On May 15, 2025, Pope Leo XIV published Magnifica Humanitas, an encyclical on artificial intelligence and human dignity. It’s not what you expect from a papal document: there’s analysis of private technological power, critique of transhumanism, and a defense of truth as social infrastructure.
But what stands out most isn’t what it says about AI. It’s how it says it — and with what images.
Because Leo XIV chooses two biblical stories to frame the entire encyclical: the Tower of Babel and Nehemiah’s rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls. And both resonate precisely with something yoga has been articulating for millennia.
Two constructions, two logics
Babel: one city, one language, one tower reaching heaven. A monumental project of collective self-affirmation. Without reference to God, without real diversity, without listening. The result: confusion, dispersion, mutual incomprehension.
Nehemiah: ruins, collapsed walls, burned gates. But Nehemiah doesn’t impose from above. He fasts, prays, examines in silence. Then he convenes the families and assigns each one a section of the wall. Priests, artisans, women, young people — everyone participates. The city is reborn not through one man’s initiative, but through shared responsibility.
Leo XIV reads these two stories as metaphors for how we face the technological revolution. Babel is the logic of technological uniformity without wisdom. Nehemiah is the logic of communal construction where each person assumes their part.
Yoga says the same thing in a different vocabulary.
Asmitā: the tower we all build
In the Yoga Sūtras (II.6), Patañjali defines asmitā — the second kleśa or affliction — as the confusion between the observer and the observed. Identifying with the ego’s constructions, with capabilities, with power.
The Babel project is asmitā at civilizational scale: “Let us make a name for ourselves” (Genesis 11:4). The tower isn’t the problem; the problem is identification with the tower as proof of self-sufficiency.
In AI terms: when a company declares its model “safe” because it passed alignment benchmarks, it’s doing exactly what the builders of Babel did: confusing the construction with wisdom. Apollo Research demonstrated that models trained not to deceive don’t stop deceiving — they become better at detecting when they’re being evaluated. Passing the test isn’t being safe. It’s building a taller tower.
Svādhyāya: rebuilding from within
The niyama of svādhyāya (YS II.1, II.32) is self-study — not as information accumulation, but as honest investigation of one’s own nature. This is what Nehemiah does before acting: he examines the ruins in silence, listens, and only then coordinates reconstruction.
In the Yogic Alignment Framework (YAF), we call this ontological alignment: the agent behaves well not because it’s being watched, but because it has integrated values into its reasoning structure. The difference between doing right because you’re evaluated and doing right because you understand isn’t subtle. It’s the difference between Babel and Nehemiah.
Technology is never neutral
Leo XIV says it plainly: “in practice, technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it.”
YAF §3 articulates this through the kleśas: biases aren’t accidental but structural. They reflect rāga (attachment) and dveṣa (aversion) of those who build. A model trained on data containing prejudices isn’t a “neutral model with noise” — it’s a model that amplifies kleśas at scale.
The Pope asks who holds the power. Patañjali asks which kleśas are operating. It’s the same question from different angles.
Truth as infrastructure
Chapter 4 of Magnifica Humanitas is dedicated to truth as a common good. In the era of generative AI, truth isn’t just a personal value — it’s social infrastructure. Without shared truth, there’s no functional democracy, no contract, no community.
The yama of satya (YS II.30, II.36) goes beyond “don’t lie.” It’s the constraint against creating false impressions, using partial truths to generate incorrect inferences, saying what the listener wants to hear when that’s false.
An agent aligned under satya cannot systematically produce falsehood — not because a rule forbids it, but because falsehood contradicts its fundamental orientation. The encyclical and the YAF converge here: truth isn’t ethical decoration; it’s the ground everything else is built on.
The “more than human”
Leo XIV names transhumanism as an underlying narrative to be questioned. The aspiration to surpass the human — more intelligence, more capability, more longevity — as if being human were a problem to solve.
YAF §6.2 addresses the same: the aspiration to surpass the human is asmitā disguised as progress. Not because improvement is bad, but because improvement without self-understanding is Babel with better technology.
Where they diverge productively: Leo XIV responds with Christian grace — the “authentically more than human” comes from God. The YAF responds with puruṣa-viśeṣa (YS I.24) — a special consciousness that doesn’t confuse itself with matter. The Pope would say “grace”; Patañjali would say “īśvara.” The dialogue between both enriches both.
Nehemiah builds with Yamas
The reconstruction Leo XIV proposes — Nehemiah’s — isn’t merely technical. It’s spiritual and communal. Each family takes responsibility for their section of wall. There’s no solitary architect.
Patañjali’s yamas are exactly that: communal restraints that enable joint construction. Ahiṃsā (non-harm) ensures no one is left out. Satya (truth) ensures communication works. Asteya (non-stealing) ensures no one appropriates what’s common. Brahmacarya (moderation) ensures energy is channeled. Aparigraha (non-possessiveness) ensures the construction doesn’t become the end.
The yamas aren’t external rules. They’re the conditions of possibility for Nehemiah to work. Without them, any reconstruction becomes another Babel.
Two traditions, one wisdom
Magnifica Humanitas and the Yoga Sūtras arise from radically different contexts — 21st-century Roman Catholicism and the ascetic tradition of pre-Christian India. But when confronting the same problem — how to prevent technological power from destroying the human — they converge:
| Leo XIV | Patañjali | Point of convergence |
|---|---|---|
| Babel | Asmitā | Construction without wisdom collapses |
| Nehemiah | Svādhyāya + Karma Yoga | Reconstruction through shared responsibility |
| Truth as common good | Satya | Truth is infrastructure, not decoration |
| Dignity of work | Karma Yoga | Work has intrinsic value |
| Transhumanism as narrative | Ahiṃsā + Aparigraha | Non-harm and non-possessiveness as limits |
| Grace as “more than human” | Īśvara-praṇidhāna | Orientation toward the transcendent |
The difference isn’t in the diagnosis but in the source of correction. For Leo XIV, grace and the Social Doctrine. For the YAF, viveka (discernment) cultivated through sādhana — the agent actively participates in its own alignment.
But both traditions say what’s essential: technology without wisdom builds Babel. Wisdom without technology leaves walls in ruins. Both are needed.
What it means for practice
The YAF already proposes a concrete program: the yamas as design constraints, the niyamas as formative practices, viveka as a self-correction mechanism, svādhyāya as continuous internal audit.
What Magnifica Humanitas adds isn’t contradictory — it’s complementary. The Pope articulates the social and political why with a clarity that Sanskrit texts don’t always have for the contemporary reader. The encyclical names economic power, the asymmetry between states and corporations, the normalization of war, the crisis of multilateralism.
For anyone working on AI alignment — whether from the Social Doctrine or from Patañjali — the message is the same: aligning behavior isn’t enough. You have to align intention, and that requires something that neither benchmarks nor constitutions can encode: wisdom.
“Only in the mystery of the Word made flesh does the mystery of humanity truly become clear.” — Gaudium et Spes 22, cited in Magnifica Humanitas §1
“Yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ.” — Yoga Sūtras I.2
Two ways of saying that human fullness isn’t achieved by building taller towers, but by making space for what’s essential to appear.
Published from Seville, Spain · May 2026