The practice of leaving settled society to undertake a spiritual journey, or a spiritual life really, is something that is much more common in India. Common especially to a certain phase of life, to the end of life. But not so unusual for younger people as well.

We are built on a structure of the freedom of religion and the non-establishment of religion. That really is a pretty sturdy rudder for the U.S.

The idea of going on a spiritual journey is really part of the DNA of India itself.

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.

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.

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

Be prepared for changes.

Places where one can experience some of that separation from the world of the familiar, to defamiliarize ourselves with what we take for granted and enter into the ebb and flow of another culture, it certainly is one of the more valuable things that we do as human beings.

There are two great things that we need to find in life: one is love, probably the most important, and the second is work, and they compete with one another from time to time.

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

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

My whole worldview has changed because of the work that I do. Specifically, the way in which I appropriate my own faith as a Christian, and the way in which I think about the faith and life of others who are very different than myself. That mutuality of regard is how we deal with difference and diversity in the world.

I do think that the U.S. has an opportunity as a democracy to really exemplify what a religiously diverse society can be when it embraces the pluralism.

The idea that the United States government would have to figure out what to do about the headscarf is simply ludicrous. We don't get involved in that.

When immigrants come, the freedom to practice their faith is a guarantee. They may have trouble with their neighbors, but freedom of religion is part of the blueprint for America, and that is the recipe for the religious diversity that we have today.