We Need to Talk About Non-Stealing, or Asteya, in Online Yoga

In yoga, we speak a lot about ahimsa, the concept of non-violence. We talk less about its quieter sibling, asteya, the practice of non-stealing. But in the contemporary yoga world, especially online, the latter teaching has ample applications.

Traditionally, asteya is described as not taking what is not freely given. Stealing pertains not only to physical things. It is taking time. Taking ideas. Taking labor. Taking credit. Taking content.

It shows up in ample ways in the online yoga space. Specifically, when someone reposts your words or rebrands your method or your reel as their own without credit. When teachers are asked to create online content “for exposure” and without compensation. When studios request recorded classes, workshops, or teacher trainings that they can repeatedly sell without payment beyond the usual single-usage rate. When a community-centered offering is observed, copied, and then replicated for private profit with no acknowledgment or reciprocity.

I remember the first time a studio asked me to record a portion of their yoga teacher training. I requested a licensing agreement to ensure that the material that I had spent thousands of dollars learning and decades cultivating would not be reused or sold beyond that cohort without fair compensation. The request was refused and the work was asked of another teacher instead.

That moment clarified something for me. Asking for ethical exchange in yoga spaces is often treated as disruption rather than alignment. Yet none of this is aligned with yoga.

I want to acknowledge the complexity here. Yoga itself has been taken, diluted, and repackaged by the West. That history matters, and it should humble us. There is also a long history of theft in the West, particularly from communities of color, from women, and from marginalized groups. Yoga is no stranger to this pattern. But this should not excuse us from practicing ethical restraint with one another. If anything, history calls us to a higher standard of care.

When we ask someone to give their labor without fair exchange, we are asking them to subsidize our business or platform with their years of training and their unseen emotional labor. It is about taking energy, time, creativity, and trust. That is not collaboration. That is extraction.

This includes seeing an online post, a course, or a method you admire and quietly repackaging it as your own. Although there are rarely entirely new ideas anymore, I believe in crediting who we learn from and what inspires us. Social media is no longer just a place to connect with friends. It is a place where people build businesses and earn their income. That reality requires an ethical bar.

What is especially hypocritical  is when this happens inside spaces that speak the language of community, healing, and collective liberation. When someone builds something generous and meaningful, and another person quietly lifts it to serve only their own benefit, something sacred is being violated.

If we are serious about asteya, we have to ask challenging questions. Are we crediting sources and honoring intellectual lineage? Are we asking for labor under the guise of “opportunity”? Are we compensating teachers fairly for digital content that generates ongoing income? Are we building wealth only for institutions or for the humans who make the sharing of this practice possible?

Honoring asteya in the yoga community means choosing reciprocity over convenience. It means paying people when they create value. It means asking consent before sharing or repurposing someone’s work. It means naming your teachers. It means slowing down long enough to consider whether or not your success is coming at someone else’s expense.

We own nothing in yoga. And we are responsible for everything we do with it.

Asteya asks us to remember that what we are really protecting is not content. It is dignity. It is trust. It is the care that makes the community what it is.