 So hello, and welcome to you. Balaganapati Devarakonda. I hope that's an acceptable pronunciation. That's a beautiful Indian name. And thankfully, I am also allowed to call you Bala, which I will do in what follows and we're talking today about philosophical health. Because you are a professor of philosophy at the University of Delhi. And you have also done a lot to introduce and explore philosophical counseling in India, and the idea of philosophical health so I think we would start with that is like I would ask you your perspective on the matter. Why do you think it's important. Yeah, thank you, Lewis for this wonderful invitation to speak on this platform. I really feel honored by this invite. Basic point that I have that was that has been troubling me with regard to health is the question that whether health is only a biological kind of one. And most of the times we also try to understand health in terms of its opposite disease. Okay, is it that it is only with reference to the disease that we talk about the health, or whether health is a natural condition, or disease is a natural condition is a long debate that is going on in various cultures. So let me not enter into that. But along with the biological category which is called health. We also talk about disorders relating it to the psychological component of the individual where we talk about various psychological disorders and then try to address them. Is it that individually is composed of only these two, the biological and psychological, or is there anything more than that that tells us that these two are also a part of the larger or the bigger whole called health. I was trying to understand that I was trying to look at the World Health Organization's definition of health. I thought that would be helpful. No, because we should look at various definitions that have come. And if it is from World Health Organization, which means most of the countries and most of the people have accepted this definition. So when I was looking at it, I'll just read it for the sake of all of you. Health is a state of complete physical, mental, social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Okay, so obviously it is taking the definition of health is going beyond the biological or physical and psychological as well. So in such kind of a situation, what is the social well being or the cultural well being that often we do talk about, and how do we reach that, what is the apparatus that we have to address that. And I'm quite happy when I first saw your website, Luis, and you mentioned that you're advocating philosophical health. Though before that I was, I was into philosophical counseling. But first time when I looked at your website and read more details about philosophical health, I was like, yeah, this is what we are supposed to talk about. Even if we want to advocate philosophical counseling, the first thing is to conceptualize philosophical health, which would be attained through the instrumentality of philosophical counseling. So that's what actually triggered my interest in understanding in depth what philosophical counseling could be. So that's that's how basically when we look at each one of us like all of us know because it's it's not a disease or a disorder that philosophical health philosophical counselor tries to address. So that's how we don't call them as patients and we call them claims, because tomorrow you may come to me and I can also go to you for counseling and seek my philosophical health. So in that particular situation I was trying to understand that it is possible to have cognitive biases and cognitive misreprehensions and wrong conceptions, dilemmas and unreflected presuppositions that all of us carry with us. And these things do create problems in our social well being, and that's where philosophical health I thought would be very helpful to us, and that's how I got interested in it. And I also look at it from India I try to look at it from Indian perspective. I think it's interesting that and we'll talk about the Indian perspective very soon because I'm really curious about it. But you, you have very strategically pointed that at the very heart of the big institution that that is the World Health Organization, there is this stance that distinguishes health from the absence of disease. And that doesn't not seem to be the everyday biomedical view of it right. We've seen a lot of that during COVID times right so there is a huge misunderstanding I think, or we could say a surrendering and a sort of, you know, an impression that health professionals sometimes are giving up on the big questions on the big issues on the, the spiritual and philosophical aspects of the human, because they don't have time for that they don't get rewarded for that because it's cannot be measured as well as for example, a different of weight right oh yeah you should be X kilos you are X minus three kilos therefore you're not in the norm and statistically, you are not healthy right. So, what I'm really curious about as I said is So philosophical counseling is is a practice that is emergent we can say it's it's emergent everywhere it has been identified since the 90s in the Western world USA Germany etc. But still today we could say that people practice it on a regular basis are our small community all over the world and what was very surprising for me is that you are part of the people who are who have introduced it in India, where we are trying to not only observe how it could benefit the Indian society but also how we can learn from India how the say the Indian philosophical Indian tradition can give us new ideas to think about philosophical health. Would you like to expand on this. Yeah, in fact that WHO World Health Organizations definition is very interesting and very useful for all of us to ponder upon and then develop our own conception of philosophical health further. I completely agree with you on that. Yeah, in fact, I am not the one who has introduced philosophical counseling in India. There are people who are working on philosophical counseling in