by Swami Yogananda & Brahmacharee Nerode
This is an historic statement of the meaning of Yogananda's teachings. The booklet itself is important for those who are interested in the history of the movement that culminated in the formation of the organization "Self-Realization Fellowship."
This 12th edition is co-written by Yogananda's new assistant whom Yogananda called Brahmacharee Nerode. Several years later at Nerode's request Yogananda agreed to call him simple Sri Nerode. This was a way for Sri to point out that he had a guru in India; the 'brahmacharee' designation had implied the inaccuracy that Yogananda was his guru.
Yogananda's remarks show that he wasn’t worried about ‘preserving the purity’ of his teachings. He obviously believed, and taught, that much more truth is waiting to be discovered by the adept practitioners of meditation than can ever be contained in writings, whether the Yogoda written teachings or the Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons (as the Yogoda correspondence course is now called). Yogananda’s teachings are an invitation to use the spiritual key to meditation that he had been sent to give. It’s up to each student to turn, through spiritual and meditative practice, that key in the lock of spiritual effort. “Do not accept blindly what I say; practice and prove for yourselves from your own experience.”
We are dedicated to publishing Sri Nerode's religious studies archive soon to be hosted at The University of California at Riverside in its Special Collections of the Rivera Library.
“GOD HAS SENT ME WORDS” This quotation is taken from a concluding poem in Nerode’s 1928 “On the Wings of Bliss” book of poems. It epitomizes Nerode’s selfless and generous approach to life. We are dedicated to publishing Sri Nerode's religious studies archive. The University of California at Riverside will house the archive in the its Special Collections of the Rivera Library. Digital versions will also be made available on the library’s website, so that anyone, anywhere in the world can consult them free of charge. The actual archive will be kept safely in storage, and physical copies can be made available to researchers who want to study them. An announcement will be forthcoming at the time of the UC Riverside Special Collections opening. This archive of Sri Nerode's writings offers spiritual guidance and practical insights into meditation and mindfulness, highlighting his Advaita belief that the guru resides within the devotee. For approximately five years Sri Nerode was an itinerant yogi evangelist and well-established mystic, traveling through Japan, Burma, Tibet before arriving in 1919 in America. After arrival in America he pursued graduate studies at Harvard and the University of California. In a handwritten note in the new archive Nerode notes that he chose not to finish his MA Sanskrit degree at Harvard when Swami Yogananda asked him to join his Yogoda efforts. May these offerings inspire you profoundly.
Mining Nerode's Teachings from the Archives of the Inner Culture East-West Magazine
by Donald Castellano-Hoyt
The writings of Nerode are the writings of a soul who sees all others, not as sinners but as fellow seekers. His writings are those of a tirtha maker, one who helps people cross over the rough waters of the ocean of spiritual delusion. To this end Self-Realization Fellowship announced in the March special edition of the 1937 Inner Culture magazine that Nerode had initiated more than 10,000 disciples into the technique of Self-Realization (p. 44). “He has done admirable work.”
by Sri Nerode
This earth of ours is a very very small, very tiny, yet beautifully flowery, grassy island floating on this measureless and mobile cosmos. Man will never travel from one end of the universe to the other. Besides, there are unnumbered universes that even astronomy will never peep into. Yet every intelligent person is born with a master in himself, in herself. This
master is fantastically one interconnected consciousness interweaving all that existed, exists or will ever exist.
Nobility and integrity are the supreme beauty of man’s world. To express them in their fullest bloom requires the utmost effort and perseverance.
Therefore in The Master in You it has been emphasized again and again in order to awaken this warm universal sensitivity in every individual. Once we are aroused to this root knowledge, everything else becomes an easy pursuit.
Open the door of the master in you, you will open the door to all things. This super confidence in self is true faith in the Universal Consciousness.
by Nirad R Chowdhury; Sri Nerode
by Sri Nerode