Classical Yogic Precepts

The yama and niyama as outlined in Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras offer behavioural guidelines for practitioners: ahiṃsā (nonviolence), satya (truthfulness), asteya (non-stealing), brahmacarya (right use of energy), aparigraha (non-grasping), śauca (cleanliness), saṃtoṣa (contentment), tapas (discipline), svādhyāya (self-study), and īśvarapraṇidhāna (surrender to what is greater). These are not moral commandments but practical orientations toward clarity and away from harm.

Yoga’s ethical foundations predate Patañjali. The yama and niyama appear in varied forms across the Upaniṣads, in Śiva and Tantric traditions, in Haṭha texts like the Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā, and in the oral teachings of living lineages. Each articulates the relationship between conduct and practice differently. Some emphasise renunciation, others integration. Some list five principles, others ten or more.

What endures is the recognition that consciousness shapes conduct. The familiar English translations, nonviolence, truthfulness, contentment, carry centuries of colonial and religious reinterpretation. The deeper inquiry concerns movement away from hiṃsā in all its forms, not only physical violence but the subtler violence of grasping, accumulation, and self-deception. These guidelines support the practitioner in becoming less entangled, more present, less harmful.

Yoga Australia does not prescribe a single ethical framework. We expect members to engage seriously with the traditions they teach and to conduct themselves with integrity, care, and respect.

We are here to ignite yoga around the country, to cast a bright light.

Yoga Australia publishes across articles, magazines, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and webinars, and we pursue the highest editorial standard across all of them.

We work from observation and announcement. We watch the sector, listen across membership, notice changes in yoga and adjacent modalities, in regulation, and the culture around us. When we something considered should be said, we say it well. We are proactive in publishing thoughtful, nuanced, educated material on the matters that concern the profession, and we are restrained in the surrounding chatter.

Member scholarship is an aspect of this, where qualified members publish books or studies that add to public or professional understanding of yoga, we consider features in the form of articles, interviews, and events, within our editorial standards and publishing schedule.

We stay out of party politics, religious debate, and cultural flashpoints unrelated to yoga. Where matters of public policy intersect directly with the profession, regulation of training, scope of practice, allied health recognition, mental health, women’s health, public access to yoga, we engage with substance and care.

We do not generally reshare posts that tag us, even when content is well-intentioned. While appreciated, the volume of tags we receive keeps growing, and resharing would expose us to perceived favouritism and endorsement. Members and contributors are welcome to tag us, but our channels are ours to curate.

Comments on Yoga Australia’s own posts are managed lightly. We respond to direct questions, correct factual errors, and otherwise let conversation run. We generally do not enter debates beneath our posts.

Any member, and anyone serving Yoga Australia, may propose a piece of content, an event, an article, or a mixed media resource. Every proposal is read and considered against the editorial themes, the publishing standards and the schedule, and a no says nothing about the worth of the work.

The policy and the proposal form are on the Content Contribution page.

Membership Obligations

Yoga Australia accepts members from all Australian states and territories. Applicants must disclose prior convictions, disciplinary proceedings, or pending complaints relating to their practice. Yoga Australia reserves the right to suspend or expel members in accordance with the Constitution.

Members are required to abide by the Yoga Australia Constitution and this Code of Professional Conduct, meet CPD requirements of 12 points (minimum 20 hours per year for Level 2 and 3), maintain current First Aid qualifications, and hold professional indemnity insurance ($2m) and public liability insurance ($10m). Recommended insurer is GSA Insurance.

Continuing Professional Development

The yogic path is one of perpetual learning. Continuing Professional Development reflects this commitment, keeping teachers current with evolving practices and evidence while deepening their own understanding. CPD is an opportunity to deliver better outcomes for clients. All members accrue 12 points each year (consisting of 20 hours for Level 2 and 3). Yoga Australia provides CPD Short Courses on the member platform, and members may also complete courses from external providers. Compulsory topics include mental health and cultural awareness. A committed personal practice is assumed.

Professional Conduct

The relationship between teacher and practitioner carries particular responsibility. In this context, “practitioner” includes those attending yoga classes, clinical clients, teacher trainees, and those being mentored. Respect means welcoming practitioners regardless of cultural background, age, gender identity, ethnicity, physical and mental abilities, sexual orientation, or religious beliefs. It means maintaining spaces that are safe, clean, and comfortable. It means listening, communicating honestly, and protecting privacy.

