My biggest excuse to others and myself was that I had writer's block, as if it was some kind of illness.

For a long period in my life - it lasted about 10 years - I had writer's block.

My block was due to two overlapping factors: laziness and lack of discipline.

My inner critic who had begun piping up about how hopeless I was and how I didn't know to write.

I was a new devotee of Eastern mysticism and even though I did not join that particular group, I could well have done. They seemed a bit extreme but I regarded myself as not quite ready.

Krishna children were taught that in the spiritual world there were no parents, only souls and hence this justified their being kept out of view from others, cloistered in separate buildings and sheltered from the evil material world.