This book is intended as a resource for historians of the Self-Realization Magazine from its start in 1925 to 1975 (the year of completion of Yogananda’s Spiritual Interpretation of the Bhagavad-Gita). As a teaser about history, “AI” (artificial intelligence), cannot explain why Swami Yogananda is listed as S.G.Yogananda at the bottom of the October, 1932 TOC, nor as SGY on p. 14 (poem, “I Want Thee”) in that same issue. The "Giri" designation is a title for swamis (monks) belonging to one of the ten subdivisions of the Daśanāmi Sampradaya, a major Hindu monastic tradition. Usually it is placed at the end of the swami's spiritual name. The name translates to "mountain" in Sanskrit and signifies a renunciant's harmony with the vastness of nature.
The Table of Contents alone is invaluable with copious notes of various historic decisions made by SR magazine editors and the Fellowship throughout the 46 volumes published through these initial 50 years of publishing history. Those notes are emphasized in red color.
Occasionally in this guide the acronym SRM will be employed for Self-Realization Magazine. From its start by Swami Yogananda in 1925 the SRM has had different names, starting with East-West World Wide magazine (as discussed by Yoganandaji, “World Wide“ was suggested by Luther Burbank), then in 1932 Inner Culture replaced World Wide, so the magazine was titled East-West Inner Culture Magazine through April, 1934. The name then was reversed in May 1934 to Inner Culture East-West Magazine through late 1937. At that time it became Inner Culture the Magazine of India until April 1934 when the title changed to Inner Culture For Self-Realization. Then in the quarterly issue of July-September 1944 editor L.
V. Pratt announced that the name would revert permanently to its original East-West name. Even so in September 1948 East-West took a new name because, as it was announced, “the name East-West has not expressed fully the character of [the magazine‘s] purpose. . . we have found one that is suitable; that is Self-Realization.” The Self-Realization Magazine has been its name since then.
In 1963 (Index to Volume 34, 1962—63) the SRM started publishing an Index in the final issue of each Volume and these are herein included. This fifth edition adds notations of published but untabulated articles, quotations, poems, prayers, etc. in the original Table of Content material from the start of the magazine up to that 1963 Volume 34.
The SRM was published variously, whether monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, depending on finances. The Fall 1975 edition of the Self-Realization Magazine is the final issue included in this fifth edition; in that 1975 edition is the conclusion of Yogananda‘s Spiritual Interpretation of the Bhagavad-Gita.
In this book each magazine issue is represented by a photographic image of its Table of Contents (aka TOC). Several of the volumes referenced are ocr’d into document style (rather than an image TOC) by a Gujarati devotee of Yoganandaji; they have neither page numbers nor pictures. None-the-less the TOCs are employed here to compensate for those SRM issues where a full edition of the magazine is not available to the editor.