What Is Common Between Arjuna and Yuval Harari?
“ஏன்
மொட்டைத் தலைக்கும் முழங்காலுக்கும் முடிச்சுப் போடுகிறீர்கள்?”
“Why are you tying a knot between a bald head and a knee?”
That’s the Tamil way of dismissing a strange comparison. In
English we’d say: “You’re comparing apples and oranges.”
So what could a warrior prince standing on the battlefield
of Kurukshetra possibly have in common with a 21st-century Oxford PhD and
bestselling author?
At first glance, nothing. One wielded the bow of Gandiva,
the other the pen that wrote Sapiens. Yet when it comes to meditation,
both Arjuna and Yuval Harari confess the same thing: the mind refuses to obey.
Arjuna’s Honest Admission
In the Bhagavad Gita (6.34), Krishna explains the
discipline of meditation. But Arjuna interrupts with disarming honesty:
cañcalaṁ
hi manaḥ kṛṣṇa pramāthi balavad dṛḍham
tasyāhaṁ nigrahaṁ manye vāyor iva su-duṣkaram
(6.34)
“The mind is restless, turbulent, obstinate, and strong.
To control it seems to me harder than controlling the wind.”
Here is a warrior—trained in discipline, courage, and
mastery—admitting defeat before his own inner restlessness. Arjuna reminds us
that outer strength does not guarantee inner stillness.
Harari’s Modern Confession
Fast-forward millennia. Yuval Noah Harari—historian, global
intellectual, Oxford PhD—admits the same struggle.
In interviews and writings, Harari emphasizes that his
PhD did not help him meditate. Intellectual analysis, he says, often makes
meditation harder:
“Meditation is about observing reality, not analyzing it.
The PhD got in the way.”
And yet:
- He
practices meditation two hours every day.
- He
spends 30–60 days each year in silent retreat.
- He
dedicated Homo Deus to his teacher, S. N. Goenka.
- On 60
Minutes with Anderson Cooper, he explained that meditation helps him
withstand the chaos of modern information overload and stay centered.
Harari’s confession mirrors Arjuna’s: intellectual
brilliance, like warrior strength, does not quiet the mind.
Why Is Meditation So Hard?
The Katha Upanishad (II.1.1) gives a timeless
diagnosis:
parāñci khāni vyatṛṇat
svayambhūḥ
tasmāt parāṅ
paśyati nāntarātman
“The Self-existent One turned the senses outward;
therefore beings look outside and not at the inner Self.”
Śaṅkara’s
commentary sharpens the insight:
- The
senses are like “holes turned outward.” Their very design draws attention
outside.
- Thus,
beings naturally perceive the outer world and ignore the antar-ātman,
the Self within.
- Only a
dhīraḥ—a
rare, discerning seeker—can “turn the gaze back” (āvṛtta-cakṣus) to behold
the Self, desiring immortality.
In other words, we are wired outward. To meditate is to
reverse this current, to turn the mind inward. It is like forcing a river to
flow upstream. That is why meditation feels so unnatural—so hard.
Concentration vs. Meditation
As Swami Bhajanananda of the Vedanta Society of Southern
California notes, much of the difficulty comes from confusing concentration
with meditation:
- Concentration
arises easily when the senses are outward—on a book, a game, a project.
- Meditation
is the reversal—drawing the senses inward (pratyāhāra), turning
consciousness back upon itself.
This is not escapism. It requires detachment, purification,
and sustained will. Sri Aurobindo described the process well:
“It is a long road where every inch must be won against
resistance.”
The Universal Struggle
So when we place these voices side by side—
- Arjuna:
“Harder than controlling the wind.”
- Harari:
“A PhD doesn’t help.”
- Upanishads:
“The senses are turned outward by design.”
—suddenly the comparison no longer feels like “apples and
oranges.”
It reveals a universal truth:
Meditation is not difficult because we are weak. It is difficult because it
demands the rarest of acts—reversing the very direction of human consciousness.
𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐀𝐫𝐣𝐮𝐧𝐚 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐘𝐮𝐯𝐚𝐥 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐢?
