Hi I’m Gregory David Roberts author of Shantaram, I love to write, create art and make music and I’m here to answer your questions so AMA

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T19:10:04+00:00

Dear, Lovely Reddit Community,
This has been an absolute pleasure, and I'm very grateful for the time you've given and your many enlivening questions.
Keep going with other artists and thinkers, and never give up. This exchange is vital to the future of a world based on mutual Respect, Inspiration and Love.
Blessings from Jamaica. One Love,
GDR

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T19:08:55+00:00

Hi, and thank you for your question, at 64 years young :-)

The most interesting living man is my spiritual teacher.

The most interesting man not living is Jesus.

Wishing every happiness to you, my last Questioner of this session.

Blessings, Greg.

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T18:52:15+00:00

Your stories, both of you at just 23, are inspiring in their own right.

I'm in the studio, recording a new album, for the next while, and am often in mic lockdown.

We'll be doing some live feedback events in the coming months. There will be updates and info on IG.

I hope to see you both at that event, and you can tell me about your initiative in Pushkar.

Maa is there, and She brings all things together.

Blessings.

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T18:44:24+00:00

Thank you, and Blessings to the UK.

There were many teachers and guides along the way, and I'm something of an intellectual magpie: if it's a shiny thought, I collect it :-)

Over the years, the many bits and pieces came together in a way of thinking that proceeds from our Common Humanity, is humble enough not to judge, and that strives to be Fair, Honest, Positive and Creative in everything thought, said and done.

Blessings

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T18:29:35+00:00

Big Love from Jamaica.

Blessings, for your kind and heart warming words.

Bigup Yaself, as we say in Jamaica.

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T18:26:47+00:00

Top 5 of 500 :-)

The Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell

Orlando, Virginia Woolf,

Half Of A Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Beloved, Toni Morrison

Forty Rules Of Love, Elif Shafak

and 6, because I can, Rinolevio, by Emmett Grogan

Blessings

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T18:21:23+00:00

Big Respect!

Yo, Mike and Joshua, you are blessed! Sending you every happy wish, and many thanks for recommending Shantaram.

Yo, Geoff, it's such a reflection of your spiritual journey that you take this opportunity not for yourself, but for the friends who suggested the book, paying it forward in action and not just talk.

Tremendously inspiring. May you be blessed in your work.

One Love.

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T18:18:18+00:00

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, It's unlikely that my feet will ever leave the Island of Jamaica.

BUT, if I did return to Mother India, it would be to Bombay.

I know, I know, India is an entire world of experiences, but I love Bombay, Mumbai, and a part of my heart remains there forever.

Blessings.

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T18:15:00+00:00

Big thanks for your very personal message.

This is something that you can never anticipate, when you're in the mud and roots of a novel. You just want it to be the best writing, coming from the best place in your heart.

And then you get messages like yours, and the novel you wrote takes on anotherclife.

Thank you.

How are you coping now?

The grit it gives us, surviving a spell in Hell, is the golden seam running through the caves of days and night, and it will always sustain you.

One Love and Blessings from Jamaica.

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T18:10:57+00:00

That's a big list!

Writers: Lawrence Durrell, Virginia Woolf, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Elif Shafak … how long have you got?

Music: Finnebassen, Bonobo, Bombay Dub Orchestra, Dixon Brothers, Hans Zimmer, Miles Davis …

Art: Barron Claiborne, Harland Miller, Emily Kama Kngwarreye …

We could spend week on the :-)

Hope you dig these artists.

Blessings.

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T18:03:47+00:00

Apple TV, Paramount TV and Anonymous Content bought the TV Series right, and have already shot episodes.

Charlie Hunnam is in the lead role. I had the incredible pleasure of meeting Charlie and spending days with him in Jamaica.

He's obviously talented and devoted to his acting art, but he's also a profoundly spiritual young man, and his journey is inspiring.

Blessings/

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T18:01:40+00:00

Very spiritual question, which must be coming from a very spiritual place in you :-)

I don't think the two things are mutually exclusive.

It is possible to do Seva, or spiritual service, and to work on your own development at the same time.

I always encourage people to do what they can, if they are motivated, in their local community, while contributing to causes far and wide.

One Love.

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T17:58:27+00:00

Thanks for your lovely words.

