Subramuniyaswami Views

• General Goods

Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (1927–2001), also known as Gurudeva by his followers, was born in Oakland, California, on January 5, 1927, and adopted Saivism as a young man. He traveled to India and Sri Lanka where he received initiation from Yogaswami of Jaffna in 1949. In the 1970s he established a Hindu monastery in Kauai, Hawaii and founded the magazine Hinduism Today.[1]

In 1986, the World Religious Parliament in New Delhi honored him as one of the five Hindu spiritual leaders outside India who had most dynamically promoted Hinduism in the previous 25 years.[3] He became a spokesman for Hinduism at global gatherings, despite (directly) representing fewer then three million of the world's estimated one billion Hindus. His influence reflected the reach of his publications, including the approximately 30 books he wrote. He represented Hinduism at the Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders in Oxford in 1988, Moscow in 1990 and Rio de Janeiro in 1992.[3] The book Religious Leaders of America explained Subramuniyaswami's role as a pillar of orthodox Hinduism [3]

Sivaya Subramuniyaswami’s training in classical Eastern and Western dance and in the disciplines of yoga developed him into a dancer. He joined the San Francisco Ballet Company, becoming their danseur by age nineteen. At twenty years of age, he took the first ship to leave for India after World War II. He celebrated his twenty-first birthday just days before going ashore and walking through the grand Gateway to India in Mumbai.

Sivaya Subramuniyaswami spent almost three years on the island of Sri Lanka. Before meeting his guru, he studied with his fourth “catalyst” for a year and a half. Sivaya Subramuniyaswami just wanted to meditate, but his teacher made him work to help village people with reconstructing rural areas. Sivaya Subramuniyaswami visited and lived in many Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka. He was received by the monks there and saw how they lived and dressed. This experience influenced in a very strict way the monastic protocols that he later put into action in his own monastic order.