Music speaks from spirit to spirit and in that sense you could call it a true spiritual language.

I was dealing with a lot of spiritual questions like "Who am I?" "What is God" "What is the meaning of life?" All of these questions that I think we can either face head on or choose to ignore, it's up to us.

When you open box after box of old comics and they're ALL "Archie," you have suffered a trauma from which it is difficult to ever recover.

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.'

There is really no spiritual message that I'm trying to convey with my music, it's just a personal thing. I really believe that the more personal we get, in a way, the more universal the implications.

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?