This psychologist believes technology can be used to assist spiritual seekers.

photo by: Martin

When Jonathan Robinson contacted me about doing an interview for his new book, The Technology of Joy, my first reaction was — where’s the consciousness science in joy gadgets? But I dug a little deeper and discovered Jonathan to be an impressive author who’s serious about his pursuit of “joy,” spiritual enlightenment, and even psychokinesis:

Alex Tsakiris: I don’t think you can get to the ultimate goal by quickly saying, here are some meds that made me feel better for five minutes and I was able to get up off the couch. It’s great to get up off the couch and not feel stuck, and not feel depressed. But maybe looking deeper at what is the real meaning [and] purpose of life–maybe that’s ultimately a better way to treat the underlying cause than to treat the symptom of just how can I feel more joy right now? How can I feel better right now?

Jonathan Robinson: I agree with you that it’s always important to be seeking greater depth and truth. That’s one wing of a plane. The other wing of the plane is that you always be seeking some way to find peace and love as quickly and as easily as possible. So when you put those two wings together you can really fly. For people who just focus on feeling good, they have one very strong wing, and they don’t have the other wing that you mention which is seeking truth. If you have one wing of a plane that’s very strong and one wing that’s very weak, that plane flies around in circles and then crashes.

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Read Excerpts From Interview:

Jonathan Robinson: This is what everybody seemed to say: the purpose of life is to–and they really put it into two categories–number one, get to a point where you have found some peace and love within yourself; that you have a sense of the kingdom of heaven within, is what Jesus called it; or Buddha called your Buddha nature. You find some peace and love within yourself. Then from your foundation of peace and love go out and serve people in the world. You can’t give what you don’t have. So if you have no peace and love in your heart, it’s going to be very hard to be a good parent. It’s going to be very hard to be a good friend. So I see that what I’ve been doing is trying to find what are the best, most efficient ways for people to find this peace and love? And how can technology perhaps even help that so that people instead of meditating for 40 years in a cave, can use some gadget or something that they can find [peace and love] in 40 minutes rather than 40 years. That’s been an interest of mine because I think only if you change the quality of human beings and their experience will you create a better, more peaceful world.

Alex Tsakiris: So we have to develop this base of contentment, peace, joy, kind of [idea]. That’s what you’re saying.