Gajananam is the director of the Vishnu-devananda Yoga Vedanta Center in Berkeley and teaches at the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center in San Francisco and the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Farm in Grass Valley.

The increased interest in spiritual practices and seeking inner peace in our society is a great blessing. Many spiritual disciplines are becoming more popular, moving from fringes to the "mainstream" of society. Just as each individual has his or her weaknesses, societies have their weak spots. Ours venerates individual freedom and expression, but lacks in the discipline necessary for sticking to a spiritual path.

Becoming a surgeon, an Olympic athlete or a classical violin soloist is coupled together with years of dedication, study, and sacrifice of other interests for the sake of success. The spiritual path is no different. When we do whatever we feel like, coasting downhill, everything seems easy. But as my master, Swami Vishnu-devananda used to say, once you take up a discipline you start peddling uphill; the muscles start aching; difficulties and doubts start assailing you; without abundant determination and perseverance, you won't make it to the top of the hill.

In Bill Moyer's series Healing and the Mind, a 90-year old Chinese doctor and Tai Chi master was portrayed. He practiced his discipline each morning in the park for over 70 years! He claimed that it took him 15 years just to experience the flow of the Chi or energy and thirty more to control it. If you study the lives of masters and saints, the vast majority of them have practiced tremendous self-discipline over extensive periods of time.

One of the major tasks in the spiritual path is quieting down and focusing the wandering mind (Yogis say that the mind is like a drunken monkey with its tail on fire!). Masters claim that sticking to a daily practice is absolutely necessary. This regular observation of the mind helps one understand it and control it over time. After practicing a spiritual discipline over months, years and decades, one naturally matures and begins to enjoy the inner peace resulting from his or her efforts.

The term "Spiritual path" is used since a path takes you to a certain place if you tread it. One who wanders here and there may end up going in circles or at a random destination.

Many of us try one spiritual discipline for sometime, then another, another, a few more, and never go deep enough in one in order to experience the depth of spirituality! It has become acceptable to take different initiations, be a yogi for a year, then take up Kabala for sometime, dabble in Zen, and then follow some new, innovative teaching for a while. Our Master would say that when starting a spiritual practice, all seems nice and easy – just like falling in love! He'd say -- Oh, I can practice these Asanas and feel so good; these chants are so beautiful; the teacher is an angel. But... our self-created negative qualities start getting in the way, and... this system isn't right for me; I'm tired of this same thing each day; this teacher is too loud, too arrogant, doesn't understand me, but that other one, she looks so calm and saintly -- let me go there... Isn't the grass greener? The mind always wants something new, different, innovative. This is the path of individuality. We become slaves of our likes, dislikes and whims. We free ourselves though surrender to a teacher or discipline (hence the term "disciple").

Swami Satchidananda, one of H.H. Swami Sivananda's disciples, used to say "Today you give me the Guru-dom and tomorrow you call me Dumb-Guru!" Swami Sivananda would say "Love little, but love long." Thus, the serious aspirant will keep plodding on, through thick and thin, daily observing and analyzing his or herself in order to root out the inner negativities. S/he will think a dozen times before taking on a spiritual path, initiation or Guru, and then a thousand times before leaving.

Some wonderful seeds of spirituality have been scattered in the West by the compassionate masters of the East. Sprouts have been popping up. As aspirants, it is our job, actually our duty, to tend these seedlings properly, just as these great masters have taught and demonstrated, so that they too may grow into fruit bearing trees.