Towards the end of my vacation in Mexico, I had a dream. Thoughts of home and the many duties and commitments awaiting me had begun to intrude on a relaxed routine I was reluctant to end.  

I had woken up early, too early to get up, and fallen asleep again. When this happens I often have tortuous dreams where I face one frustration after another. In this dream I was preparing a meal for three children but had forgotten one essential ingredient so went in search of it. After many obstacles I found it only to leave unintentionally without paying. When I realised this I decided to return and take care of this oversight, but in the nature of such dreams more obstacles stood in my way. Eventually, I made some headway and arrived at a fork in the road not knowing which road led to my destination. There is a bus stop but I don't know which bus to take.

 There are three youths standing there talking and I ask them where these roads lead, but they do not know. Then I spot a man I know; moreover I know that he knows the way to where I want to go. He has a motorcycle and I wonder if he will take me because I am running very late and am concerned for these three children whom I have left alone and hungry. I am not sure he will take me, but set about trying to persuade him. Just as I begin to think I am getting somewhere, I wake up - frustrated. I would have liked to complete that quest, but dreams rarely work that way. They merely, if you can unravel the symbolism, give you clues about making the journey. You still have to wake up and take the necessary steps!  

 The late Yogi Berra was an accomplished baseball player who coined many simplistic observations. One of them is: When you come to a fork in the road, take it!  Swami Radha was fond of pointing out that if you have no particular destination in mind then it doesn't matter which fork you take. In my dream I did have a destination but was constantly thwarted in my attempts to get there.

 The day before this dream I had finished reading a novel in which the main character, a Scotland Yard detective inspector, had almost lost the woman he loved because of a series of hurdles in his way. By the skin of his teeth he prevailed, but I thought the situation was contrived and the novelist's concept irritated me. I did not believe that so intelligent a character would have been so foolish as to leave himself so vulnerable so unnecessarily. There was much he could have done to avoid the cliffhanger with which the writer chose to end her novel. He encountered hindrance after hindrance as he hastened to meet and propose to the woman he loved before she boarded a train which would take her away from him for ever. It was not the fact that obstacles arose which bothered me, this is the nature of life; but for such an pivotal event in his personal life he had left so much to chance. The book deserved a more polished finale.

Of course, this is the stuff of many myths as heroes and heroines, gods and goddesses tempt and wrestle with the fates. 

In my dream sequence, finding myself at this fork in the road and at an impasse, I acted reasonably. First of all, I looked for someone who could point me in the right direction. When the first people I approached turned out to be ignorant, I looked elsewhere. Spotting someone who could guide me in the direction I wanted to go, I attempted to enlist his help. Even better, this man had a vehicle would could be used for the journey. 

I was in India in December 2004 for Geeta Iyengar's sixtieth birthday course which she entitled Yog-sadhana. At the start of the course she spoke about her choice of subject, and how the whole of her life has been yoga sadhana.

As she told us: “When the time allows I practise. If life demands something else as a responsibility, I give myself for that.” Geeta had suffered a severe injury during the preceding year which handicapped her enormously  but “still the sadhana has to continue.” And to emphasise the importance of perseverance in the face of obstacles she repeated these words: “Still the sadhana has to continue.”

For all of us, whatever difficulties, whatever unfortunate or unforeseen situations arise, if we are committed to yoga, the sadhana has to continue.  At each fork in the road we have to ask ourselves: which one will bring me closer to the light?

The beauty is that if we choose the wrong fork and it takes us away from the light, we can still profit from this experience. The opportunity to learn, the opportunity to grow, the opportunity to evolve is ever-present. Certainly some choices slow us down; but, if we learn from them, the journey will not have been wasted. This winter, in the library at the Institute in Pune, I read a comment of Guruji that the term ‘spiritual path' is a misnomer, because the spiritual path is everywhere.

