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Enlightenment Journal | Summer 2017

We are divine beings. We are whole, we are complete. We are enough. Nothing is 

missing. We simply need to realize and actualize that. It is our destiny to wake up 

and when we do, our life changes forever, for good. 
From Self-Alienation to Self-Realization

I had never heard of him. A friend invited me to hear his lecture. I didn’t know 

who Roy Eugene Davis was, or who Paramahansa Yogananda was. I didn’t know 

what Kriya Yoga was, or Vedanta, or enlightenment, for that matter. But when he 

spoke, my heart, my soul, recognized the teaching, and the teacher, immediately. 

I didn’t know what to call it, or him, or what to think of any of it, but I recognized 

it. It was familiar. 

It simply took a little time for the rest of me to catch up to what my heart 

remembered. It took time for my mental fog and egotistical resistance to clear up. 

But what I experienced at that first encounter was a deep resonance with what I 

knew to be true. I thought he was speaking directly to me. He answered my ques-

tions without me having to verbalize them. It was mental and spiritual  

attunement. 

Roy Eugene Davis described his meeting with Paramahansa Yogananda in a 

similar way: As I read Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi in the 

spring of 1949, I immediately recognized that he was my guru and the Kriya Yoga 

tradition was my spiritual path. When I met him at the Self-Realization head-

quarters early in the evening of December 23 of that year, a mental and spiritual 

connection was immediately evident. I didn’t have to wonder if I was where I 

should be in the Cosmic Order; being with him was familiar and natural. I found 

my spiritual home.

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My meeting with Mr. Davis cleared up the same issue. I didn’t have to wonder 

if I was where I should be in life. I was on the path of divine remembrance. I had 

begun the journey that would take me from Self-alienation to Self-realization—

from the experience of not knowing where (or if) God was, to discovering that 

God dwells within me as me. 

When I think of my beloved teacher today, I am grateful for many things but 

most of all for his steadfast dedication that made that meeting possible. 
Your Divine Life is Waiting for You

I have tried for years to explain what it was that I experienced when I first met 

him. My heart was stirred with divine remembrance. I felt he was speaking to 

my heart. I have described it as “attunement” or “transmission”– a mental and 

spiritual connection that allowed a deep listening to occur, beyond the actual 

words spoken.