Yuval Noah Harari and Abhyāsa: When 60 Minutes Meets the Yoga Sūtras
When Yuval Noah Harari Accidentally Taught Ancient Yoga Philosophy on 60 Minutes
Is Yuval Noah Harari unknowingly demonstrating the Bewildered Mind? How his one-minute interview on meditation maps perfectly to ancient Sanskrit philosophy from 2,000 years ago.
City Slickers is one of my favorite movies. There's a scene early in the film—easily my favorite scene—that haunts me. Billy Crystal's character, Mitch Robbins, stands before his son's class for Career Day. He's a burnt-out radio ad salesman, and the kids are immediately confused.
Wait. Wrong movie reference. Let me start again.
60 Minutes is one of America's most-watched news programs. There's a segment that aired recently—easily one of the most revealing—that haunts me. Yuval Noah Harari's interview with Anderson Cooper lasts just about sixty seconds. He's discussing his meditation practice, and viewers are immediately intrigued.
The Setup
Picture this: It's a Sunday evening. Millions of Americans are watching 60 Minutes. Anderson Cooper sits across from Yuval Noah Harari—the Israeli historian who wrote Sapiens and Homo Deus, a man whose books have sold millions and influenced world leaders.
And then, for about sixty seconds, Harari does something unexpected.
He delivers a flawless, modern-day masterclass on Patañjali's Yoga Sūtras—a text written roughly 2,000 years ago.
I doubt he planned it. But as someone who studies Vedanta with a background in technology, I watched those sixty seconds and thought: This is it. This is the ancient framework, playing out in real time, on primetime American television.
Let me show you what I mean.
The Three Principles: Ancient Meets Modern
1. The Art of Showing Up (Abhyāsa)
Harari doesn't ease into his meditation practice. He doesn't do "5 minutes when I can fit it in." Listen to what he tells Cooper:
"I start my day when I wake up in the morning so the first thing I do I meditate for an hour and then... sometime in the afternoon I'll meditate another another hour."
Two hours. Every single day.
In our age of "meditation apps" promising transformation in five minutes, this feels almost extreme. But to anyone who's studied the Yoga Sūtras, it's instantly recognizable. This is Abhyāsa—the foundational principle of the entire Yogic system.
Patañjali is very specific about what makes practice actually work:
Yoga Sūtra 1.13: tatra sthitau yatno 'bhyāsaḥ
"Practice is the effort required to establish a stable and tranquil state."
Yoga Sūtra 1.14: sa tu dīrghakāla nairantarya satkārasevito dṛḍhabhūmiḥ
"Practice becomes firmly grounded when attended to for a long time, without break, and with deep devotion."
Three requirements: long time (dīrghakāla), without break (nairantarya), and with devotion (satkāra).
Harari's two-hour daily commitment checks all three boxes. This isn't about inspiration or motivation. It's about the simple, profound art of showing up. Day after day. Building the "muscle" of attention through sustained, devoted effort.
The ancient text knew: transformation doesn't come from insight. It comes from repetition.
2. Reality vs. The Story Factory (Vṛttis)
Here's where it gets interesting. Cooper asks Harari why he meditates. And Harari's answer made me sit up straight:
"The mind constantly produces these stories... and they constantly come between me and reality. And meditation is about learning how to let go of these stories and just see what is actually happening."
These "stories" that Harari describes—this is exactly what Patañjali calls Vṛttis.
In tech terms (which is how my brain works), Vṛttis are like buggy background processes consuming all your RAM. Your mind is constantly running narratives, interpretations, judgments, predictions—an entire operating system of stories—that prevents you from seeing what's actually in front of you.
It's the Instagram of the Mind. Carefully curated. Heavily filtered. And we mistake it for reality itself.
Patañjali's entire definition of Yoga is about these very stories:
Yoga Sūtra 1.2: yogaś-citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ
"Yoga is the cessation of the movements (fluctuations) of the mind."
Yoga Sūtra 1.3: tadā draṣṭuḥ svarūpe-'vasthānam
"At that time (of stillness), the Seer is established in its own true nature."
Yoga Sūtra 1.4: vṛtti sārūpyam-itaratra
"At other times, the Seer identifies with the movements."