In today's yoga world with its trivialisation of the ancient teachings, the ability to physically perform complex asanas has become confused with advancement in yoga. An adept may or may not be advanced, depending on their general spiritual development: their state of mind, the sensitivity of their skin, the flow of their breath, the purpose and nature of their asana practice, and above all, how it affects their sadhana. Beyond the exquisite form of an advanced asana performed by B.K.S. Iyengar, he is in communion with his self, his soul. Antaratma sadhana or the innermost spiritual quest is at the heart of each asana Guruji performs. Similarly Geeta, despite her current physical limitations, has maintained a level of sadhana far beyond the grasp of most yoga practitioners.

In her opening remarks at her birthday course Geeta stated: “Sadhana is not merely just the practice, though in English we translate it as practice. If some injury takes place you cannot help that, but still one can build up the very sadhana in this manner, knowing one's limitations. In that limitation I have tried all of my life to come to a certain level.” In her youth, Geeta was blessed with a level of expertise in asana which few have attained. With this stripped away from her, humbly she continued her practice and deepened her sadhana. For the discerning and determined student of yoga. Nothing will interfere with this pursuit.

We need to gravitate towards inner improvement, inner evolution, and heed Geeta's warning that practice can remain on the surface level. She urged us to follow our inner inclination to go deeper inside “to reach the very soul”. 

Since my return from this visit to Pune, I have been doing a great deal of reflection on my own sadhana which no doubt led to this dream. Try as I do, I have difficulty sustaining the right balance between practising, teaching, writing, travelling. In addition there are a myriad number of details to attend to in order to maintain an environment conducive to yoga sadhana. Somewhere that is well organised and pleasant to live in, quiet and spacious enough to practise asana and pranayama, but at the same time able to welcome my children and absorb the energy of my grandchildren whenever they are able to visit.

The sadhana I follow is the path of a householder. When I began my yogic journey I was a householder with three very young children. My husband was in single handed medical practice as a general practitioner and when his office was closed, I was the one who answered the telephone, took messages, searched for him in emergencies. There were no cell phones or telephone answering machines in those days, so I had to do a lot of phoning around. Because he was so busy, I did not get much physical help from him on the home front, and the rest of my family were in England. It was a difficult time. I needed yoga and yoga came looking for me in the form of Carole Miller, now a longtime colleague and friend. At that time I was teaching fitness and swimming at the Y and each week found myself in the shower room at the same time as Carole who was attending a yoga class. Liking her and finding her description of her yoga class intriguing, I decided to join.

 As soon as I started attending these yoga classes and particularly when I heard Swami Radha speaking about the philosophy of yoga and its purpose, I knew this path was relevant for me. It was like a thirsty person lost in a desert coming upon an oasis with an abundant well of clean water. The trouble was that I could quench my thirst easily in class or while away on a course, but back home in the midst of everything I was having trouble remembering the location of this well.

My struggles today are very different although, as my dream testified, I still lose my way. My children grew up, had children themselves, established their own households and entered another phase of their struggle. Yet I am still a mother who enjoys time with her children, as well as a grandmother who adores her grandchildren. I am also a wife in a long term relationship. My struggle is to embrace all of this as part of my yoga sadhana accepting that I have made a choice to make my spiritual journey as in a family. My husband and children count among my greatest teachers!

Patanjali defines yoga as the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind, and explains that this is achieved by practice and renunciation. At every stage of life, to progress in a chosen discipline one has to renounce something. Some people, such as Swami Radha and Geeta, chose a path of celibacy and are known as renunciates. They renounced marriage and children to concentrate on their sadhana.

Swami Radha was married twice in her early life as Sylvia Hellman, marriages which did not produce children; but once she became a committed disciple of Swami Sivananda, she renounced the status of householder and took a different path under the name of Radha. Despite this, her family problems continued, albeit in a different form. As Swami Radha, she went on to establish an ashram and many outreach centres all of which laid their problems at her feet.

