I have several yoga teachers, and, likely, I always will.
Citta Vidya and Yoga Sutra, a Vedic Scholar and priest, Yoga Therapy Mentor. Each of them has given me something the others could not: a different depth, perspective, or way of illuminating the same tradition.
Studying with multiple yoga teachers has never created confusion for me. It has created greater clarity. But only because there has always been one thread holding those teachings together.
Yet I want to be precise about what having multiple teachers actually means, because I think this is one of the least discussed issues in yoga education today.
The difference between depth and confusion
Many serious yoga practitioners study with multiple teachers over the years. A teacher training here, workshop with a well-known name there, philosophy module from someone else. Perhaps a chanting course from someone else again. Each one, on its own, may be genuinely excellent.
And yet many of these same practitioners describe a persistent, low-grade confusion. A sense that something doesn’t quite hold together. That what one teacher emphasised seems to contradict what another taught quietly, that they have accumulated a great deal of information without a clear sense of how it fits into a whole.
Confusion is rarely a personal failing. More often, it’s a structural consequence of how many of us have been taught to study.
Having many teachers isn’t the problem. Having teachers whose teachings don’t agree with each other, without a shared foundation underneath holding them together, is.
The thread between my teachers
My teachers are aligned. One teacher may open a Yoga Sutra of Patanjali’s. Another refines the therapeutic application. Another unfolds a Vedic text. Different doorways, but they never lead to different destinations. They share a foundation, even where their individual gifts and emphases differ.
And there’s something else I do, which I think it’s so important: I tell each of my teachers who else I study with.
This isn’t a formality. It is how the thread between all my teachers stays clear. Each of my teachers knows the full picture of my study, not just their piece of it. If something I am learning from one source seems to sit awkwardly against something from another, I can ask. I can bring it to a teacher and ask whether it aligns with what another has taught.
This level of transparency requires a particular kind of relationship, one built on trust, accountability, and genuine respect between teachers, not competition for a student’s loyalty. In many ways, it has become my own form of gurukula, where the relationships between teachers are just as important as the teachings themselves.
Why this is important for the wider confusion in yoga
I think this is one of the least discussed reasons for the confusion we see in modern yoga.
We have more access to teachers than any previous generation. Online courses, international workshops, certifications from every tradition and lineage imaginable, all available within a few clicks. This access is, in many ways, a genuine gift. But it has also produced a generation of practitioners holding fragments of many different systems, with no underlying foundation to integrate them, and very often without even realising that this is what has happened.
The result is not always obvious confusion. Sometimes it shows up as a vague unease, a sense that something doesn’t quite add up, a difficulty answering a student’s question with real clarity, a feeling of having studied a great deal without arriving anywhere solid.
This isn’t a sign that the practitioner hasn’t worked hard enough. It’s often a sign that what they’ve studied was never designed to fit together in the first place.
Signs of Fragmented Study vs. Aligned Study
Most serious practitioners eventually study with more than one teacher. Over the years, I’ve noticed a few simple markers that distinguish aligned study from fragmented study.
Whether teachers know of one another, and whether a practitioner has ever brought what one taught to another, to ask if it aligns, is one marker. Whether teaching from different sources genuinely deepens the whole, or whether contradictions are quietly reconciled alone, without certainty that the reconciliation was correct, is another.
Whether there is a foundation, a lineage, a shared philosophical root, underneath what has been studied, or whether techniques and frameworks have been accumulated from sources that were never in conversation with each other, is a third.
None of this is meant to suggest that practitioners should study with only one teacher, or that breadth of study is itself a problem. The opposite is true. Many teachers, when they are rooted in the same tradition, are one of the great privileges of serious practice. It is how depth is built, not by repetition of a single voice, but by encountering the same truth from several genuinely different angles, each one illuminating something the others could not reach alone.
What holds it together is the thread.
Many teachers, one thread, creates depth. Many teachers, no shared foundation, is how serious practitioners lose the thread entirely, and very often blame themselves for a confusion that was never theirs to solve alone.
This is one of the principles that sits at the heart of the Tara Mitra Yoga Mentorship. We don’t simply bring together multiple mentors. We ensure that what each of us teaches is in genuine conversation with the others, so that every subject deepens the same underlying vision. Three mentors. One thread.
If you’re looking for a mentorship rooted in lineage, where every subject builds on the same philosophical foundation rather than competing with it, you can learn more about the September Tara Mitra Yoga Mentorship here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it better to study yoga with one teacher or multiple teachers?
There isn’t one correct answer. Many practitioners benefit from studying with several teachers. The key question is whether those teachers share a common philosophical foundation and whether their teachings deepen one another rather than compete.
Can studying with multiple yoga teachers create confusion?
It can. Confusion usually doesn’t arise from having many teachers, but from trying to integrate teachings that come from very different frameworks or lineages without understanding how they relate.
What is a yoga lineage, and why does it matter?
A lineage is more than a succession of teachers. It is a shared way of understanding and transmitting yoga. When teachers work from the same philosophical foundation, different perspectives tend to enrich rather than contradict one another.
How do I know if my yoga studies are aligned?
Ask yourself whether your teachers’ teachings support one another, whether you feel able to ask questions across what you’ve learned, and whether there is a consistent thread running through your study rather than a collection of disconnected techniques.
Why does the Tara Mitra Yoga Mentorship have three mentors?
Because yoga is too vast for one person to teach every aspect. Each mentor brings expertise in a different area, while sharing the same underlying philosophical foundation, allowing every subject to deepen the others rather than stand apart.
Tara Mitra is a C-IAYT certified yoga therapist and lineage teacher within the Krishnamacharya-Desikachar tradition with 23 years of practice and 17 years of teaching. She offers mentorship programs for advanced yoga teachers alongside Dr Vigneshwar Bhat (Vedic priest and scholar), and Dr Robert Lamport (Gonstead chiropractor). Her teaching draws on Patanjali’s Yoga Sūtras, yoga therapy, Vedic chanting and Āyurveda. Her work is rooted in the transmission of authentic Indic knowledge within a living lineage.
Mentorship, courses, and programs at taramitrayoga.com
