Sri Daya Mata, led Self-Realization Fellowship

LOS ANGELES - Sri Daya Mata, a Mormon from Utah who became enchanted by a Hindu mystic as a teenager and went on to lead the Los Angeles-based Self-Realization Fellowship for 55 years, has died. She was 96.

The religious leader died Tuesday of natural causes at one of the fellowship's nuns' retreats in Los Angeles, where she had been living in seclusion, said spokeswoman Lauren Landress.

Daya Mata, whose name in Sanskrit means Mother of Compassion, was the third president of the Self-Realization Fellowship, a worldwide organization founded in 1920 by Indian yoga master Paramahansa Yogananda.

Dedicated to the harmony of all religions, the fellowship has more than 600 temples and meditation centers around the world, including its sprawling headquarters northeast of downtown L.A.

Daya Mata was known as a faithful interpreter of Yogananda's teachings. "She was trying to promote the image of her teacher and she did a rather good job," said J. Gordon Melton, author of the Encyclopedia of American Religions.

Melton, who met Daya Mata years ago, said she was one of the first female Hindu leaders and enjoyed unusual longevity in her position as spiritual and administrative head of the sect.

One of Daya Mata's most famous students was Elvis Presley, who met her in the 1960s. Presley read her book "Only Love" and kept it in his library, according to Fred L. Worth and Steve D. Tamerius in their book "Elvis: His Life from A to Z."

Born Faye Wright in Salt Lake City on Jan. 31, 1914, she was descended from a prominent Mormon family; her grandfather, Abraham Reister Wright Jr., helped design the historic Mormon Tabernacle in Utah.

But she apparently had spiritual yearnings that were not fulfilled by the teachings of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. She became fascinated with India after studying it in grammar school and resolved that she would visit it one day.

"I had a deep hunger for something more satisfying. I wanted something more than just going to church," she recalled in a 1995 interview with the Salt Lake Tribune.

In 1931, when she was 17, she attended a lecture on yoga in Salt Lake City given by Yogananda. She stood out among the 4,000 attendees because of bandages on her face, which was swollen and scarred from a blood disorder. Although Yogananda was not known as a healer, he placed his hands on her forehead and proclaimed her well. As Daya Mata often recounted later, her scars disappeared and she removed the bandages a week later.

She moved to Los Angeles later that year and became one of the fellowship's first nuns. Eventually she was joined in the fellowship by her mother, sister and two brothers.

A 1932 graduate of Franklin High School in the Highland Park neighborhood, she leaves no immediate survivors.