Online Zoom Forum: Paramahansa Yogananda: The Spiritual Vision and Influence in His Life and Work.
Date: Wednesday 20 May 2026.
Time: 7pm-9pm (UK time).
Event Description:
Format: There will be five talks, each of 12 minutes, followed by discussion among the speakers and the chair, followed by Q & A.
Chair:
Prof Bashabi Fraser.
Bio: Bashabi Fraser CBE is an Indian-born Scottish academic, editor, translator, and writer. She is Professor Emerita of English Literature and Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University and and an Honorary Fellow of the Association of Literary Studies (ALS), Scotland, and a Royal Literary Fund Associate Fellow. She has authored and edited over 30 books, published several articles and chapters, both academic and creative and been widely anthologised as a poet.
She is co-founder and director of the Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies (ScoTs). Fraser specialises in postcolonial literature and theory. Her profile on the ScoTs website states that "Her research and writing reflect her interest in diasporic themes: the intermeshings of culture and identity, of dislocation and relocation, of belonging and otherness, of memory and nostalgia, of third space and hybridity and of conflicts and freedoms." She also specialises in Tagore Studies.
She is chief editor of 'Gitanjali and Beyond', an academic and creative peer-reviewed online journal brought out by ScoTs, and is on the editorial board of WritersMosaic, a platform for writers of colour which is an initiative of the Royal Literary Fund.
Fraser has been described as "chief ideator" of the Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library, an organisation made up of various creative individuals and formed in 2017 housed at Indian Council for Cultural Relations in Kolkata.
Fraser was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to education, culture and cultural integration in Scotland, in particular her projects linking Scotland and India. The Saltire Society named her an Outstanding Woman of Scotland in 2015.
Speakers:
Prof David J. Neumann:
Title: Balancing Yogananda’s Spiritual Legacy.
Description: I will attempt to evaluate Yogananda’s legacy by weighing his positive contributions with the less beneficial ones; each positive contribution will be paired with a converse weakness, in the spirit of Augustine’s observation that vices are often disordered virtues.
Virtues
I will focus on “translation,” his introducing Westerners to Hindu and yoga traditions by translating religious terms into Christian spiritual terms; “experience,” his focus on practice over dogma in his relentless insistence on the experience of God; and “narrative,” the enduring influence of the Autobiography of a Yogi as an inspiration to other seekers.
Vices
I will address “commercialization,” the ways that translating spiritual concepts sometimes meant cheapening them through market forces, including by denigrating the Christian “competition;" “dogma,” the ironic consequence that the focus on experience has often become prescriptive rather than open-ended; and “hagiography,” the way that Autobiography reinforced his efforts to place him (and his successors who imitated him) above mortals and thus beyond critique.
Bio: David J. Neumann (Ph.D., University of Southern California) is Professor of History Education at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona. His research explores transnationalism, American religion, the Cold War, and Southern California. His publications include Finding God through Yoga: Paramahansa Yogananda and Modern American Religion in a Global Age, articles in journals on history and on religion, and entries in multiple encyclopedias and handbooks. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Dr Kristalyn Marie Shefveland:
Title: Spiritual Lineage and Modern Adaptation: Paramahansa Yogananda, Kriya Yoga, and the Roots of Hot Yoga Culture.
Description: This presentation contextualizes Paramahansa Yogananda within the broader history of modern yoga’s transmission to the West, focusing on how his spiritual teachings influenced later physical practices. By examining themes of discipline, bodily endurance, purification, and spiritual focus in Yogananda’s work, the talk analyzes the emergence of hot yoga as part of a larger twentieth-century pattern of adaptation and reinterpretation. The presentation highlights how spiritual philosophies were translated into embodied practices that resonated with American cultural values of self-improvement and mastery.
Bio: Kristalyn Marie Shefveland, Ph.D., is a Professor of History at the University of Southern Indiana, a E-RYT 500HR Yoga Teacher, and a Kriya Yoga Initiate through the Self Realization Fellowship. Her work examines the transmission of yoga philosophy and practice into modern American contexts alongside scholarship on early America, Indigenous history, and historical memory. She integrates historical inquiry and embodied learning in teaching, public history, and yoga education.