India since last say 20 years there was there is an organization which is established which was established in Jaipur in Rajasthan India, almost 20 years back, but it is doing its work silently. I was surprised when I I spoke to the director of the Institute and we are also planning to work together. But fortunately when I joined Billy University I started giving lectures on philosophical counseling and increasing people to include this in the in their masters program syllabus. Sorry, what's the name of the Institute that you mentioned the one that is working on philosophical health since you said 20 years. It's Indian philosophical counseling. Okay. Exact name of the Institute I don't remember. But if you type. We'll put that in the comments later. So, yeah, but otherwise, so you, you, you yeah so you've been involved with some form of education connected to philosophical health. Right, because it's not quite popular in India, and I was worried. Particularly when I was teaching my students here for masters program, we get huge number of students for masters program, and not all of them would continue to do research. And what would happen to the people who stop their education pursuing philosophy after masters. So for such kind of students, there should be some avenues for jobs etc as well right where they can put philosophy practically into use. It's not that it is not available, but we are not teaching them how to put philosophy into practice. So that gave me to include philosophical counseling as one of the papers for masters program and in fact, we are successful in starting the center at Kerala down south in Trivandrum, and they have a center for philosophical counseling. Okay, and then in North we have Punjab University and then Calcutta University, sorry, Mumbai University and Lucknow University. These are various universities, public universities in India, which have started philosophical counseling as one of the papers in the masters program. So that is how we thought we should bring academic acceptance initially so that philosophical counseling as a profession can later on be established as a further step. Because unless the academia, because we get a lot of resistance from academia itself or from our own colleagues or doing agonist philosophical counseling, but luckily so far we are able to overcome such kind of criticism and move forward in making space for philosophical counseling. And now we started arguing for philosophical help as well because of the efforts of many of our friends like Luis and others. Right and but let's not hear a bit because this is very interesting people might ask okay they are doing their thing. Everybody is doing their thing. Why is that important. You said two things that are important. First of all, you said you talked about applying philosophy right that the fact that many philosophical philosophy students do not really know how to apply philosophy in real life because they were not really told about that. Another thing you said is okay so there can be this approach, professionalized approach to philosophical counseling. And people might wonder but why is that important. Well, I think it's important to have a little conversation about that in the sense that, well, first of all, we don't live in a world where thought systems, belief systems, conceptions of life are somewhere stored in books, and we don't really look at them or once in a while. In fact we go on with our lives without thinking no we are in the world, which is a constellation of ideologies right and every interaction we have, whether that's a professional or human interaction is a network of embedding in mesh and sometimes contradictory thought systems right so they are dominant thought systems today, which are ideologies that precisely tend to minimize the thinking aspect of the human experience, the value aspect of the human experience. And they do that by relying on what Alfred Norris Whitehead called the fallacy of misplaced concreteness like they tell us what is real what is hard has a stone and what is fluffy and imaginary. Because what is real is numbers statistics evidence based protocols which, of course, then they forget very quickly to say that they are themselves embedded in biases and perspectives and so when we go about in life. We have experiences as conflicting thought systems that impact our everyday life we are constantly being told what how to think well, and the avenues for cognitive diversity for the fact that we would have a world where we respect different forms not only of life but of thinking those avenues are constantly threatened and and this is why we think it would be nice to take philosophical counseling and philosophical health seriously. And that we institutionalize and of course there's a problem always when we institutionalize something so we'll talk about that right, but yeah we we we try to institutionalize spaces for resistance against dominant ideologies that people might suffer in their very life and that and that might create really a lot of drama we've seen that with with COVID where a a first of all there was a conflict of views but also dominant ideology that dictated what people in certain countries have to do and how to think so do you do you resonate with what I'm saying and and first and foremost. How does that apply to to the geo political she's a big word space of India right what way why is in particular philosophical health and counseling important for within the Indian culture. Yeah, before I get into the Indian culture of talking about India. I completely agree with what you how you have explained know why philosophical counseling is important because of the diversity cognitive diversity that is existing. And there are two things when I when I look at it as a philosopher. Basically, we have metaphysics, and we also have epistemology and philosophical counseling or philosophical health is rooted in epistemology more than metaphysics. Let's say that because, see, for example, the world that reality that exists around you has diversity. And you cannot