Yoga Sutra 1.12 — What We Do with All of This

1.12
abhyāsa vairāgyābhyāṁ tan nirodhaḥ

The movements of the mind settle through practice and letting go.

By now, we’ve taken a good look at the mind.

We’ve seen how it moves — how it perceives, misunderstands, imagines, remembers, and quietly processes in the background.

At this point, a very reasonable question arises:

What do we actually do with all of this?

Patañjali’s answer is surprisingly simple.

Two things:

practice
and
letting go

That’s it.

No complicated system.
No dramatic life overhaul.

Just two steady directions we return to, again and again.

Practice

Practice is the willingness to come back.

To notice the mind.
To pause.
To choose again.

Not once.
Not perfectly.

But repeatedly.

Letting Go

And then there is letting go.

Not giving up.
Not checking out.

Just… not gripping so tightly.

We’ll explore this more in the next sutras, but for now:

Letting go means we don’t need everything to go exactly our way in order to be okay.

Together, these two — practice and letting go — begin to soften the movements of the mind.

Not by force.

But by consistency and space.

A Question to Sit With

Where in your life could you practice showing up…
and where might you loosen your grip just a little?