What I do is work for three or four years and then I take a year off, and then I come back again and work for three or four years and then take another year off. It is not about just working and then writing for a year. That is not how it is structured. It is about doing very conscious goal-driven activities for four years and then taking a year off in complete surrender to discover facets of myself that I don't know exist and exploring interests with no commercial value associated with them at all.

When I started, these [yoga] were very functional practices, as I said, productive to lose weight, or whatever, and now it has become a very spiritual kind of practice.

I am just diving into life again. I just have nothing new to offer right now as an idea for a book. I feel like if I were to write something, I would probably repeat the same idea in a different story.

The first novel that I wrote was because I was having very interesting sorts of experiences, for Indians of my generation.

If I was a complete slacker who was just doing nothing but traveling, I don't know if I would have the discipline to be productive and create this job, and on the other hand, if I was always disciplined and productive, I don't think I would have that mystical connection that lead to great work.

Here are two dichotomies here. In the West it is a very physical practice, and even meditation is a practice to become productive and more at peace. In the East, you think of the deep spiritual practices as a journey of complete dissolution of the self, the ego.

I think his karma became to serve in nature and not to serve in the world, while I think my karma is to be in the world.