change it and it is a fact of life for all of us. And that's the reality that is existing. But the point is, how do I as an individual cognize it, see it, understand it, and then articulate it, and then act in the world. For me, the way I learned to interact with the world that is given is very important. And that's where there is a primacy of epistemology or metaphysics, which is very important to be stressed, because even if we are talking about philosophical health to ensure philosophical health. So we intervene in an individual, we have to intervene at the level of epistemology. So the way the individual tries to look at the world and interact with the world and try to learn about the world. And this is this is a very important aspect how do we, how do I look at this diversity which is existing outside. Right. So this is where we have problems in understanding the diversity and in looking at the diversity through my own lens and my own lands are already created or constructed through my learning over a period of time. The process of acquiring acquisition of knowledge has taught me to look at certain things in a certain way. Okay, for example, I may give a crude example but don't mind. Okay. When one of the friends from Europe came to India for a conference that I have invited. He said, he went to your village by chance. And he said, everywhere there is, there was a cow dung. Okay. So he was disturbed by that. Then I, when he raised it, then I told him that see cow dung is not seen as seen to be shipped by most of the villages in India. Okay, because they use it for antiseptic and they use it this that's made the house with cow dung. Okay, so it is it is the cultural way of looking at things. People look at things in different ways. It is cultural side, that is very important. So that's why I say epistemology, the way you're taught to look at things and the way you're taught to react after looking at things is very important. This training is very important. I like to interrupt you here, but I like your metaphor. It's like, if someone asks, okay, so why do we need philosophical health? Well, because people have different ways of looking at shit. You can begin with that. Please go ahead. Because when you change the diaper of your infant, you don't consider it to be really so so and so of the other, right. So you know, an entire phenomenology of excrement that should be written. Yes. And that is how this epistemology, the way we our knowledge system has developed for each one of us. I'm not talking knowledge system in general of the countries and societies and talk about the individuals, because the general one is the one which matches the individuals. Okay, and these individuals are more important to us and only addressing the individual health, individual philosophical health we can achieve something like happiness that we are talking about universal happiness or whatever that is possible only by beginning with the individuals. So, once we understand that it is this knowledge acquisition which has created certain kind of world views because I read somewhere you have written that our thoughts and world views can have generative and performative impact on our lives. Okay, this is what you have written somewhere. I was reading one of your articles it is very true because the way you are asked to look at and react to things is the one which creates your world view and the thoughts thoughts will be based on your world view. And obviously that's what would have an impact on what you're talking and what you're doing. In Indian tradition we talk about three things. Manasa, Vacha, Karma. Manas is thoughts. Okay, and Vak is words and Karmana is deed, the work that you do. Okay, they say honesty doesn't mean anything else but honesty to yourself means there should be uniformity in what you think what you speak and what you act. And if these three things are aligned, then that's what is honesty, individual honesty according to Indian tradition. So, why I'm stating this is that is all the metaphysics, epistemology and logic which helps us to articulate things in a better way and ethics which helps us to act in a certain way or good way in the society. All four of them are situated within us and in fact the alignment of all these four in a proper way is what is called philosophical health. So, instead of talking about ethics as some moral principles which exist somewhere or logic is some advanced logic which doesn't, which exists only in machines or not in human beings. If we can talk about philosophical health we can explain what is philosophy in a better way to younger generations. So, that is how we can make younger generations understand philosophy and philosophical health in a better way by approaching it through how knowledge is acquired, how worldviews are formed and these worldviews in turn reflect on our words and on our actions is the best possible way of reaching out to them. So, this is how I look at these things that that's how we tend to have epistemological biases that you also often refer to, and also metaphysical misconceptions. And these metaphysical misconceptions, though they get created by epistemological biases, it is also to a process in the sense that each one of them try to correct each other, correct the other. And that is possible and the possibility of that ensures philosophical health possibilities or possibility of philosophical health, according to my understanding. So, basically this is how I look at the things. This is important because I mean, even though some people listen my find words like epistemology difficult. I think it's important that, and that's something I'm endeavoring to do also is that there must be more theorization about philosophical health and philosophical counseling. It's not just about deep listening also although deep listening is very important. There's so much in what you were saying but I would like to add two things that are really going in in your direction is that you have shown one way in which the idea of philosophical health can be understood by