The idea of going on a spiritual journey is really part of the DNA of India itself.

I was a young woman who had grown up in the mountains of Montana as a Protestant Methodist in a pretty good social gospel tradition. I became fascinated with the religious lives of others who seemed also to be very religious, yet in ways that were quite different from my own. That fascination led to relationships, in India and elsewhere, with families of Hindus, of Muslims, of Sikhs, and a lot of study.

India is simply dotted with pilgrimage places, and with teachers and very powerful spiritual guides.

I do think that the U.S. has an opportunity as a democracy to really exemplify what a religiously diverse society can be when it embraces the pluralism.

Places where one can experience some of that separation from the world of the familiar, to defamiliarize ourselves with what we take for granted and enter into the ebb and flow of another culture, it certainly is one of the more valuable things that we do as human beings.

The idea of going on a spiritual journey is really part of the DNA of India itself.

The issue of "who we are" has been an ongoing one. It's part of the ongoing identity crisis of America.