While some continued to enjoy their homes, families, and work, a few developed a thirst for spiritual attainment so strong that they began to renounce worldly possessions and family connections in order to devote themselves completely to meditation and other spiritual practices. They were called shramanas, or renunciants. Spiritual teachers made themselves available to those who wanted guidance, teaching asceticism, meditation, and yogic practices. The spiritual heat, ortapas, generated by spiritual practice was regarded as equivalent to the fire of the sacrifices that had been the focal point of the old tradition. Thus was the old tradition internalized and transformed.