Episode 5: Joseph Selbie: Physics of God, Yogananda Influence, and Meditation Insights

The Midnight Academy

An enlightening exploration of how science and spirituality can harmoniously coexist. Discover how the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda, a pivotal spiritual leader, have deeply influenced individuals and significantly propelled the acceptance of yoga and meditation in the West.

In this episode, we also discuss the transformative dynamics of a guru-disciple relationship and clear popular misconceptions about meditation. Learn how meditation can drastically shift perceptions and experience through personal narrations and explore Yogananda's visionary ideology that has shaped successful spiritual communities worldwide.

Our guest, Joseph Selbie, unpacks the intricate connection between ancient spiritual wisdom and contemporary science. He shares insights about community living and highlights the possibility of unseen dimensions beyond our physical reality, as well as meditation techniques that can potentially transport practitioners to higher realities.

This episode is sure to intrigue those curious about the confluence of spirituality, community living, ancient wisdom, and modern science, and those interested in the transformative potential of meditation.

Guest:

Joseph Selbie enjoys making the complex and obscure simple and clear. He is the author of Break Through the Limits of the Brain, how neuroscience supports spiritual experience, The Physics of God, a unification of science and religion, and The Yugas, a factual look at India’s tradition of cyclical history. He is known for creating bridges of understanding between the modern evidenced-based discoveries of science and the timeless experience-based discoveries of the mystics. A dedicated Kriya yoga meditator for nearly fifty years, he has taught yoga, meditation, and universal experiential spirituality throughout the US and Europe.

In 1975 Joseph became a founding member of Ananda, a spiritual movement inspired by the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda, author of Autobiography of a Yogi. His role as teacher and minister, and decades of study under Swami Kriyananda, Ananda’s founder and direct disciple of Yogananda, gave him a deep dive into Eastern philosophy, meditation, and comparative religion. Joseph appears with Elizabeth Rohm in the 2014 Ananda docudrama, Finding Happiness, which showcases Ananda Village, one of the most successful spiritual communities in the world.

From a family of scientists and engineers, Joseph is a critical thinker grounded in fact-based approaches to discovery. He studied physics, chemistry, and microbiology at the University of Colorado. His presentations, classes, articles, and books have always blended science and spirituality.

Now retired, Joseph was a founder and the CEO of Tristream, an early pioneer in experience design for the web. He collaborated with Jakob Nielsen, a thought leader in experience design, to write Best Team Practices for Web Application Design and spoke at many Nielsen-Norman Group conferences in the United States and Europe. Tristream clients included Cisco, Logitech, Ariba/SAP, Manpower, Tektronix, and Wells Fargo.

Website: www.josephselbie.com

Email: [e-mail]

Amazon Links:

Break Through the Limits of the Brain

The Physics of God—Second Edition

The Yugas

Facebook:

Joseph Selbie—Author Page