all. And that integrity, which you define as honesty that sort of structural integrity that combines a acts and thoughts and words in a way that is harmonious. That's something that people can relate to. If epistemology might seem a difficult world for some well, think about the fact that it is the, the way we understand our knowledge of the world, and that knowledge itself is not necessarily something that comes with a complex scientific apparatus of course. But knowledge is also always embedded and in meshed with experience right. It's not like we as it and this is just another way of formulating what you were saying, it's not like we go in the world we have experiences. We sit in a sofa, and we try to process them by reading a book and sort of see okay how does this can be how can this become knowledge that's one aspect of course when we want to theorize but in fact in our very experience of the world as you were saying, there is a projection of notions that are cognitive. And so, I find this very important for the precisely for the matter of cognitive diversity right because we'll be able to, to have a world which I agree with you it's, it's, it's the deepest diversity, the diversity of worldviews and how they can cohabit. And my curiosity is, is that a word because you said that's the Indian tradition and there is this idea of honesty. And I use the term of structural integrity because at one point I realized I was working with a lot of engineers you know I'm working with the multinational veteran file and they're engineers and they're really interested in philosophical health. And I realized well structural integrity that's a good metaphor that they understand because this is also something that a bridge might have. Right, that means that it is robust enough that it won't break. And that includes some form of plasticity to because something when something is too rigid. It breaks that's the also the Lafontaine fable about the oak and the smallest tree who perhaps when there's a tempest is more resilient. There's another term that I sometimes refer to and more so now is the conceptual constellation. So, I think it's important for people to perhaps grabs the fact that philosophical health is not necessarily about having this monomaniac ideal, let's say, let's say it's honesty right and I say oh I'm going to be honest. I'm not so sure what I'm thinking and go the way all the way in or justice right and because life is not like that. Life needs some form of negotiation flexibility etc. We can make ourselves more lucid about our conceptual constellation, that's what we are trying to help people with, such that they understand what are what is the network of notions that are important for that person's destiny and biography. And then this network or constellation of notions form the concept of who you are, right, and they themselves are a dynamic construct, they are not completely rigid such that you would be once and for all crystallized into this constellation. Perhaps some, let's say, one node of this constellation or one star if we want to keep the metaphor is honesty. Well, this needs to be articulated with perhaps another node which would be truth, etc. So, it's a complex process of adjudication, but which helps the person have a better robustness in front of the constant, as we were saying before, imperatives of alien ideologies, this alien ideologies sounds a bit like conspiracy, conspiracy, conspiracy theory, right. No, it's just that, you know, every, every time you do something you have different systems of codes, right, web, web, web of beliefs and sometimes you accept them right there, for example, when you drive, right, it's a code, and you don't challenge that because, you know, you think well, it's probably going to be better for me if I, if I abide by the rules of driving of the place, there are other rules and codes that are much more, you know, impacting our, our psyche, and that is how, and I will finish here and give you the ball but that is how I think philosophical health is articulated with psychological health and physical health. They are correspondences. And a bad philosophical health can lead to a bad physical health. And that's, that's a trope of Greek thought right that's what the Greek said with men's sauna in corporates, so although now I'm speaking Latin but yeah the the healthy body in the healthy mind. Yeah, I completely agree with you on this first thing that you spoke like structural integrity that you said you would be talking to your clients. I think that the structural integrity is not just there in the external world. No, the structural integrity between the individual is what Indian tradition tries to address. That is where I was saying, like thought word and action. One of the major problems is that I find is, when we talk about this virtues and values. Most of the times we don't explain what this virtue is, even if you have to explain what this virtue, for example, honesty is, you would be telling them that you should not. This is a kind of descriptive presentation happens. Instead, if you can help under somebody understand by integrity or honesty. It is something that whatever you think and whatever you say and whatever you do have to correspond and stay in harmony, then it is better understood by the individual, instead of just merely saying that to be honest. So if you go on saying be honest, the person may offer some time like these these terms are taken at their face value and left at the face value, and they will not be taken in and actually it doesn't come out in the sphere of impacting the behavior. So that is the major problem that I find when we talk about most of these values that we teach our younger generations. And in this particular way, in this particular context, it will not be odd to talk about this. People, we do clutter, decluttering of human beings is required. Each one of us philosophical health also has to address this decluttering of mind and decluttering or physically also we get cluttered. And this, this is very important. And when I was