.substack.com

Which ideas keep traditions alive in the 21st century? Modern mindfulness removes Buddhist framing, but says most of its wisdom is part of the practice. Yoga is often taught similarly. Are there pitfalls to reinventing teachings? I recently discussed this with Frank Jude Boccio, the author of Mindfulness Yoga, which integrates the practice of āsana with insight meditation.

Among other topics, our conversation covered:

* What mindfulness means (not “be here now”)

* How to think for oneself while removing illusions

* Which traditional concepts might not seem relevant

* Whether seeking liberation is a helpful objective

* Why Frank Jude left Thich Nhat Hanh’s order

If you enjoy the podcast, and would like to fuel more, please consider subscribing or buy me a coffee... All donations are greatly appreciated!

The Rest is Poetry – Lindsey Hilsum

Lyssna när som helst, var som helst

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