Fixing Your Focus - 004 Spacing In

“Fire-of-Earth” – Suddenly “Spacing Out”

With siyata d’shmaya, we will continue here to learn about the power of focus.[1] Now we will discuss issues with concentration\focus related to “fire”-of-earth.

The element of earth is naturally stable and permanent. In contrast, the element of fire is a jumpy element. The nature of fire is that it does not stay where it is – it jumps and skips from its place. Earth in the soul is the nature to be firmly established in place, to be orderly and structured, step after step. The nature of fire in the soul, by contrast, is to jump and skip between one step and another, with no orderly structure.

What is the relationship between the power of focus and “fire-of-earth”? All people experience it, and many times. A person is in middle of thinking about something, and suddenly, a different thought pops in.

Two Reasons Why A Person Keeps Spacing Out – Lack of Interest Or Strong Imagination

In some cases, a person was not really that interested in thinking about whatever he had been thinking about – either it wasn’t intellectually stimulating enough for him, or he wasn’t emotionally drawn into the thought – so naturally, he will “space out” from these uninteresting thoughts, and he will begin to think about others. Generally, when a person feels connected to whatever he is involved with, his thoughts about it will be focused and his mind won’t wander as much. By contrast, the less he is connected with what he is doing or thinking, the weaker his focus will be on it.

Another scenario of when this happens is when a person has a strong imagination. A person may have a strong imagination for any of the following reasons: (1) Either his intellectual faculties are weak, which in turn causes his imaginative faculty to be more active; (2) Or, he is being lazy and he doesn’t want to think that much, which causes his intellect to shut down and instead his imagination takes over.

Either of these factors can cause the imagination to dominate. When a person’s imagination is strongly active, naturally, his mind will skip from one thought to another. The imagination will imagine something and then it will imagine another thing, and then another thing, and the mind becomes jumpy from this, skipping from one topic to another.

So there are two general issues which cause a person to “space out” in his thoughts and to get involved with other thoughts: Either he is not that connected to what he is involved with, which will cause his mind to wander, or, because he has a strongly active imagination, which causes the mind to be jumpy.

Fire-of-Earth: Temporarily Spacing Out

In this chapter, however, we will deal with a subtler issue. We will be discussing a person who is indeed connected to what he is doing, and who is also not dominated by a strong imagination. Even so, he may have a problem of spacing out and becoming mentally involved with other thoughts. This is fire-of-earth.

If the thoughts would be coming from the general element of fire, the thoughts would be very intense, similar to the boiling hot nature of the fire. In this scenario, a person is totally spaced out from what he is involved with, and his thoughts become completely involved in something else. An example of this would be a person who is given one hour to learn a certain page of Gemara, and within that hour, he spaces out for almost the entire hour, thinking about other things. The little bit of thinking that he spent on the page of the Gemara in front of him is “nullified to the majority” of the time, which was spent on other thoughts.

In many cases, though, a person is indeed thinking about what he is involved with and he feels connected to it, for the most part, and even so, there can be sudden thoughts that fall into his head, which steer away his focus. This generally happens to every person. A person is involved with something and he is thinking about, and suddenly he is thinking about something. His thoughts have “flown” elsewhere. This temporary “spacing out” in his thoughts is essentially the impediment to focus which we are discussing in this chapter: fire-of-earth.

With fire-of-earth, there is certain stability (earth) as well as mental jumpiness (fire). The person stays attached to what he is doing and his mind is not spacing out the entire time (unlike the scenarios listed earlier). At the same time, there is also an element of fire here which causes the person’s thoughts to jump and skip to different topics. The person digresses from what he is in middle of involved with, getting involved with different activities or thoughts that have no connection to what he was in middle of doing or thinking. His thoughts suddenly take a different direction.

If a person’s fire is stronger than the earth in him, this sudden turn of thoughts will happen more often, and the amount of spacing out will also last longer. If one’s earth is stronger than his fire, he will space out less, and even when does space out, it will last for a lesser amount of time. Almost anyone, without exception, can relate to this phenomenon where the mind suddenly wanders to think about something else.

The Desired State: Consistent Thought

When the thoughts wander, the first problem that this causes, which is simple to understand, is that the person is now wasting his time. Usually, when a person begins to space out, it is not about a Torah thought or any thought related to inner avodah (service). It is usually a thought about something mundane and worldly.