talking somewhere about this, people asked me, what are the ways of decluttering the mind? So, can you explain? I said, see, decluttering the mind doesn't mean you have to do some exercises or yoga or something. In the social sphere, you have, you nurture the emotional values that you have toward that you must have towards the other, like priority and being grateful to life is one of the ways of decluttering your mind. And being, having, forgiving the other is one of the ways of decluttering the mind. And in Buddhism, Luis, we find a very interesting concept called the Brahma Viharas, which are, which are stated to be four in number that talk about my three friendship. Through friendship, I consider these four to be Brahma Viharas that they, the word that they use, they are very useful for decluttering. Because once you, once you develop a kind of friendly attitude towards the other, the other could be an animal or a human being or anybody, then the decluttering process of decluttering in your mind automatically starts happening. And in this context, they talk about something called Mudita. And Mudita is understood to be, it is explained this way. Mudita is explained as rejoicing the happiness of others. See, when Luis is happy, and if I can also feel happy that he is happy, it goes to such final states. This is what is decluttering. And it is not that it is not natural to human beings, it is natural to human beings, but somehow we have suppressed them and the greediness or whatever have taken the predominance and started cluttering our mind. So, nurturing these emotional values and virtues itself helps in our, in developing our philosophical health. For example, any of these concepts, Maitri, Karuna, Karuna is a benevolence. And then Mudita, and then Upeksha, equanimity. So these are the four concepts that Mudita tries to help us in understanding. And they are very helpful in developing philosophical health, nurturing philosophical health. So that's very interesting. And I would, I would encourage you once, once I post this video on YouTube, maybe you can go in the comment and just write down these concepts for for people listen to us, such that they can do more research. If you have your idea of a certain relationship to the other, but also this sort of healthy minimalism where indeed we don't load our, our mind with unnecessary baggage. And as I said about Joy, remind me of a counseling, I tend to call them counselors rather than, than clients because I don't do this for a living. And, and sometimes I think client sounds a little bit like this is a full time profession but more interestingly so her she came to me and she said my problem is that I'm too joyful. That's beautiful right I'm too joyful and the problem is is that others the others are not as joyful as me. And, and, and so I don't know how to negotiate that because might be a partner might be colleagues at work mate. She might, she might have felt that well the world around her is constantly putting her down a little bit putting some weight on her shoulders right and in that case we talked about one of the things we talked about is the spinosa right because so this is to give a concrete example of how it feels like a consultation might go so if you love spinosa, but the spinosa who was the, the philosopher that considered that joy was really the basic core emotion and that all other emotion was variations of joy and joy is the feeling that our domain of possibility is increasing right that we can have a coherent action upon the world and sadness is the emotion that goes along with the fact that our domain of possibilities is shrinking, and then you can do different variations with other types of emotions and and just to finish joy connects also with what Nietzsche called the great health right or the joyful science right and and so philosophical health is not only for those who might think so is not only are we going to teach you about how to think logically. It's also about, as you were saying gratitude. What I call the connection with the Creole I want to talk about that with you right because I think this has very be stronger resonances with what we call Eastern philosophies right. So resonance with the fact that the universe is a is a co creative flux of interdependent possibilities that I called Creole simply because it's the real with it's the creative real right. As opposed with this idea that we sometimes have in neoliberalism or, or, or the Anthropocene right industrial age that the world is basically a stone, quite hostile. And we need to produce a lot and build a lot of things such that we have an okay life and in fact we've seen now it destroys everything. So that gratefulness is not just intellectual it's okay so if if at the ontological origins of things that's another way we spoke about epistemology now we can speak about ontology if if at the, the core of being there is this co creative becoming therefore, I can be grateful by default, not to accept the world in a sort of a badly understood stoicism right and adapt and take and accept whatever political abuse there is around me know. But first feel that that creel source and then through a process that I call creolectics through a process of actualization, which can be political ethical existential, then we, we are much more joyfully empowered to act upon the world and make this right according to to our world view or at least try to negotiate. Yeah, that's great. Actually, before I respond to what you said just now. Let me just clarify one thing, whenever is referring to this Buddhist concept to the concept of Brahmavihara's previously when I was talking, it is also called understood translated into English as something for immeasurables. These three, these four that I was referring to one is mitrata or metta in Pali, which is a loving kindness. Okay, or benevolence. The first one is mit, my three or metta in Pali, which is translated into English as loving kindness for the other. One is a corona corona is compassion, compassion for the other. And the third one, this is what