Roy Eugene Davis

Roy Eugene Davis (March 9, 1931 – March 27, 2019) was an American spiritual teacher and author who established the Georgia-based Center for Spiritual Awareness in 1972. Previously he had founded New Life Worldwide Inc. In 1967, he began publishing Truth Journal Magazine. By 1970 he had authored nine books.

Biography Born in Leavittsburg, Ohio, Davis became interested in yoga at a young age. He read the book Autobiography of a Yogi when he was 18 and was attracted to kriya yoga and the author, Paramahansa Yogananda, who he "knew was his guru". After studying lessons from Yogananda's Self-Realization Fellowship and graduating from high school, he met Yogananda in 1949 and joined the monastic students at Yogananda's Self-Realization Fellowship. In 1951, he was ordained by Paramahansa Yogananda. In 1952, he was "appointed Minister of the SRF Center in Phoenix, Arizona", teaching kriya yoga.

He left Self-Realization Fellowship in 1953 and served in the United States Army Medical Corps at Fort Riley. Following his military duty, he began his ministry as an independent spiritual teacher, founding New Life Worldwide in St. Petersburg, Florida. but some criticized him over the years, claiming that he did not have the authority to initiate people into the "secret" kriya yoga technique of Yogananda's lineage. He rejected these claims in his 1986 autobiography, God Has Given Us Every Good Thing.

He died on March 27, 2019, at the age of 88.