A student who kept returning to the source. A teacher who passes the ancient flame forward.
This is not a resume. It is a pilgrimage โ told in chapters.
Yoga found Vanessa before she fully understood what yoga was. Like many who are drawn to this path, it began as a physical practice โ breath, movement, stillness. But the stillness opened something deeper. A question arose that postures alone could not answer: Who am I, beyond this body and this mind? That question sent her on a journey that has never stopped.
In 2014, Vanessa traveled to Mysore, India โ the birthplace of Ashtanga Yoga and the home of Krishnamacharya's living lineage. There she found Sri B.N.S. Iyengar, one of the last direct disciples of Krishnamacharya himself โ the man who gave modern yoga to the world. To study with this teacher was to drink from the original source. She returned the following year. And the year after that. She has returned every year since.
Physical practice alone was not enough. Vanessa undertook formal classical study of the Bhagavad Gita and the Patanjali Yoga Sutras under Sanskrit scholar Mr. Sudheera in Mysore โ completing all three levels of the Yoga Sutras and the full Bhagavad Gita classical studies, including traditional chanting. These are not introductory courses. These are the foundational texts of the entire yogic tradition โ studied the way they were always meant to be studied: deeply, slowly, with a living teacher, in Sanskrit.
This knowledge lives in her bones now. When Vanessa speaks about Dharma, about Ahimsa, about Asteya โ she is speaking from years of immersion, not from a weekend workshop.
Playas del Coco drew Vanessa with its paradox: a place of extraordinary natural beauty and constant transience, where people arrive full of possibility but often leave without roots. She saw an opportunity โ not to build a yoga studio, but to build a sangha. A real community of practice, grounded in something that endures: ancient wisdom. What she brought from Mysore, she began to plant here โ in the soil of this beach town, among the people who stay.
The Spiritual Satsang began from a simple recognition: the most profound teachings of yoga are not in the postures โ they are in the philosophy. In the Yamas and Niyamas. In the Bhagavad Gita's conversation between a warrior and his God on the battlefield of life. These teachings belong to everyone, not just advanced practitioners. Every month, Vanessa opens a circle where this wisdom becomes a living conversation โ not a lecture, but a genuine exploration, together.
"The practice of yoga is not about becoming something. It is about remembering what you have always been."
Vanessa da Silva
The monthly Spiritual Satsang is open to all seekers โ in person in Coco or online from anywhere in the world.