My first intellectual challenge was to try to understand this incredible city of Banaras (also called Varanasi) in India and its meaning for Hindus. That was the place I lived for the first year I was in India and I've been back many times. It's a kind of home to me.

There's still plenty of people who have this deep conviction that America is a Christian country and ought to say so in its Constitution, etc. But that's not the legal basis on which we're framed. So the flourishing of religion, of religious diversity, is really built into who we are.

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

Pluralism isn't just diversity; it's something we create out of this diversity.

Some of my best friends are Hindu or Buddhist or Sikh, my students as well. This is the sea in which I swim.

We tend to gravitate towards our tribes; the challenge is to understand the people of other tribes.

What people see in the news are places where things have not going so well.