The Web and yoga make a nice match: yoga thrives on a spirit of ser­vice, and the Web wel­comes no-​​ (or low-​​) cost resources. After all, yoga’s sacred texts have been around for cen­turies, if not mil­len­nium, so the orig­i­nal copy­right has run out. I have listed these resources because they have been use­ful to me. The list is incom­plete, tran­si­tory and slanted towards the begin­ner. I plan on improv­ing the list grad­u­ally, but it will never be com­pre­hen­sive.

It’s hard to be con­sis­tent across all the clas­si­fi­ca­tion meth­ods used to lay out these resources. A resource site may also sell props, books and CDs. A yoga studio’s site might also serve as a spe­cific approach or a teacher train­ing pro­gram. An online store may also have ref­er­ence arti­cles. Hope­fully, my expla­na­tions will clar­ify and enrich the selection.

Note: I make spotty use of the acronym tag and title attribute to add clar­ity to some of the eso­teric terms that pre­dom­i­nate in yoga speak. San­skrit is the source of most yoga ter­mi­nol­ogy so lots of names are not of house­hold use. Just float your cur­sor over the under­scored text. I may also use an inline icon to draw atten­tion to addi­tional information.

Gen­eral

• Groups and Asso­ci­a­tions: Yoga Alliance ::: Amer­i­can Yoga Asso­ci­a­tion ::: US Yoga Association
• Georg Feuerstein’s Yoga Research and Edu­ca­tion Foundation
• Yoga Cen­tral
• Himalayan Insti­tute: an orga­ni­za­tion that pub­lishes books and a mag­a­zine, Yoga Inter­na­tional
• Heart of Yoga
• Clas­sic texts: Yoga Sutras of Patan­jali :::
• Paramhansa Yogananda’s Auto­bi­og­ra­phy of a Yogi influ­enced many West­ern­ers to adopt yoga. Also see his Self-​​Realization Fel­low­ship and the Wikipedia entry on the book.
• Ram Dass helped open the way for Hindu spir­i­tual think­ing in the States. Remem­ber, Be Here Now is a more mod­ern clas­sic, from the 1960s and 70s. Ram Dass was part of the Tim­o­thy Leary crowd, and switched from drugs to prana. He’s con­tin­ued to influ­ence the mind-​​body move­ment in the States ever since.

Yoga Por­tals

Sites have emerged that pro­vide ser­vices like studio/​teacher direc­to­ries, online forums, and resources, but they are also gen­er­at­ing cash flow by sell­ing yoga props, CDs, books and other mer­chan­dise. Those sites that are exclu­sively retail are on my Tracks page. I am also try­ing to sep­a­rate approaches and stu­dios to other sections.

• Yoga.com: a gen­eral resource site
• Yoga Basics – Tim­o­thy Bur­gin has a pol­ished site that is always adding new mate­r­ial. It has a pre­mium con­tent for a mod­est annual sub­scrip­tion fee ($25).
• Direc­to­ries: Yoga Direc­tory ::: Yoga Finder
• Yoga and Health
• San­tosha
• Online Yoga Learn­ing Cen­ter Has nearly 50 videos and audio files online for pay­ing mem­bers. Cau­tion: requires Inter­net Explore cuz the site’s nav­i­ga­tion chokes on other browsers.
• Yoga Site
• Yoga Point: a site sup­ported by Yoga Vidya Dham, an Indian organization
• Web Direc­to­ries: DMoz ::: Yahoo »» Yahoo Busi­ness :::  About.com