is very important to me, which is, which goes as mudita, which means which is often translated as joyfulness but actually it's not joyfulness rejoicing the happiness of others. Okay, that what is mudita. Okay, and the fourth one is a picture which is equanimity, and these four are understood to be immeasurables. Okay, you cannot even measure the kind of impact that would that you would have when you practice these in your own cell, that is all they're explained so I thought should explain them in a proper way. Before you continue because I want to let you continue. You said that equanimity is the what's the term for equanimity. We need to have a conversation about that. Not, not today because this is in, I think it take it will take some time. Because I was actually yesterday. It's about equanimity, which is which is the Latin word I mean it's it's English but it's based on Latin equal equality of soul, let's say it's that you might have ups and downs around you and, but you sort of maintained that equality of soul, whatever it is around you, the Greeks called it at Taraxia right at Taraxie sometimes using, and I think this is wonderful because indeed it is a, it is a forgotten virtue. That is that would be very useful today and that is, I agree. I think that the four elements you're giving are very important for philosophical health but please continue. One that you're talking about is a creolectics when you're talking about co-creativity. So what is it that this co-creativity tries to hint to us is that it tries to minimize the human agency. Okay, often we, we think that we are the doers and we are the ones who are changing the world and doing a lot of things. But once you understand the importance of co-creativity, which means the participation of the other, other than you, who is existent around you in this process of co-creativity. You understand that you are one among many other things that exist around you in co-creating your own conception and also contributing to the conception of the other. So this homogenous understanding or holistic understanding of developing this kind of worldview, you also often talk about multiverse. So talking about this holistic conception is the one which really helps us in maintaining philosophical health because most of the problems that we come across are because we think that we are the only ones who are doing it. And it is only because of me that this is happening. So there's this kind of egoistic attitude that we often tell up would be minimized if we follow, if we have a proper understanding of the creolectics that you're talking about. That's my submission to the other one. You rightly pointed out equanimity towards the end. You're also talking about concept of joy as it is presented by many of these Western philosophers. In fact, if you look at Indian tradition, what it says is this equanimity, it stresses the equanimity because as an individual, how should you look at both joy and sorrow. It says it is not that you have to go on increasing your happiness. If you start go on trying to work out on your happiness alone and try to go further, whenever you get sadness, it affects your philosophical health negatively. So it is not that you have to continuously work on increasing your happiness. It is that wherever you stand, you have to learn and practice by controlling your mind how to look at both of them because after the one the other would follow. So it is not that anybody, whether you're rich or poor, it doesn't matter. Anybody would be oscillating between happiness and sorrow continuously in the life. So if that is the fact of life, how do you look at both of them? And how do you develop your own perception, cognitive structures in such a way that you would be able to balance both of them in a proper way in leading a life of philosophical health. So this is what even the word that Buddhism uses is upeksha and the word that Hinduism or Bhagavad Gita, the sacred text of Hindu tradition, uses the word samatha. Samatha is equanimity and this is very important. The sequence in Bhagavad Gita is, in fact, it is explained in terms of how do I live? Because when each one of us, all of us are living our lives and in the process of living our lives, we have to encounter three things. We have to manage or live with three things. One is the objects that we have in the world. The second one is beings, other human beings and other beings that we have in the world. And the third one is most important, our own experiences. We have to live with these three objects, beings, and our own experiences. So how do you live with these three? Bhagavad Gita stresses that it is by developing an attitude of equanimity that you can possess or continue to nurture your philosophical health. And that possessing that philosophical health is called yoga. So that is how it is called samadhyam yogam ucyate. Yoga is equanimity, possessing equanimity in the mind. According to Bhagavad Gita, I am only talking about Bhagavad Gita. This is an interesting area. In fact, we can have more information. No, and we will certainly. That's also very interesting because it leads us to mention how sometimes occidental recycling of Eastern cultures is, let's say sometimes deficient, right? The anecdote here is that I personally have tried once or twice to go to your yoga class. And we see it in the first thing that I often hear from the instructor. Okay, so don't think. And this is where I stand and I leave the room because for me, there's nothing wrong with thinking the art of breathing is as important as the art of thinking. And this is part of who we are. And this is why I like the fact that you talked about madness before, right? So not forgetting that this experience is also, as you said very well, the way we look at experience, right? So it's not just behaviorism. It's also how do I process that information to use a very bad computer metaphor, right? And so I'd like to finish because I mean, we will have more conversations just to keep it to this sort of arbitrary format of less under one hour. So