Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami was born as Robert Walter Hansen in Oakland on Jan 5, 1927, and died in Kauai, the northernmost island of the Hawaii archipelago, in October 2001. He was orphaned at the early age of 11. In his youth, he learnt Western and Indian styles of dancing and soon became a successful professional dancer, performing for some time as the San Francisco Ballet’s premier danseur. It seems that he was deeply influenced by both his danc…