I've been practicing yoga since 2014, when I survived my first Bikram class and got hooked. I stayed with 90-minute hot yoga for years — the 26 & 2 sequence, the heat, the stillness of a packed studio. I still practice three times a week at CorePower Yoga in Fort Collins, Colorado. But the path that led me to build HYP Yoga didn't start on the mat. It started in my headphones.
I'd studied Western philosophy at ASU, then philosophy of mind and Eastern traditions at CSU — Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism. I already had the habit of sitting with difficult texts and letting them work on me. But when I started reading the Pradīpikā, something clicked differently. Its intense focus on haṭha yoga specifically resonated with what I already knew from practice. These weren't abstract metaphysics. They were instructions for the body and the breath, grounded in centuries of direct experience.
I didn't go looking at what else was out there. I didn't survey yoga apps or compare academic sites. I just knew what I wanted to exist — a place to study the Hatha Yoga Pradīpikā and the Yoga Sūtras that felt as beautiful and intentional as the texts themselves. I had such a clear picture of it in my head that competition never entered the equation.
I have no development background. I built HYP Yoga from the ground up, fueled by my passion for yoga and technology, and with the help of modern AI tools. What started as an experiment to amuse myself grew into something genuinely useful, and I thought others might appreciate it. So I kept going.
What HYP Yoga is
HYP Yoga is a free, ad-free platform for studying the Hatha Yoga Pradīpikā and Patañjali's Yoga Sūtras. The complete texts — all 389 verses and 196 sūtras — are freely available to everyone, with Sanskrit, IAST transliteration, and English translation for every verse. Audio of every verse, sūtra, and glossary term is included free.
Creating a free account opens the study tools that make it more than just a text reader: a Sanskrit glossary with 172 terms and inline QuickTerms definitions that explain Sanskrit as you encounter it, a personal journal for reflections, and Sparkmarks — emoji bookmarks that let you tag verses and sūtras with whatever meaning they hold for you.
And then there are the AI Companions.
Smart Journal and TapasAI
HYP Yoga isn't just a place to read — it's a place to reflect. The Smart Journal is where your study becomes personal. Write reflections on specific verses and sūtras, link entries to glossary terms, tag your thoughts, and share them with the community or keep them private. It's available to everyone with a free account.
Powering the journal is TapasAI — a persistent AI companion that knows the classical texts and your journal. It remembers your conversations, tracks your growth over time, and helps you set intentions for your practice. TapasAI draws on the classical yoga tradition and practical wisdom — warm but unflinching, compassionate but honest. It's the kind of practice partner who celebrates your consistency and gently names your avoidance patterns.
There are also two AI study companions for working directly with the texts: SwamiGPT, a classical scholar grounded in the commentary traditions, and DharmaGPT, a modern teacher who helps you apply ancient wisdom to daily practice. For Teachers, TapasAI integrates with AI Sparks — annotation tools that surface connections between your journal reflections, the classical texts, and scholarly sources.
None of these are chatbots. They're AI companions trained on the tradition, designed to deepen your study in ways that feel less like searching a database and more like learning alongside someone who knows the material deeply.
Why it's free
The core texts have been preserved and passed on for centuries — teacher to student, generation to generation. They deserve to be freely accessible. Putting them behind a paywall felt wrong.
So the texts, the glossary, the audio, the study tools, and access to the AI Companions are all free with a Starter account. No ads. No tracking beyond what's strictly necessary to keep the site running. No dark patterns trying to upsell you every time you open a verse.
There are paid tiers — Aspirant and Teacher — that go deeper: journal images, unlimited AI conversations, advanced annotation tools that surface connections between texts, and more. These exist to sustain the platform and to give serious practitioners tools that match the depth of their study. But the foundation is free, and it always will be.
What makes this different
I built what I wanted to use. That's the whole design philosophy. Every decision — the warm cream backgrounds, the gold accents, the elegant serif typography — was made to honor the texts, not to maximize engagement metrics. There are no algorithmic feeds, no notification badges, no streaks. Just the texts and the tools to study them.
The site is designed to feel like opening a beautiful book. HYP Yoga helps you understand what the classical texts actually say — and what they mean for your practice. That's what I was looking for, so that's what I built.
What's next
HYP Yoga is live today. The complete Hatha Yoga Pradīpikā and Yoga Sūtras are ready to study. The glossary, audio, journal, Sparkmarks, and AI Companions are all here.
What comes next is stability, security, and privacy — development worthy of the yogic texts that inspire it. An iOS app is on the horizon, along with many more features tailored to Teachers. The foundation is solid. Now it grows.
If you're a yoga teacher, I'd love for you to share this with your students. If you're a practitioner curious about the philosophy behind your practice, this was built for you.
Come study with me.