However, there is also a more inner problem that results of spacing out. The entire secret of inner success in life is the ability of consistency. In the words of a letter of the Chazon Ish: “The secret to holiness, is consistency.” The power of consistency can be manifest in action, in speech (speaking constantly of the words of Torah), and in the power of thought. Consistent thought, with most people, is almost non-existent.

The Ramchal, in the final chapter of Mesillas Yesharim which discusses the level of kedushah (holiness), describes kedushah as “A person who does not stop thinking about the existence of the Blessed Creator, and of his service to Him.” The Ramchal explains that this ability really cannot be reached through human nature, for the nature of the human mind is that it tends to think about other things. In order to remain in a state of constant connection to the Creator, the Ramchal says that one can only reach this level as a “gift” [from Heaven]. It is not reached through our human faculties – it is a [Heavenly] “gift”.  

When one receives this “gift”, he has a constant mental connection to the Creator. (A separate matter is what exactly a person should constantly be connected to – either to the Creator, or to the Torah). At this level, a person’s mind never wanders to other topics.

This is a state of constant mental connection, and it is the perfected level of fire-of-earth. When one’s element of earth is completely rectified, he rises from the lowliness of the earth (specifically, earth-of-earth) and he reaches the ultimate level of stability and permanence – constant connection to that which is meaningful – which is the perfected state of the element of earth. This is the absolute level of focus and, as the Ramchal says, a person can only receive it as a “gift” from Heaven.

The simple understanding of why this level is a “gift” is because a human being is limited, whereas the Creator is unlimited, a human being cannot reach this level of constant mental connection on his own, but by attaching himself to thoughts about the Creator, he receives the “gift” from Heaven to have the constant mental connection.

While this is true, there is also a deeper understanding of this. It is beyond human ability to have constant thought, where the mind never wanders, because the jumpy nature of fire-of-earth prevents a person from remaining focused all the time on one thought. Although there is an aspect of permanence here which comes from the element of earth, the fire is also a factor here, which causes the thoughts to jump and skip between one topic and another.

Spacing Out & Wasting Time –A Loss of Stability

Thus, when a person sometimes spaces out and he begins to think about other things, not only does this cause him to waste time, but there is something even worse – it causes a person to lose his sense of stability and permanence.

The more superficial that a person is, the more he lives in the realm of action and speech. The more inner that a person is, he lives more in the world of thought and will. He will also take care of what he needs to and he will speak when he has to, but he will mainly be involved with his thoughts. The Zohar says, “adam da machshavah” - “A person is thought.” A person who lives inwardly is living in the inner world of thought. On a more subtle level, the root of thought is the subconscious will, which is motivating the thoughts.

An inner kind of life is when a person is connected, on a stable and consistent basis, to his inner world. The more internal that a person becomes, the more inner his thoughts will be. However, when he spaces out every so often, his time is wasted, he stops being consistent in what he is doing, and he is also removed from his own inner world. This is the ruination caused by fire-of-earth.

Most people, after they space out and they begin to think about all kinds of thoughts about the world, also have a hard time when trying to return inward. As for the level of consistent thought which we mentioned above, this is too difficult for most people to reach, because it is a “gift” from Heaven.

The first issue caused by spacing out – wasting time – is a problem that all people can relate to, because they can see that they lose time from spacing out. The second issue caused by spacing out - losing consistency – will only bother a few individuals, who would be disturbed by the loss of consistency and who would be willing to work on this. Most others, however, would not be able to deal with this issue.

The issue of wasting time, which is the most common issue that people can relate to, is when a person leaves his inwardness and he turns outward.

Spacing Out Causes A Person To Turn Outward

Most people have more of a connection to their outside, superficial layer of life, in comparison to the inner layer of their life. There are also some people who, Rachmana Litzlan (may G-d have mercy on them) have almost no inner level to their existence – their inner state is completely desolate. Here, though, we will address those who do have an inner world of their own, and who realize that the inner world is much cleaner and purer than the world on the outside.

The inner work here, for such a person, is to realize that spacing out and thinking about various worldly thoughts will cause a person to leave his own inner world, placing him on the world outside.

Compare this to a person who wishes to guard his eyes from seeing anything improper. If he is in his house, his eyes will not see anything improper. But if he goes to the window and he looks at the streets, and certainly if he sticks his head out the window and he looks even further, he will see whatever he sees – everything that is taking place in the streets. In the same vein, when a person is found in his own inner world, he is protected; he is in his own private space, his own “four cubits of halachah”, but when his mind begins to wander and think about other things, he opens himself to the rest of the world, with all of the improper thoughts that are found in it.

