Sunday, December 5, 2010

American Self-Realization Fellowship guru dies

Spiritual leader Sri Daya Mata dies in US
(Sify/IANS, Dec. 1) American-born, female successor to Indian spiritual leader Paramahansa Yogananda, Sri Daya Mata (born Faye Wright), has passed away after heading the worldwide religious movement founded in 1920 for over half a century. She was 96.

One of the first women in modern history to head an international religious movement, Daya Mata who died Monday in Los Angeles served as president and sangha-mata ("community-mother") for the Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda Satsanga Society of India (SRF/YSS), founded by Yogananda, author of Autobiography of a Yogi.

Faye Wright was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on January 31, 1914. "Sri Daya Mata," as she came to be known, grew up in a Mormon family. Her grandfather, Abraham Reister Wright, was an architect of the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City and constructed a Tabernacle replica that now resides in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington.

In October 1931, at the age of 17, Faye Wright moved to Los Angeles and joined the Self-Realization Fellowship Monastic Order, according to a press release from the organization. More>>

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