Joseph Marcello, a professional musician, composer and teacher, was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1947; he is the winner of the 1998 national Delius Award in music composition.

He has pursued the study and practice of the energy arts for over 35 years, being certified as a teacher of yoga since 1968 by Sachindra Kumar Majumdar, founder of the Yoga Institute of New York City. He has studied Tai Chi Chuan under its most famous exponent Cheng Man-ch’ing, Aikido in the Black Forest with Jacques Castermanne, Taoist Yoga with Mantak Chia, and Zhineng Qigong / Chi-Lel Qigong with Luke and Frank Chan, Collin Ricketts and Xiaoguang Jin.

He has been a student of comparative religion for most of his life, and has traveled widely in the exploration of paths to inner awakening, studying in Germany with Karlfried Graf von Durckheim, author of Hara, the Vital Center of Man, with Roy Eugene Davis and Donald Walters (Swa-mi Kriyananda), disciples of Paramhansa Yogananda and ministers of the Kriya Yoga tradition, with Indian teacher Vimala Thakar, Krishnamurti's only living spiritual heir, and with English sage D.E. Harding, author of On Having No Head and The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth.