Making a Dream a Reality

Two people with a big vision

Combining a passion for Hinduism, gardens and healing

Dandapani was born in Malaysia and is of Sri Lankan ancestry. He moved to Australia as a teenager and, after graduating university with a degree in Electrical Engineering, he left it all behind to become a Hindu monk under the guidance of one of Hinduism’s foremost spiritual leaders of our time, Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. For 10 years, he lived a life of serious personal discipline and training at his guru’s cloistered monastery in Hawaii. As a monk, he spent his free time working in the 50 acres of gardens at the monastery and developed his passion for plants.Today, he is a Hindu priest, international speaker and an entrepreneur living with his wife, Tatiana, in New York City.

Tatiana was born in Oregon to Russian Orthodox Christian refugee parents. Neither of her parents attended school beyond the eighth grade. She learned a strong work ethic as a child when around the age of five she, along with her siblings and cousins, were to put to work on the family berry farm during the summers in the poor farming town of Woodburn. She went on to attend Reed College in Portland on a scholarship and worked summers, weekends and holidays to make up the difference in her aid package. After graduating, she moved to New York City in 1998. She converted to Hinduism in 2006 and has since traveled to India on pilgrimage many times. Today, she is an entrepreneur, an Upledger and Barral Institute-trained cranio-sacral/manual therapist, and runs a busy private practice and holistic healthcare clinic in New York City.

tatiana-and-dandapani


Dandapani and Tatiana live in New York City and spend their free time designing and planning Siva Ashram. They travel to Costa Rica twice a year where they work 12-hour days alongside a small team of hard-working and dedicated locals to plant the thousands of trees and plants that will one day make up a botanical garden. This garden will feature local plants, exotic fruit trees, healing herbs and an organic food garden. They plan on opening the gardens to the public for tours once the gardens are complete.

Neither Tatiana or Dandapani come from wealth, and when they met neither of them had much money in their bank accounts. They both believe that people can manifest big dreams if they practice Gurudeva’s tools with a disciplined and methodical approach. They live in a humble apartment in Queens and, after living expenses, they put 100% of their earnings towards the creation of Siva Ashram. This is one example of what can be accomplished by two people who apply the tools consistently, stay focused and work hard to manifest their dreams.

Manifesting a Vision