I wanted to write something that was very entertaining to read. The hardest part of this novel [The Yoga of Max's Discontent] was how to make a deeply spiritual transformation journey page-turning and adventurous. That was the hardest part to crack for me.

I don't think of the ashram world as being any more spiritual than the corporate world.

There are people like me who are not there yet, who are still the eagle flying high right now, still experiencing more in the world and growing as a result of that - and that is my journey.

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.

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.

In the West, it is the opposite, like you are using these practices [meditation and yoga ] to further your ego by being more productive, being more this, and getting more out of your work and earning more money. In the East, the whole idea is that you are dissolving your essence through these practices.

Now, I think of my writing as having two foundations: entertainment and meaning. The meaning portion is really me trying to answer my questions. The entertainment aspect of it is how I make a story that can make people turn the pages.