As an example, we are all familiar with what happens when people sleep and they have dreams. The imagination roams free and the person may think about anything in the world. This is a separate issue which we will not discuss here, but it is also particularly relevant to our current discussion: when a person opens up his mind to think about the world, he loses his ability to be focused.

How Technology & Connection To The Media Impairs Focus

A fundamental example of this is the use of media today, which people have access to through various means of technology. Besides for all of the worst levels of spiritually harmful material that it brings a person to, it presents a major issue to a person’s entire power of focus and concentration.

It used to be that a person would sit in his house and his eyes were very limited in what they could see. He saw whatever was in his house, and that was it. In the beginning stages of technology, a person could now become connected with other people in the world, leaving behind his own life in order to become involved with others’. The technology of today, though, allows a person to keep reading and absorbing various bits of information, one after the other.

All of the material found in the world today is collected into one place, and the person views all of it as he scrolls down the screen. Every moment, the person’s mind is jumping from one topic to another – every moment, his mind can jump anywhere, all over the world. This is a total antithesis to a person’s power of focus.

In the past, if a person wanted to read a certain topic or about something happening far away, he would open a book and do some research, until he felt fairly educated about the subject. Today, even if a person is not actually researching information at every given moment, he can access the entire world in one moment, reading all information available on every possible topic and anything taking place in the world.

Where does this place his soul? It spreads apart the soul and scatters it all over the place. Even when a person is trying to think about something related to his own inner world, he can still be found on the outside world, once he opens his mind to think about everything else taking place in the world. The jumpy nature of his fire-of-earth can turn his mind all over the place.

In previous generations, the nature of fire-of-earth was always the part in a person which causes a person to connect outward to the rest of the world (back then, the world was far purer than it is today), and to leave his own inner space, which also meant wasted time and a loss of stability. But in our current times, a person’s fire-of-earth has far more negative implications, because today a person has a far wider range of access to the entire world. It causes an almost total loss of self-control, an endless amount of information pouring into the mind – as endless as all of the stars in the galaxy.

We need to understand that in recent years, people are growing up with a lifestyle which is the total opposite of the very concept of the ability to have any inner focus. The entire way of living today has become a total contradiction to an inner kind of life (which we have been trying to explain in this chapter).

The more a person can disconnect himself from all that goes on outside in the world, the less of a problem this will be. This does not only mean that a person must avoid any involvement with [reading about] heresy, and the three cardinal sins, and all other inappropriate material that exists today – that’s a separate topic. One who allows himself to become involved with such sins is, simply speaking, a wicked individual. Rather, here we are referring to the need of forming a disconnection from subtler forms of connection to the world.

If anyone wishes to live genuinely today, he must disconnect himself from what’s going on in the world today. Even for those who must be connected to the world today in order to take care of themselves, i.e. those who go to work in order to make a living (this is actually not so simple, and it merits a discussion for itself, but we won’t get into that here), this should only be limited to the actual time of the day which demands it, but otherwise, for the rest of the day, a person should feel that he has nothing to do with it!

Without this attitude – which is what happens to most people – a person will fall into the simple reality of our times, irrelevant of what we have said here about fire-of-earth – in which one is constantly open to the entire world and all that takes place in it. When that is the case, nothing that we said here will be of help to them.

In the lives of most people, fire-of-earth does not play that much of a dominant role. This is not due to a person’s nature, but due to the simple reality in our times. The very fact that a person today can be open to the entire world and all that goes in it, and he immediately connects to the news and media as soon as he is a bit bored or just plain curious – as soon as he does this, he has lost his entire power of focus.

Thus, the first step [to gain the power of focus] is to disconnect from the world, completely. Even in situations when a person does have to be involved with the world (which needs serious contemplation, because not always is there a genuine need to be involved with it, even when it seems like there is), one needs to limit this to the actual time in which he needs to be involved with the world, but for the rest of the day, one must not allow himself to be open to the world at every moment.

Here is a simple example. Even a cellphone, which a person likes to keep checking and answering, does not have to always be on every moment.

There are some people who are on a very high level of chessed, and such people need to have their phones on all the time so that they can always do chessed at every possible opportunity. Understandably, however, this is not the case with most people.

