Deepak is the founder of Sampoorna Yoga, Goa and Costa Rica. He founded Sampoorna in 2008 after taking part in a 10-days Vipassana meditation retreat in Sri Goenka Tradition. He has been practicing yoga for 30 years and has been teaching actively for the last 25 years. He has graduated more than 11,000 international yoga teachers till date.

Yoga has been part of his family for many generations. Be it his grandfather, father or his mother, they all have been spiritual seekers. Yoga started to become part of his life when he was merely 12 years old. It started when his father asked him to assist him in his yoga workshops. His role was to merely organise the yoga mats and supply ‘warm & salted’ water to the participants during yogic cleansing techniques. It was through the keen observation of his father’s teaching style and people’s gratitude towards his father’s efforts that inspired him to learn more about yoga.

His father was a renowned yoga teacher in his home town in central India. Although he was in a job, he used to conduct free yoga workshops for the locals quite often. His father was so passionate about helping people through yoga that he used to literally take loans to conduct his workshops. His both parents have been spiritual seekers and have been visiting their Guru’s ashram for decades. His mother follows the path of bhakti yoga.

Deepak’s journey as a yoga student started by assisting his father in the yoga workshops his father used to conduct for the local people in the town when he was merely 12 year old. He became truly inspired with the power of yoga when he saw the value his father was adding to people’s lives through yoga.

Although he had been reading various yogic texts on yoga and spirituality since the age of 15, his journey of real yoga had not begun yet. He went on to become an engineer and worked various jobs just like many others. It was, when he was 24, when his real journey of yoga began. It was when he was in Mumbai railway station waiting for his train with four hours in hand to kill. He decided to go out to look for a movie theatre but ended up buying the most respected book on yoga ever, the Bhagavad Gita. In a non-stop reading spree of the next 26 hours he had finished the 850-page book. The book and its teachings had a profound impact on him and he was not the same person anymore.

While still in his 9 to 5 job he started to study more and more spiritual texts, visiting spiritual ashrams, attending satsangs, practicing more yoga and meditation. At the same time he also started to teach yoga to his colleagues for free to help them. When he was 30 he left his job and went to an ashram for two years to study with his guru. It was in the ashram where it was revealed to him that yoga was his path.

Apart from his father, Deepak has studied with various Gurus like Swami Sivananda, Swami Satyananda, Swami Niranjanananda, Osho, Eknaath Eswaran and J Krishnamurty and has studied hundreds of spiritual texts.

Eli has been passionate about exercising, teaching and healthy lifestyle most of her life, which led her to study Clinical Psychology. While seen patients and teaching workshops, she realized that in order to achieve an optimum state of well-being, a more holistic approach is required, and she went on to become a Pilates Instructor, Reiki Master and Health Coach.

In her pursuit for a deeper understanding of the body and its functionality, she moved from Costa Rica –her homeland- to New York to expand her studies in Pilates. Once in USA, she reconnected with her personal yoga practice that ignited a desire to come to India, not only to study how to teach yoga but also how to live a more fulfilling life.

Eli traveled to India in 2014 and joined Sampoorna Yoga as a facilitator of the 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training Course. That experience was the non-return point. She felt in love with India and its culture, and she found her passion: teaching. In Sampoorna Yoga, she has taught almost all the topics of the syllabus and she is particularly passionate about functional anatomy, how different bodies express the asanas in different ways, and she is very keen on respecting everyone’s unique body and practice.

Today, she is a key member of the Sampoorna Yoga family. Along with Deepak, she has co-founded Sampoorna Yoga Costa Rica, while she continues teaching in English and Spanish courses, developing curriculum and content for new courses, managing and teaching Yin Yoga training courses, handling the online education platform, and overseeing different management responsibilities.

Yoga has changed her life, and she has made yoga her lifestyle.