Yoga Rahasya Teachers

Gustavo Plaza is an experienced yoga and orientalism teacher who has been devoted, for more than 30 years, to teaching around the world.

Founder of the Yoga Rahasya School and Method, Gustavo will bring you closer to yoga with a firm and solid teaching style, while also being kind and good-humoured.

His classes include various aspects of the tradition of yoga, such as Hatha Yoga (alignment-oriented practice), Pranayama, Meditation, Yoga Nidra, Philosophy and Metaphysics of Yoga.

Passionate about nature and a biologist by profession, Cintamani has been on the path of yoga for more than 20 years. She devotes herself fully to the Yoga philosophy of life inspired by her guide Andrei Ram, and studies Ayurvedic Therapy and Nutrition under Dr. Jorge Luis Berra and Lic. Rossana Molho.

She is a disciple of Sri Sadhu Maharaja and of Swami Veda Bharati, from whom she received direct guidance and initiation.

Her melodious voice is a gift of healing and inner awakening. A spiritual warrior connected to Mother Earth (Pachamama), her workshops are characterized by their clarity, objectivity and practical spirit.

Caridad Ponce is a ‘Yoga Rahasya Advance Certified Teacher’, with 22 years of personal practice and 16 years of teaching experience.

In her process and path, Caridad certified in the USA in Iyengar Yoga and Anusara, with continuous studies over several years.

She completed the Yoga Rahasya TTP program with master Gustavo Plaza, who has been her main guide and mentor for more than 10 years. In 2017 she travelled to India and the Himalayas together with Gustavo and the sangha, where she received initiation in the tradition of the masters of the Himalayas at the Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama.

She is the founder of Shantaya Centro de Yoga in Quito, Ecuador, and for 12 years has led this community with ongoing training in classes, workshops and retreats.

Caridad is a central part of the teaching faculty of the Yoga Rahasya Transformation Training Program.

She holds a master's degree in clinical nutrition from Favaloro University, Argentina, with a specialty in eating behaviour.

Wife, mother, friend and mentor, she enjoys life and her love of flamenco dancing, singing and mountain hiking.

Eka is a graphic designer with experience in audiovisual editing and post-production, editorial layout and teaching practice.

She has been a practitioner of hatha yoga since 2015 and a yoga instructor for children and adults since 2017.

Already a certified hatha yoga teacher for children, she met in Nicaragua the one who would later become her master, Gustavo Plaza (Arjuna). She has been a certified Yoga Rahasya teacher since 2021.

“I met Arjuna at a yoga retreat in Nicaragua in 2019. I really liked his way of teaching — firm, with a sense of humour and with love — but at that moment I did not understand the magnitude of his teaching. After that event, many difficult things happened in my life, and from there came the real need to deepen my practice, to find a deeper meaning in my life; I felt the real need for a guide on my path. Two years later Arjuna returned to Nicaragua and invited me, openly stating that I would go to Ecuador to do the Yoga Rahasya Transformation Training Program with him. That same year, almost miraculously, all the doors opened and the trip became possible.

Coming to Ecuador changed my life, it transformed me; I feel I cleansed so many things from the past in the process — it was a purification that allowed me to let go very lightly of things I had been holding on to.

Arjuna, Cintamani and Caridad welcomed me, embraced me (literally), and taught me with love and firmness, to develop in me the true practice of yoga, which today I place at the service of others and share in my classes”.

Alejandra Saavedra begins her approach to body work through art and dedicates 13 years in Argentina, Cuba and Ecuador to training and a career in contemporary dance, especially improvisation as a mechanism for expressing feelings and experiences.

That experience in body work leads her to train in pilates. She has been an instructor for 10 years of pre and post-natal pilates and pilates for injury recovery.

From 2019 to 2022 she devotes herself to the study and practice of Ayurveda and in 2021 she completes her training as a yoga teacher of Yoga Rahasya with master Gustavo Plaza.

Alejandra is a certified teacher of Yoga Rahasya and in her classes she incorporates the knowledge of the various disciplines she has practised, as well as the intuitive wisdom of art and dance, which gives her a unique and special style.

Sati Devi Dasi (Cecilia Angulo) holds a degree in early childhood education. Dedicated to theatre for 15 years, she is currently the art and education coordinator of Contrato Social por la Educación, focused on working through law for the right to quality education in rural and marginal urban areas. She has been a yoga practitioner since 2013.

A certified teacher of the Yoga Rahasya method, she is an active part of yoga trainings and offers courses, classes and workshops in the city of Quito, accompanying people in their discovery along this path.

“My encounter with Yoga Rahasya has been one of the most transformative and defining moments in my life. Some years ago I read that to have a spiritual path you need a master, a guide. That possibility seemed so distant then, but I continued in the search and refinement of my practice without a very clear path, until one day the possibility of doing the Yoga Rahasya Transformation Training Program appeared before me, and I did not hesitate for a second.

It was there that I realized that yoga is much more than postures, wellbeing or even good health: Yoga is union with God, Yoga is recognizing that we are Spirit and undertaking the path of return to the source.

Thanks to Arjuna, Cintamani Devi and Caridad I had the grace to deepen my knowledge and to long, with much more strength, to be able to transmit this message of love and transformation to the world.

Today I have a Master who accompanies me on this wonderful path beyond his physical presence and even beyond words; knowing that I have the joy of counting on this spiritual guidance is invaluable — I treasure my encounter with Arjuna always in my heart.”

Holding a degree in Tourism Administration and certified in pilates at Nesta / Espenser Institute and Balance Body, Cristina has practised yoga for more than a decade.

Yoga has been a pillar in her life to balance motherhood, work and free time.

After years of practice, study and preparation in classes, retreats, workshops and courses with Gustavo Plaza and Caridad Ponce, she made the decision to take the Yoga Rahasya Transformation Training Program teacher training.

Cristina is a certified Yoga Rahasya teacher and her classes are full of energy and charisma.

Also specialized in aerial yoga, she is currently pursuing advanced studies in therapeutic yoga.

She enjoys outdoor hiking, contact with nature and mountain biking.

Ana Luz began her path in meditation 11 years ago, during university, without a conscious search. After a leg fracture, she resumed the practice and discovered its transformative potential, which awakened in her a deeper search. She explored various currents and trainings, but felt that something essential was missing, so she decided to look for a master.

She thus came to Gustavo Plaza (Arjuna), with whom she completed her training, although at that time she was not seeking to become a yoga teacher, but to teach meditation. There, Ana Luz managed to integrate and make sense of everything she had learned, developing a clearer, more disciplined and deeper practice. She then understood that meditation and yoga are not separate paths, but one and the same way.

This process led her to found Estudio Yoga Light in Cumbayá, Quito. From there, now as Ambika Prakash, she shares the tradition of Yoga Rahasya, understanding yoga as a path of consciousness, spirituality and inner observation.