Consent and Physical Contact

Physical adjustments are common in yoga instruction, but they require care. Consent must be obtained before any physical contact, and it may be withdrawn at any time. A practitioner who declines touch owes no explanation. Teachers should remain attentive to non-verbal cues, provide clear methods to decline, and seek ongoing consent throughout the session.

Professional Boundaries

Context shapes what boundaries are appropriate. A drop-in community class differs from a long-term mentoring relationship or a therapeutic setting. Power dynamics are inherent in professional relationships, and teachers must be alert to them. Behaviour that harasses or exploits practitioners is unacceptable. Conflicts of interest should be declared and addressed. Where personal relationships develop, they should be navigated with transparency, mutual consent, and regard for the professional context.

Integrity and Conduct Towards Peers

Yoga professionals should represent the benefits of yoga honestly and fairly. They should respect copyright and acknowledge sources. The yoga community benefits when teachers speak respectfully of other traditions and health modalities. Public forums, including social media, require the same care as face-to-face interactions.

Public criticism of named Members, Training Providers, or organisations is the area to be most careful. A negative public comment about a named party can prejudice a complaint or grievance Yoga Australia might receive, expose the speaker and the organisation to defamation risk, and pre-empt processes better handled privately. If you have a concern about another teacher or provider, raise it with Yoga Australia or relevant authority directly rather than airing it publicly.

Claims and Representations

Yoga Australia professionals must not claim to cure or diagnose any medical condition, make claims about therapeutic benefits that cannot be substantiated, or advertise services beyond the scope of their yoga teaching qualifications.

Members should represent that yoga may assist, relieve, or improve certain conditions and promote general health and wellbeing. They should be familiar with the evidence base for yoga’s benefits and able to reference it when discussing yoga with clients, healthcare providers, and insurers.

Further reading:

• Yoga as Evidence-Based Health Intervention
• Balancing Tradition and Evidence-Based Practice
• Personal Engagement Online Policy

Yoga Australia’s scope of practice is grounded in three principles: the practices a teacher delivers are traceable to Indic yogic tradition, actively undertaken by the student, and oriented toward expanded awareness. A free Scope of Practice short course is available to all members.

A Yoga Australia registered professional is qualified to:

• Teach practices from the yogic tradition, including postures, breathing techniques, relaxation, and meditation
• Work with a variety of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health presentations
• Receive and provide referrals from other healthcare providers
• Contribute to multi-disciplinary teams when appropriate
• Be informed by diagnosis provided by professionals qualified to give it

Techniques from distinct modalities with their own training pathways, risk profiles, and professional standards fall outside the scope of yoga teaching, even where they share physical resemblance with yogic practices. A yoga teacher does not:

• Diagnose medical conditions
• Prescribe medication, nutritional supplements, or herbs unless separately qualified
• Advise on ceasing prescribed medication
• Perform invasive procedures
• Request or interpret diagnostic tests unless separately qualified
• Make misleading claims about yoga’s therapeutic capacities

Teachers refer to appropriately qualified health professionals where indicated.

Some yoga professionals hold additional qualifications, such as psychologist, physiotherapist, doctor, or naturopath, that permit extended scope of practice. Holding dual qualifications does not extend the scope of either; each is regulated by the codes and registering body of that discipline and must be practised within its own professional and insurance framework.

A yoga teacher carries a duty of care to the people who attend their classes. This is a legal and ethical obligation to take reasonable steps to avoid harm that can be foreseen, and it applies whether the class runs in a studio, a community hall, a workplace, online, or in a private session.

In practical terms, duty of care means anticipating and managing the risks that come with the setting and the practice. Surfaces, equipment, temperature, ventilation, accessibility, the suitability of a sequence for the people in the room, and the teacher’s own state of attention all sit inside this obligation. Where a hazard can be removed, it should be removed, and where a hazard remains, it should be reduced as far as is reasonably practicable.

Yoga teachers running their own businesses are also persons conducting a business or undertaking under Australian Work Health and Safety law. This carries specific duties: to maintain a safe workplace, to identify and control hazards, to consult with workers and clients on matters affecting their safety, and to keep records of risk assessments, incidents and injuries. Yoga Australia members hold professional indemnity and public liability insurance to cover the unforeseen, and insurance functions as a backstop alongside the ordinary care that prevents incidents in the first place.

A separate strand of duty of care applies when a student discloses concern for their own safety, or when a teacher has reasonable grounds to suspect a student is at risk. This covers students disclosing intent to harm themselves, students disclosing harm by another person, and students whose presentation in class raises serious concern for their wellbeing. Teachers are health professionals working within a specific scope, and that scope stops short of clinical assessment, but the obligation to respond stands. Teachers should listen, communicate plainly that the matter sits beyond yoga teaching, and refer the student to an appropriate professional, or in an emergency contact 000. The teacher’s role is to bridge the student to the right help.