Read that last one again. "At other times, the Seer identifies with the movements."
In other words: most of the time, we don't see reality. We see our stories about reality. And we think that's the same thing.
Harari's goal—"to see what is actually happening"—is a perfect modern articulation of what Patañjali meant by svarūpa: resting in your true nature, seeing clearly, without the filter of the mind's narratives.
3. The Genius Meets the Breath (Cañcalam)
But here's my favorite part of the interview. The moment of humility.
Harari—this intellectual giant, this Oxford PhD, this man who analyzes the entire sweep of human history—admits something vulnerable:
"I was doing my PhD at Oxford, I thought I really was a very intelligent person... and I saw I don't even have this basic ability to observe... my breath without my mind wandering away to some fantasies... So what chance do I have to really get to know the deep sources of my psychological structures?"
Intelligence doesn't help. Credentials don't help. Even a brilliant mind can't control itself.
This restless, wandering, impossible-to-pin-down quality of the mind? The Yogis had a name for it: Cañcalam.
And they knew it wasn't a bug. It's a feature of the human operating system.
In the Bhagavad Gītā, the warrior Arjuna has the exact same complaint to Krishna:
Bhagavad Gītā 6.34: cañcalam hi manaḥ kṛṣṇa pramāthi balavad dṛḍham tasyāhaṁ nigrahaṁ manye vāyor iva suduṣkaram
"For the mind is restless, turbulent, obstinate and very strong, O Krishna, and to subdue it, it seems to me, is more difficult than controlling the wind."
More difficult than controlling the wind.
When I first read this, I thought: "Well, that's comforting." Even legendary warriors in ancient epics couldn't keep their minds from wandering.
Harari's confession—broadcast to millions—is deeply reassuring. The struggle for focus isn't a personal failing. It's not because you're "bad at meditation" or lack discipline. It's the fundamental challenge of being human.
And notice what Harari says at the end: his question about understanding his own "psychological structures." This points directly to the ultimate aim of Yoga—not relaxation, not stress relief, but self-realization. Deep, direct knowledge of the Self (Ātman).
The Map: Side by Side
When you lay it out, the parallels are stunning:
| Harari's Experience | Ancient Yogic Concept | Core Principle |
|---|---|---|
| Meditating two hours daily, without fail | Abhyāsa (Practice) | Consistent, devoted effort is the foundation |
| The mind creating "stories" that obscure reality | Vṛttis (Mental Fluctuations) | The goal is to quiet the mind's narratives to perceive reality directly |
| The mind "wandering away" from the breath | Cañcalam (Restlessness) | The untrained mind is inherently turbulent and difficult to control |
| "See what is actually happening" | Svarūpa (True Nature) | When fluctuations cease, the Seer rests in its essential form |
Why This Matters Now
Here's what struck me most about this interview: the problems haven't changed.
We have smartphones, AI, social media, infinite information at our fingertips. Our technology evolves exponentially. But the human mind? Same operating system. Same bugs.
- We still get lost in stories about reality instead of seeing reality itself.
- We still struggle to focus on our own breath for sixty seconds.
- We still need sustained, devoted practice to make any real progress.
Yuval Noah Harari—a public intellectual, a modern thinker—inadvertently demonstrated that Patañjali's Yoga Sūtras aren't historical relics. They're an essential user manual for the most complex piece of technology we'll ever own: our own minds.
The sūtras are an ancient operating system for modern hardware.
The Question
So here's what I'm left with after watching this interview:
If one of the world's most brilliant historians needs two hours a day to work with his mind's restlessness and story-making...
If ancient sages from 2,000 years ago mapped the exact same challenges we face today...
If the solution they offered—consistent practice, quieting the narratives, seeing what's actually real—still works...
What would change if you actually tried it?
Not the five-minute app version. Not the "wellness" version. But the real thing. The dīrghakāla nairantarya satkāra version—the long-term, unbroken, devoted practice that Patañjali prescribed.
The technology around you will keep changing. But the operating system of your mind won't.
Have you tried debugging it today?
This article is part of my ongoing exploration of how ancient wisdom maps onto modern experience. If this resonated with you, check out my oher articles or my web site: QuantumView Website
What's your experience with meditation or contemplative practice? I'd love to hear in the comments below.
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