Geeta Iyengar has never married having decided at a young age that this was not the path for her in this lifetime. Daughter of one of the world's most distinguished Yoga Masters, she was clear that she wanted to devote herself to yoga, Yet here again, living as she does in the compound of a Yoga Institute which attracts thousands of people from all over the world, she cannot help but be involved in the Iyengar Yoga family. Moreover, by virtue of being the oldest of six children in an orthodox Brahmin family, and a female whose mother died when she was quite young, Geeta has had to assume many responsibilities in her large biological family which would otherwise have fallen to her mother.

Guruji, on the other hand, chose to pursue his sadhana as a householder. In the tradition of his guru, Krishnamacharya, he took a wife and had children. He lived, as he still does, at the centre of his family. Yet he managed to sustain a single-minded focus and purpose on the path of yoga. As the saying goes: talent does what it can, genius does what it must. Guruji followed his destiny to become a paramount yoga teacher as a family man, fulfilling his duty to them as well as his duty to his Higher Self. To this day, nothing deters Guruji from his sadhana.

In Pune in December, when teaching sirsasana, Guruji said the big toes have to challenge each other like two wrestlers. In my life, my aspirations in yoga and my duties as householder often wrestle with each other. It was a wrestling match in the beginning with three young children, continued with three adolescents, and continues still to this day. I am pulled this way and that way, get frustrated, get overworked, get irritable, forget sometimes what purpose lies behind it all - but I never cease my efforts to integrate yoga into all of my life and deepen my sadhana.

In my early days in yoga I used to dream of a plateau which I would reach (sometime soon I hoped) where I would live a vibrant life in perfect harmony and equilibrium. I would think to myself: I'll just get this next trip to India over and things will settle down. Or I'll just get through this particular challenge and things will smooth out. I continued to hold on to this illusion, all evidence to the contrary, for a long time. Now I accept that once I overcome one challenge, another presents itself. This is the way of the Divine who, sensing that I am obviously ready to tackle another problem, puts one in my way. Be assured that life's vicissitudes will come anyway, whether you seek them or not. The difference is that if you go out to meet your challenges you will be in a better position than if you try to hide; then they will come upon you unexpectedly and in less advantageous circumstances.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Prince Arjuna is faced with the frightening prospect of going to battle against an army, led by his kinsman King Duryodhana, which includes many relatives and friends. Prior to this confrontation he had found himself, along with   Duryodhana, in the presence of Lord Krishna who was sleeping. Krishna awoke and knowing that this war was about to take place offered both Arjuna and Duryodhana a choice between himself unarmed and an army of ten thousand warriors. He gave Arjuna the first choice, and Duryodhana was incensed because he had arrived first; but Krishna said that when he awoke his eyes had alighted first on Arjuna which is why he was going to be given first choice. Arjuna chose the unarmed Krishna, much to the relief of Duryodhana who promptly chose the ten thousand warriors which he had wanted all along.

The ensuing dialogue which takes place between Krishna and Arjuna on the battlefield, forms the timeless wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita. With Krishna's guidance, despite his reservations and after a prolonged period of struggle and doubt, Arjuna understands what he has to do to overcome the forces of darkness and ignorance which are threatening him. At one point Arjuna asks Krishna to show himself in his true form and Krishna appears in a burst of light equivalent to a thousand suns. At first this is too much for Arjuna, but gradually he becomes stronger and able to look more directly into this light.

It is for this reason that we maintain disciplined practices, so that we are able to come closer to the Divine or the Light or God, whatever you like to call the source to which you turn for intuitive wisdom and truth.

Dreams can be a reliable source of direction and guidance, a means of tapping into the unconscious. Like all aspects of yoga, the benefit is only available to us when we work with them regularly. At one time I consistently attempted to interpret and make sense of my dreams and received some valuable counsel, but I have neglected this practice lately. The power of my recent dream and the strong feelings it evoked in me suggest that it's time to pay more attention. Perhaps then, the next time I am at a crossroads, I will receive clear guidance on which direction to take!