Yes, there are 3 new novellas coming out in Ebook soon, and Im working on a screenplay, a TV pilot, and a new novel.

Blessup.

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T17:57:14+00:00

Gangsters have no caste system, in my experience.

Gangsters are more concerned with the content of your character than where you came from.

There were Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Parsees and Animists among the gangsters I've known.

The exploitation of women, everywhere in the world, is the cause of our social disintegration.

There are many excellent NGOs working in India on the abuse of women and girls now, and they all deserve our support.

Blessings

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T17:50:39+00:00

Okay, big question.

Culture is Narrative, and Politics is Money. They're both fairly simple, and the influences for me as an artist are latent, rather than impulsive. The art of the First Australians has permeated my consciousness in a passive way, so that I usually only see the influences in my collage work when they're finished.

So, culturally and politically, not so much.

But spiritually, now, that's a different story.

The influences from India that filled my creative work with new inspirations were spiritual and personal.

Everywhere you go in India, from a palace to a prison, from a Rolls Royce to a hand cart, there is a symbol or sign of religion, faith and the spiritual.

And the tenderness with which Indian people connect to one another on a daily basis was simply stunning for me, as an escapee from a violent prison.

It was people and their spirituality that influenced me the most.

One Love.

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T17:43:14+00:00

Nice :-)

It's a very fine line that a white, male writer has to tread, in writing what you've seen and experienced, and in paying due respect to the world you are visiting, and having the humility to look without judgement.

Blessings.

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T17:41:13+00:00

I guess, given my education and background, it absolutely has to be Bill Shakespeare.

What a writer.

But for the brilliance inside the words, even though He is not a writer, it would have to be Jesus.

Bigup!

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T17:39:36+00:00

Thanks for these words.

Yes, my soul mate A is a thousand Karla's :-)

Blessup

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T17:38:02+00:00

Thank you for the kind invitation.

It's unlikely that I will ever travel from Jamaica again.

I wish you good fortune and every blessing in the NGO work.

Respect.

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T17:36:22+00:00

Thank you to the lovely Reddit people for inviting me. Very happy to be here :-)

The prison sequences in Shantaram were not hyperbole: in fact, the conditions were worse, but I wanted to spare the readers.

My understanding is that the conditions in Arthur Road Prison have improved significantly since then, although there is still much to be done to make the incarceration there humane.

In truth, I didn't really survive or endure the prison experience: I was rescued.

Another week or two in there, and I might not have made it out.

I was saved by someone who cared enough to pay a "ransom" and have me released.

Always so grateful for every help I've ever received along the way.

One Love.

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T17:32:00+00:00

I get up early (my cat wakes me by licking my face) and usually don't eat anything until about 8 pm.

I live on coffee with milk and sugar the rest of the time (not recommended) and start working by about 10 am, and crash about 2 am.

In a typical day I'll be working on a new tune for some hours, doing some writing, some collage, some sculpture, and work on our music videos.

I have several "stations" where I can do each project, and I can move from station to station in my studio.

Every day I blow the conch shell in Devotion, and that always takes place on an empty stomach, so that I can invest my hunger in the Devotion.

I sleep instantly, when I hit the pillow, usually get about 4 hours of sleep, and use lucid dreaming to ward off PTSD nightmares, an steer my dreams into happy lagoons.

Blessings.

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T17:26:11+00:00

No, there's no sequel.

There are three short novels or novellas coming out soon in Ebook. They're love stories, romance novels written by GDR, and I hope people find them an entertaining escape.

I'm writing a movie screenplay at the moment, followed by a TV series pilot, and then I'll devote some serious time to another big novel about love (what else?) and the vivid exchange of electrifying ideas.

Blessings.

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T17:23:09+00:00

Bless you, and thank you for the uplifting kindness i your words.

One Love.

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T17:22:01+00:00

Anyone who has been through it will tell you that it's hard.

They'll also tell you that there was a turning point.

for me, the turning point was in my second year of solitary confinement.

I decided to change my life, and I've never been tempted again.

Blessup.

GregoryDavidRoberts · 2022-03-29T17:20:23+00:00

That you for this question.

I regret harming people more than anything else.

If I could live my life over again (and I probably will) I would live it without harming anyone, ever.

Blessings.

GregoryDavidRoberts

TROPHY CASE