Philip Goldberg:
Title: Life Lessons from the Life of Yogananda.
Description: Millions of lives have been changed for the better, and millions of seekers have found their footing on the spiritual path, thanks to Yogananda’s extraordinary body of work. But there is much to be learned from his human story as well—including details that he did not include in his iconic autobiography. Though he was a renunciate, an Indian, and of a different time in history, he can nevertheless serve as a role model to householders in the modern west. This presentation, by the author of a biography of Yogananda, will discuss key takeaways from the arc of the great teacher’s life as a stranger in a strange land with an extraordinary mission.
Bio: Philip Goldberg has been studying the world’s spiritual traditions for over 50 years, as a practitioner, teacher, and writer. His numerous books include: American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation, How Indian Spirituality Changed the West; The Life of Yogananda: The Story of the Yogi Who Became the First Modern Guru; Spiritual Practice for Crazy Times; and Karmic Relief: Harnessing the Laws of Cause and Effect for a Joyful, Meaningful Life. He hosts the Spirit Matters podcast, publishes frequently on his “Practical Spirituality” Substack, and serves on the board of the Association for Spiritual Integrity. His website is https://www.philipgoldberg.com/.
Rizwan Virk:
Title: Yogananda and Maya: The World is a Dream, a Movie, a Video Game.
Bio: A graduate of MIT and Stanford, Rizwan Virk is a successful entrepreneur, video game pioneer, film producer, venture capitalist, computer scientist and bestselling author. Virk is currently doing doctoral research at the Center for Science and the Imagination (CSI) and teaching classes on the Metaverse, Innovation and Simulation Theory at the College of Global Futures and the Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University.
His books include The Simulation Hypothesis, Startup Myths & Models: What You Won't Learn in Business School, Wisdom of a Yogi, The Simulated Multiverse, Treasure Hunt and Zen Entrepreneurship.
Dr Christopher Jain Miller:
Title: Playing Yoga’s Music: Singing, Instruments, and Sacred Sound in Swami Paramahansa Yogananda’s Sacred Cosmic Chants.
Description: Swami Paramahansa Yogananda brought kriya¯-yoga and sacred cosmic chants to the United States in the early twentieth century, transforming the lives of many, all the way into the present.
This presentation will consider Yogananda’s musical legacy and how he used music as a method of cross-cultural communication in order to convey his yogic message from India. We will encounter one of Yogananda’s prized instruments, the harmonium, and in doing so we will understand how his flexible sonic theology rooted in medieval Indian musicology made it possible for other instruments, including the ‘ukulele, to enter another Yogananda-inspired ensemble at a contemporary community called Polestar Gardens.
As we will see, the harmonium, the ‘ukulele, and really any instrument considered by practitioners to be effective can potentially initiate the process of listening for an internal, unstruck sound, found deep within during meditation.
Bio: Christopher Jain Miller, the co-founder and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Arihanta Institute, completed his PhD in the Study of Religion at the University of California, Davis. He is Professor of Jain and Yoga Studies at Arihanta Institute, Visiting Researcher at the University of Zürich’s Asien-Orient-Institut, and Professor of Engaged Jain Studies at Claremont School of Theology. Christopher's primary fields of research interest are Yoga Studies and Engaged Jain Studies, and he currently serves as the co-chair of the Yoga in Theory and Practice Unit at the American Academy of Religion as well as on the steering committees for the Dharma Academy of North America (DANAM) and the Yoga Darsana Yoga Sadhana conference. Christopher is the author of Embodying Transnational Yoga: Eating, Singing, and Breathing in Transformation (Routledge 2024) and the co-editor of Engaged Jainism: Critical and Constructive Studies of Jain Social Engagement (SUNY 2026) as well as Beacons of Dharma: Spiritual Exemplars for the Modern Age (Lexington 2020).
An archive recording will be made for the EICSP archive.
NB: There will be no refund if you cancel your booking.
Cost: By Paypal:
Contact: Neill Walker, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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