Tapas · the practice you promised

Keep the vow
you made.

YoTa is a companion for tapas — a promise to practise certain methods, every day, for as long as you swore it. It carries the whole sitting, names each method aloud, and keeps a record you can trust.

No account · no adverts · nothing leaves your phone

The Tapas list in YoTa: an Ashram practice, two crystallising tapas and a Hatha Yoga run

What a tapas is

A promise with a length to it

Tapas is the heat that comes of holding to something. In YoTa it is a commitment you write down: these methods, this long, beginning today. The app's whole work is to be exact about what you promised, and gentle about the rest.

The vow

Daily, or in variants that rotate, or on chosen weekdays, or every few days. Set the length — forty days, a hundred and eight, seven thousand two hundred — and YoTa holds you to exactly that.

The day

A practice at half past midnight belongs to the evening it began in. So the day does not turn at midnight — it turns at an hour you name, or at the sunrise where you are standing, worked out to the minute.

The record

Every sitting is written down: how long, which method, what was missed. A day practised away from the phone is entered by hand — in part, if it was only in part. Nothing is guessed at.

“A practice missed is a practice still to be made, not a bill.”

Miss a day and YoTa sets a recuperation outstanding — the sitting comes back around, to be made good when you can. Or choose a stricter road: no recuperations at all, and a single missed day ends the run.

Inside

Built for the sitting itself

Not a habit tracker with a flame on it. The practice happens in the app, from the moment you see what the day asks for to the silence after the last gong.

01

Your Tapas

A promise: these methods, every day, for as long as you swore it. Daily, in variants, on chosen weekdays or every few days — and YoTa holds you to it.

  • Seven kinds of commitment, from a daily tapas to an open-ended practice
  • Parallel method lists that rotate day by day
  • Special days that swap the whole practice for one day, then put it back
The Tapas list, with an Ashram practice, two crystallising tapas and a Hatha Yoga run

02

The Timer

It carries the whole sitting — the preparation, the method, the awareness after it — with gongs, interval bells, and a screen that can go out entirely.

  • Guided Mode walks you from one method to the next without a tap
  • Dozens of faces, from a bare number to a Metal-drawn planet
  • A Live Activity on the lock screen, so the time is there without waking the app
The YoTa timer counting down over a ringed planet drawn in Metal, on a starfield

03

What Today Asks For

Before you sit down, the day is already counted: how long each portion of the practice wants, what is still outstanding from before, and what is left.

  • The day's total time, always in the corner of the screen
  • Run several tapas in one sitting, in the order you choose
  • A week's quota that you fill at your own pace, not the calendar's
A tapas detail screen showing the day's portions, time outstanding from before, and the week's quota

04

A Record You Can Trust

Hours practised, by method and by kind. The longest day, the longest month, the average sitting — and a perseverance score that only the practice can move.

  • Every session logged with its method, its length and its date
  • Favourites, averages, streaks and the whole year at a glance
  • Export the lot to a file you keep — it is your record, not ours
The Statistics screen: total practice hours, favourite methods and averages

05

An Ashram of Tools

Beyond the vow itself there is a whole workshop — lectures, a journal, recipes, the sky, sleep, prayer. They stay out of the way until a practice earns them.

  • Modules unlock with the stamps your practice wins
  • Arrange your own tab bar; hide anything you do not use
  • Light and dark, with palettes you can set yourself
The Modules tab, with tiles for Recipes, Materials, Continence, Statistics, Stamps, Maha Vidya and the Tutorial

The heart of it

A timer you can practise in front of

Most of YoTa is written for the minutes when the phone should stop being a phone. The screen can dim to nothing, the face can be the only thing in the room, and the next method arrives on its own.

Full darkness

The screen goes out completely. One touch brings it back.

Interval bells

A bell every few minutes, to bring the mind back without ending anything.

Gongs

An opening and a closing sound for each method, chosen from a library.

A voice that guides

Each method named aloud as it begins. A woman's voice, a man's, or your own.

The awareness phase

A named minute after each method, for what it left behind.

Your own music

A method can bring its own piece, and take up where it left off.

And it need not look like a timer at all

Dozens of faces, from a bare number on white to a Metal-drawn planet turning on a starfield, a filling vessel, a flame that grows as the minutes go. One for the day and another for the night, if you like.

Beyond the vow

The practice opens more than it asks for

YoTa carries a whole ashram's worth of smaller tools. They stay out of the way until a practice is ready for them.

Methods
Revelations
Quotes
Statistics
Journal
Astro Days
Playlists
Mantra Quiz
Bucket
Super Sleep
Jala
Continence
Materials
Guardian Angel
Voice
Measurements
Reminders
Lectures
Work
Calendar
Astrology
Enneagram
Nitya
Rasayana
Grocery
Recipes
Stamps
Planned Practice
Vani
Maha Vidya

… and a good many more, each arriving when the practice is ready for it.

Voices

What people say

From practitioners who carry YoTa through their day.

Begin a tapas

YoTa is for iPhone. It asks for no account, shows no adverts and sends nothing anywhere — your practice stays on your own phone, and leaves it only in a backup file you make yourself.

iPhone · iOS 17.5 or later · version 0.9.3, currently in testing

Support

Written by one person

YoTa is written by one person and carried by the people who practise with it. If it has been worth something to you and you have the means, this keeps it on the phone and being developed further.

It is asked once and never insisted on. Nothing is counted, nothing is withheld from anybody who never gives, and every part of the app stays open either way.