Spirituality is worthless if it's not practical. Music is my work. I am a musician.

I'm not any different from you or the guy down the street or across the globe, we're all connected in some way and hopefully my music can integrate that feeling of human connectedness.

I don't have any particular goals in making a recording. In a way the recording is itself the goal. The music comes into my mind, and from there the main job is to give form to it.

My entire life is dedicated to music, and at my age, that makes a lot of years! But all the work and dedication is only that I'm able to forget myself and let the music do the 'talking.'

When Indian musicians play a raga it's very restrictive. But, in a way these restraints are essential to liberate yourself through them, if that makes sense. I'm very much of this school of rhythm, it's the direction I'm drawn in when I'm writing and improvising.

Question: Does it frost Jackson, Jesse Jackson, that someone like Obama, who fits the stereotype blacks once labeled as an Oreo -- a black on the outside, a white on the inside -- that an Oreo should be the beneficiary of the long civil rights struggle which Jesse Jackson spent his lifetime fighting for?

The mathematics of rhythm are universal. They don't belong to any particular culture.