Allegations of misconduct rock Sattva Yoga Academy in Rishikesh

A SafeHouse allegations page that went live on June 15 put Sattva Yoga Academy, the Rishikesh school built around Anand Mehrotra, under renewed scrutiny as four foreign women described misconduct that stretched across different years, countries and levels of involvement. Anand Mehrotra has denied the allegations.

The school’s own public materials say it was founded by Anand Mehrotra in Rishikesh and offers 200-, 300- and 500-hour yoga teacher training. It also says it welcomes students from more than 90 countries, a scale that helped turn the academy into one of Rishikesh’s best-known destinations for teacher trainings and drew thousands of students from around the world.

The allegations, gathered publicly on SafeHouse, describe recurring patterns of abuse, manipulation, retaliation and silence. SafeHouse has also said that numerous students and teachers associated with Sattva made their disaffiliation from Anand Mehrotra and the academy public on social media in recent weeks, a sign of how fast the fallout spread beyond one set of complaints. Former co-founder Siddhi Ellinghoven added to that rupture on June 18, when she posted that Sattva Yoga Academy is closed and cast the crisis as a question of leadership, collective responsibility and discernment in spiritual communities.

For students weighing a teacher training, retreat or guru-led school, this is the part to watch closely: who holds the power, how far that power reaches, and what happens when someone tries to push back. Founder-centric brands can feel intimate and transformative, but they also concentrate authority in one person’s orbit, especially when the school is selling access to authenticity, lineage and a tightly managed community.

The Sattva case also puts pressure on the quieter questions buyers often skip. Is there a clear complaint path that does not route back to the same inner circle? Are boundaries around sex, devotion and access spelled out in writing? Can credential claims be checked quickly, or does the school rely on mystique and momentum? In a setting that markets itself as a Himalayan tradition and pulls students from dozens of countries, those details matter as much as the asana room.

When a school built its name on scale and spiritual credibility starts producing public disaffiliations and allegations of silence, the homepage stops being the point. The real test is whether the institution can answer plain questions about power, boundaries and accountability before the next student arrives in Rishikesh.