Her lawyer declined to say whether Ms. Baughn ever reported any of these accusations to the police, but she did speak with senior teachers at his Los Angeles-based Yoga College of India. “Sarah wants whatever justice the jury decides so that this never happens again — that’s her primary goal,” Ms. Hagebols said.

Neither Mr. Choudhury nor his wife, Rajashree, who is also being sued for her role in running the business and the teacher training program, could be reached for comment. But a spokeswoman for USA Yoga said the group was confident that the court would determine the truth.

“In the interim,” said the spokeswoman, Rachel Golden, “we believe it is vitally important to continue to support the millions of devoted yoga practitioners around the world in reaping the benefits of their practice.”

Reporting Mr. Choudhury’s behavior to the senior teachers did little good, Ms. Baughn says in the suit. They promised that he was harmless and “innocent, like a child,” she said. Ms. Baughn said she was told that she needed to “separate the man from the teacher” and understand that powerful men were often flirtatious.

“Vulnerability and devotion are big parts of the practice,” said Benjamin Lorr, the author of the memoir “Hellbent: Obsession, Pain, and the Search for Something like Transcendence in Competitive Yoga.” “Bikram creates this mentality that the outside is phony. There is no path but this path, and everything that happens in this path is just a part of your yoga, that you have to learn to be strong and get past it.”

Considered a guru to celebrities like Madonna, George Clooney and Jennifer Aniston, Mr. Choudhury wears a Speedo while presiding over teacher trainings that cost $11,000. Over 300 would-be teachers practice three hours of yoga per day in a sweltering hotel conference room. They also study anatomy, Hindu philosophy and Bikram’s views on life, love and ethics.