Where a teacher works with children or vulnerable people, mandatory reporting obligations under state law apply. Members holding Working with Children or Vulnerable People checks should familiarise themselves with the reporting requirements in their state and act on them when triggered.

Duty of care is a working discipline as much as a legal one. It is the habit of looking ahead at what could go wrong, removing what can be removed, preparing for what remains, and responding plainly when a student needs more help than yoga teaching can offer.

The grievance process at Yoga Australia aims to address complaints in a manner that upholds professional integrity and fosters respect, confidentiality, goodwill, and equality.

This process is intended to assist participants of classes and courses to flag issues with the delivery of yoga classes and courses. This includes issues of quality and competency with respect to the Yoga Australia curriculum, matters relating to scope of practice, or breaches of the Code of Professional Conduct.

We cannot assist with criminal matters, violence, or abuse. Please call 000 in an emergency.

Matters relating to

• Contracts and employment can be sent to Fair Work Australia
• Business and consumer affairs, including misleading advertising, can be sent to the office of fair trading or consumer protection in your state
• Course titles and qualification matters can be sent to the National Training Complaints Hotline
• For private legal advice, we recommend Studio Legal

Yoga Australia does not take on commercial disputes, or matters the services above already handle.

Resolution

Before lodging a formal complaint with Yoga Australia, you should take reasonable measures to communicate with the respondent about the grievance, allow reasonable time for a response, and make reasonable efforts to understand the response and resolve the matter directly.

Yoga Australia will respond to complaints in a reasonable timeframe. Yoga Australia has discretion to engage or not engage with complaints based on available resources, legal remit, and the safety of staff and volunteers. Complaints alleging criminal behaviour may be referred to appropriate authorities.

Yoga Australia may notify the person who is the subject of the complaint so that all parties can participate in resolution. In some cases, Yoga Australia may advise that it cannot have a useful role and recommend other approaches.

Disciplinary Action

Disciplinary action, including suspension and expulsion, is governed by the Yoga Australia Constitution (3.7). The Board may take action for non-compliance with the Constitution, breaches of the Code of Professional Conduct, or conduct prejudicial to the Company. Members subject to disciplinary proceedings are informed of the grounds and given an opportunity to be heard before any decision is made.

We use computers to do our work, as does every organisation in the modern world. We write and edit with software, we store our records on servers run by large companies, and we depend on the internet for nearly everything we send and receive. Automation has been increasing in recent decades, from voice to text on phones to large scale data integration across large platforms. Technology once known as distributed networks and machine learning has come to be known as cloud computing and artificial intelligence. Ultimately computers, software, and networks help people turn data into useful information.

At Yoga Australia, we take a cautious approach without being obstinate. By and large we do not use chatbots, certainly not consumer grade or free offerings. We use coding tools to build secure in-house software to manage data, reducing the risk of plug-ins and cloud-hosted solutions that do not necessarily share our security rigour. Some of our content development is assisted by summarisation and transcription tools, but it is a light touch, as with image or video editing.

In a world of tech-sodden opportunism, we seek to be a light of humanity, increasing access to wisdom old and new. A laser-like focus is required to tread the line between luddite and gullible, and we are pleased that our governance frameworks steer us carefully. Questions about how we work with technology or your data can be sent to [email protected].

Voluntary Registration

Yoga professionals in Australia are not required by law to hold registration. Yoga Australia maintains voluntary registration standards to protect both the public and the integrity of yoga practice.

Arguments for voluntary registration include elevated professional standards, verification of credentials, networking opportunities, and access to professional development. Arguments against include additional costs, administrative burden, and division between registered and unregistered teachers.

Yoga Australia supports voluntary registration and continues to monitor the broader regulatory environment.

Institutional Conduct

Yoga Australia acknowledges that members of the yoga community in Australia and abroad have experienced abuse within institutions and from individual instructors. Yoga Australia is committed to ethical conduct and the protection of practitioners.

For information on institutional responses to abuse, see the findings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Case Study 21 examined practices at a yoga ashram in Australia. The findings and Yoga Australia’s public statements are available:

• Royal Commission Case Study 21: Findings and Recommendations
• Yoga Australia Public Statement (November 2022)
• Yoga Australia Public Statement (October 2019)