concretely, why do you think India? I mean, what do you think is the contribution? Not only why is philosophical counseling good for India, but also what can be the contribution? So you think there will be an Indian school of philosophical counseling, or on the country, do you think that philosophical health reveals also a universal experience of what it is to be human, fully human. And therefore, we should learn from different cultures, but also realize that we're talking more or less, we were talking more or less about the same thing without trying to be normative, right? So to go back to the cognitive diversity, it's not about a universal recipe, it's just about potentials, right? For expansion of the domain of possibility in harmony with others. That was actually a question. Obviously we are not trying to say that one culture, inputs from one culture would be, we are not putting any hierarchy among the cultures and any normativity that we are looking at. But otherwise also I would say many cultures, for instance, including Indian culture has this universal human being, conception of universal human being and conception of universal health as well. And this is to be tapped, we have to go to various cultures and have a look at them. And similarly, when we look at Indian conception, India, Indian tradition, classical Indian tradition, we would definitely find hints to universal health. So that is very important and that's where most of the Indian philosophical schools, as we began with cognitive biases, right? And most of the Indian philosophical schools directly or indirectly try to address this particular issue. Okay, it is not that Indian tradition, as sometimes projected, advocates only absolutist perspective. No, for instance, if you look at Buddhism, Buddhism talks about many of the Indian philosophical schools talk about going beyond binaries or looking at within binaries, okay? Which means the cognitive bias is because there are binaries, okay, either this way or that way. And Buddhism talks about Madhya Marga, which is middle path, okay? So it says, don't go with the extremes, stay in the middle because that's what probably would give you a right path. And similarly, Jainism, which is quite popular among people, it talks about the multi-layeredness of the reality and the way, the need for anekantavada, it's called anekantavada. Anekanta is the reality has many-sidedness and that is how you will never be able to comprehensively have an understanding of the reality. And whatever statement that you make about reality that is given to you is only partial. So it always says your statements are only partial. Please do remember that. It tells you that it's not the binary, it is in fact much more than that. And there is another interesting school by name Advaita Vedanta, which is often sometimes misunderstood, which talks about, which says that reality is beyond these binaries. See, these two try to say within binaries and Advaita Vedanta says, you cannot even define it as this or that. Because sometimes it looks to be this and sometimes it looks to be unreal. So that is how you cannot give an absolute assertive statement about what is given to you. So what I'm trying to stress here is with regard to the cognitive structures that we talk about, the Indian conceptions are varied. When we talk about philosophical health, we can use any of these apparatus that are presented that are already available in the Indian philosophical resources and help the client in understanding his own self or his own cognitive biases in a better way. And that is how I feel Indian tradition has rich resources, which can be used by anybody. And just one point before I stop with regard to yoga that you have mentioned, I understand your concern. Basically, yoga now has become a global commodity. And many people have taken it, and they have made it as a commodity to suit certain kinds of needs of the people. In the process, I don't, with all due respect to all the teachers of yoga, I'm not making any derogatory comments here. But in the process, probably the actual, whatever, purport of yoga might be sometimes missing. Because when you pick up a particular part from the conception of holistic yoga and present it to somebody else, obviously it will have only partial impact or effect. So that is how, whenever we talk about yoga, we need to have clarity with regard to whether we are talking about Patanjali yoga or the yoga of Bhagavad Gita. And also further, whether we are within Patanjali yoga, whether we are only piecing out something and presenting it to the people, which may not be really helpful to all. So that's what we have to be very careful with. Yes, I know I suggest that we may conclude on that, if we can play a little bit with words, but the reason why some people are afraid of philosophy is that in order to overcome a world of commodities, you need perhaps as a first stage to accept to be uncomfortable and common. And then, of course, once you have accepted to challenge your routine, certainties and perhaps illusions of security and illusions of injustice, based on on the wrong views, then you can start to recreate and indeed, not in a way where we would have the human at the center in this anthropocentric view of, you know, the protagonist view that the man humans are the measure of all things. But rather, and this is all the more needed today in a dialogue with all forms of life, all form of being and what they might have in common. So but I suggest we, we stop here for the moment. And this is just a, of course, the beginning of a conversation dialogue. And we will certainly, and this is something that I want to live as a little bit of a mystery for the people who are listening to us. But I, from our conversation, I got the feeling that we need to write something together about something. But let's keep that as a, as a teaser. Yeah, thanks a lot. Yeah, thank you so much, Luis. I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope that people would also like it and watch it. And we'll continue the conversation. Thank you.