If you’ve ever found yourself halfway through a pose only to realize your mind is somewhere else entirely—planning dinner, revisiting a conversation, drifting into judgment—you’re not alone. This is part of the human experience. The practice isn’t about never being distracted. It’s about recognizing when you are, and learning how to return.

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras offer more than lofty ideals—they offer practical techniques for working with the mind. Two of them are especially relevant when it comes to rising thought waves: one helps us redirect the mind in the moment, and the other helps prevent those thoughts from building in the first place.

1. Subduing the Thought as It Arises (Yoga Sutra II.11)

“These fluctuations are to be subdued through meditation.”
(dhyāna-heyāḥ tad-vṛttayaḥ)

Here, Patanjali is referring to the subtle mental patterns that take shape in our consciousness. When we sit, breathe, or hold a pose with attention, we begin to see them. The practice is not to fight or suppress them—but to notice their rise and gently guide the attention elsewhere.

This is what B.K.S. Iyengar called cultivating the witness consciousness—observing the mind without getting pulled along by it. You start to feel when a thought is forming, and in that moment, you can return to the breath, the body, the present.

That moment of return is the practice.

2. Preventing Disturbance Through Mantra (Yoga Sutra I.29)

“Through repetition [of Om] and reflection on its meaning, obstacles are removed and consciousness turns inward.”
(taj-japas tad-arthabhāvanam)

This is a technique for preparing the mind. Instead of waiting to get distracted, we anchor ourselves in something steady—like the repetition of Om.

Geeta Iyengar, daughter of B.K.S. Iyengar, emphasized the transformative power of the Om mantra. She viewed it not just as a sound, but as a bridge to inner peace and spiritual connection. Om, she said, is the sound of the inner self—a way to align with the universal rhythm and settle the mind into something deeper.

When practiced with quiet reflection, japa can shift the inner landscape. The thoughts don’t have as much fuel. The breath slows. A new kind of quiet becomes possible.

Neither of these techniques is about perfection. They're about attention. About noticing what the mind does—and remembering that we have the tools to come back.

Whether you pause in the moment (II.11), or set the tone with mantra (I.29), the effect is the same: greater steadiness, deeper clarity, and a more spacious relationship with thought.

That’s where practice begins to change us.