Self-Realization Fellowship Blog

A New Direction for Self-Realization Magazine

May 04, 2021

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A New Direction for Self-Realization Magazine

Almost one hundred years ago, Paramahansa Yogananda inaugurated Self-Realization magazine, one of the first periodicals with widespread circulation in the West to present the profound philosophy and teachings of Yoga, India’s ancient science of uniting the soul with Spirit. When Paramahansaji first introduced the magazine in 1925, as a means of providing regular contact with the thousands of students from his classes across America, he stated, “I will talk to you all through the columns of this magazine.” For close to a century this periodical of spiritual living has served to introduce readers to the timeless universal truths he was ordained by his gurus to spread worldwide—helping many thousands to understand that they could put into practice the time-tested principles and techniques of Yoga to transform their lives and attain direct personal experience of God.

Looking ahead, we want to share with you our plans for the next phase in the evolution of Self-Realization magazine. These directly relate to recent milestones in the dissemination of Paramahansa Yogananda’s teachings of Kriya Yoga. In 2019 Self-Realization Fellowship launched the complete and enhanced edition of the SRF Lessons, which includes the most in-depth presentation of Paramahansaji’s teachings and techniques ever published, drawing extensively from the totality of his more than thirty years of writing, lecturing, and personal instruction to devotees. After the release of the basic series of Lessons, the new Kriya Yoga series of Lessons was launched, followed by the Supplement Lessons series, which includes presentations on a multitude of key subjects and will continue for several years. And soon we will be launching the Advanced Lessons (available to Kriyabans), and the weekly Satsanga With Paramahansa Yogananda series, providing SRF students with an additional lifelong source of guidance and instruction.

Throughout the past year Self-Realization Fellowship has also offered an increasing amount of inspirational and instructional content in digital form, including:

  • Weekly videos of inspirational talks with guided meditations, featuring beloved teachers from past years such as Sri Daya Mata, Sri Mrinalini Mata, Brother Anandamoy, and others, in addition to current SRF ministers;
  • Talks, meditations, and timely messages from SRF/YSS President Brother Chidananda;
  • Our first fully online SRF World Convocation;
  • An Online Meditation Center with a full schedule of daily group meditations;
  • A greatly expanded website with inspirational blog posts on many subjects;
  • A full-featured digital app for studying the SRF Lessons, to be expanded with many additional tools and content later this year;
  • And much more.

The response of thousands of seekers to the new SRF Lessons and our online programs — SRF students and those discovering SRF for the first time — has been extremely positive, with many attesting to the transformative power of Paramahansaji’s teachings and their timely relevance to the ubiquitous challenges in today’s world. Many have commented that having this broad spectrum of offerings has helped them to experience in a greater way the global spiritual community and fellowship that Paramahansaji envisioned for SRF.

Through all these programs, the flow of inspiration that began modestly with publication of the first issue of our magazine in 1925 has expanded exponentially, making the wisdom and inspiration of Paramahansaji’s teachings accessible to seekers on an unprecedented scale, far beyond what was possible when he inaugurated the magazine.

A New Annual Print Issue for
Self-Realization Magazine

In connection with these recently expanded presentations of Paramahansa Yogananda’s teachings, we have taken a fresh look at how Self-Realization magazine can best continue to fulfill its role, complementing the SRF Lessons and our array of online offerings. In the past couple of decades our world has seen huge changes in the way information and instruction is published and distributed to worldwide audiences. And Self-Realization Fellowship has evolved and benefitted from this in many ways. This brings us to our plans for the magazine.

Starting immediately, we are reducing the frequency of the printed magazine while continuing to expand our online offerings of inspiring multimedia content. We have created a Self-Realization magazine section of the SRF website. In addition, beginning this year, a special end-of-the year large-format printed issue of Self-Realization will be published annually before Christmas, replacing the current quarterly issues. These annual printed issues of Self-Realization magazine will include previously unpublished inspiration from Paramahansa Yogananda, as well as articles by current and past SRF presidents. In addition, articles by other authors will provide a broad offering of inspiration and practical how-to-live guidance; and there will also be news coverage of notable SRF events of the year.

We hope that our readers will eagerly look forward to these special annual issues; and at the same time, that this change will allow SRF students to have more time to focus upon and absorb the priceless material that is now coming through the Supplement Lessons and other Lessons series, much of which has never been published before. (Find out more about the SRF Lessons.)

The 2021 annual issue, to be published in December of this year, will be the next printed issue. In the meantime, we invite readers to enjoy the new Self-Realization magazine web page with its sampling of past articles and audio talks from the magazine, as well as a “Letters to SRF” section.

If you have not signed up to receive SRF’s monthly newsletters by email, we encourage you to do so on our website. Much new inspirational material is featured in each edition, sent to thousands worldwide.

Later this year we also will be inaugurating a special online library of many years of selected inspirational content from past issues of the magazine. It will include hundreds of pages of material from Paramahansa Yogananda, Sri Daya Mata, and other favorite authors whose words were eagerly absorbed by past Self-Realization magazine readers—as well as rare photos and SRF news (now SRF history!). This exceptional wisdom-resource will reside on the SRF website and be accessible to all who subscribe to the annual print edition. In addition, audio streams of all the magazine CDs will be available—with unlimited listening online.

Soon we will be posting on our Self-Realization magazine webpage more information about how to subscribe to Self-Realization to receive the annual print issue (which will also be available in digital format) and access the online library of past articles and audio talks from the magazine. In the meantime, you can access several free articles and audio talks on the magazine’s page, and if you would like to purchase still available previous print issues of the magazine you can do so on our bookstore at the link below. We look forward to continuing on this journey with you as you enjoy anew — or for the first time — this seminal magazine created to bring India’s spiritual wisdom and Paramahansa Yogananda’s unique voice and practical teachings directly to you.

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