Recommended Reading / Watching

About Self-Realization Fellowship

• Awake – The Life of Yogananda (Sometimes available via public Library streaming services)
• Yogananda.org – Self-Realization Fellowship Website
• Yogoda Satsanga Society of India

Recommended Books

History of India

• India – A Short History – Andrew Robinson
• Argumentative Indian – Amartya Sen
• History of Ancient and Medieval India – Upinder Singh
• India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent – Audrey Truschke

Group Behavior

• The Culting of America – Daniella Mestyanek Young

American History

• Caste – The Origins of Our Discontents – Isabel Wilkerson

Scientific Thinking

• The Demon Haunted World – Science as a Candle in the Dark – Carl Sagan

Films & Videos

• World of Antiquity – Dr David Miano – All Videos on India
• The Middle Ages Around the World – Great Courses – Professor Joyce E. Salisbury

Recommended Articles

Understanding the current political climate in India

• By rewriting history, Hindu nationalists aim to assert their dominance over India – Reuters, 2018
• What is Hindutva, and what are the roots of this political movement? – Aljazeera, 2026
• Digging a Hindu State: Eroding autonomy of the Archaeological Survey of India – The Leaflet, 2026
• The Nazi Party is Analogous to India’s RSS – JusticeforAll.org
• Dr. Audrey Truschke Speaks on Hindu Supremacism & Threats to Academic Freedom in the United States
• Hindu Nationalism Reporting Guide – South Asia Scholar Activist Collective

“Jesus in India”

• Collected Works of Max Müller, Last Essays, The Alleged Sojourn of Christ in India, pages 170 – 183

Western Influence on Indian Identity

• Concept of Orientalism and the Formation of Indian Nationalist Identity: An Analytical Study, Dr. Santosh Kumar Singh
• Indian Traditions and the Western Imagination – Amartya Sen
• Hindu nationalism’s debt to colonialism – Sajjad Hassan
• From Orientalism to Nationalism: The reconfiguration of the Indian Self – Raju Sarder
• How Theosophy Changed Hinduism – Devdutt Pattanaik

Alternative Perspectives on Self-Realization Fellowship

• Swami Yogananda and the Self-Realization Fellowship: A Successful Hindu Countermission to the West – Christian Research Institute
• Cult Education Institute – Articles on SRF from 1999 to 2011
• A former Mt. Washington Resident’s Association called CANDER (Internet Archive)
• Yogananda Site – An informational website by a lay member of SRF
• World brotherhood colonies – A preview of Paramahansa Yogananda’s understudied vision for communities founded upon the principles of yoga – Miller, Christopher P.

Articles and blogs of former SRF Monastics

• The spiritual life of brahmachari marcelo Gangadhar – a Memorial article from a former SRF monastic for his friend Br. Marcelo
• Skeptic Meditations – Blog of a former SRF Monk