In most cases where people are answering their cellphones at every moment, in middle of davening and in middle of learning, what does is stem from? It really stems from lack of inner calm and inner quiet, as well as a lack of being focused. Why would a person answer absolutely anyone who gives him a buzz on his cellphone? Even if he doesn’t immediately answer, he will look to see who called him and wonder if he should pick up or not. In either case, he is constantly allowing himself to be open to the entire world.

A person can be alone in his house, yet he can be connected to the entire world [via the means of technology]. Although it’s better to be alone in his house than to be in the street, his constant involvement with the world will keep chipping away at his power to focus. If he has any capability in his house that can connect to the wide expanse of the media today, he is totally uprooted from any focus. Even if he is less connected with the world [he doesn’t have access to internet and media] and he is simply answering his phone all the time to anyone who contacts him,thisis still not a way to live.

We should understand that even when a person turns off his phone by davening and the like (this is commendable, and it is an achievement, Baruch Hashem, because not everyone merits to do even this), what happens when a person has finished davening? He immediately checks his phone to see whatever he has missed. On a “soul level”, it didn’t help that much that he shut off his phone for davening, because his soul is still connected to the rest of the world.

Baruch Hashem, he has reached the understanding that he shouldn’t have his phone when he is in Hashem’s place, and if only everyone would even reach this level. But he still hasn’t yet disconnected his soul from the world. His soul is still found in the outside world! He has a bit of derech eretz (respectable manners) for the honor of Hashem, he has respect for the beis midrash, respect for the congregation, and respect for the sefer Torah – but, for all practical purposes, he has not disconnected his soul from the outside environment of the world. Deep down, he still feels connected with the rest of the world, even as his phone is off – and he has only temporarily paused from it.

Is this better than nothing? Of course it is. But it will still not have much of a positive effect on his soul.

Step 1 – Quiet Time Every Day of Disconnecting from the World

Where should we start, in order to fix these issues?

If the situation today would be like how it was 20 years ago and earlier, there would be a lot more we should really work on, in order to fix these issues. But what can we do, in the current reality which we live in today, in which it is impossible to make such drastic changes? In most people today, the nature of fire-of-earth has simply undergone a change [due to the pervasive environment which we live in today]. The very least that a person should do about it is to set aside some time every day, in which he completely cuts himself off from the rest of the world. He should simply disconnect.

In our generation, there is a very common occurrence of those who keep their phones on within direct reach of their beds, so that they can always be able to answer it as soon as it rings. A person today can be working in Israel and in the Israeli time zone, and when he is done work, he is now working in another country’s time zone. It is common today that a person simply “has no time”. When a person lives like this, he loses the bare minimum of focus which he needs.

The basic idea which a person needs is to have certain time of the day in which he is simply cut off from the world. This is besides for the time in which you are sleeping, or davening, or learning Torah

(If only we could say that there’s a person today who never answers his phone while he is in the middle of learning, or when in middle of a shiur. When a person is sitting by a shiur and his phone goes off, everyone is disturbed by it. Then the person even has the audacity to answer his phone in middle of the shiur, disturbing the Torah learning of everyone around him – and in his mind, it’s as if everyone else has dropped dead. If we wouldn’t see it with our own eyes, we wouldn’t believe that there’s such a thing, but this is the simple reality today - nothing new. Before we even consider the issue of respecting the beis midrash and respecting other people, the whole lifestyle is just crazy and totally upside-down.)

Every person needs some time of the day in which he is disconnected from the world. And the truth is that this idea is only scratching the surface of the real improvement that needs to be made when it comes to these issues. The truth requires much more than this. But this is the bare minimum of what any person needs to do today: to have some quiet time each day, of disconnecting from the rest of the world. This is not a time to go to sleep, daven, or learn Torah. It is a time in which you simply have quiet, in order to get used to a life without connection to the rest of the world.

Without this quiet time each day, there’s nothing else a person can do in order to fix the issues with focus that stem from fire-of-earth. The nature of fire-of-earth is the root of jumpiness in the mind which happens every so often, where the thoughts in the mind simply jump to thinking about other thoughts. But as we have elaborated upon here, in our current times, this problem doesn’t happen ‘every so often’ – rather, it has become the normal situation for a person’s soul, to be generally unfocused. When that is the case, it is most difficult for a person to attain the subtlety described in this lesson.

Step 2 – Feeling Connected To What You Are Doing

As explained, fire-of-earth is the nature of subtle jumpiness in the mind between different thoughts.

As mentioned earlier, the more that a person focuses on whatever he is involved with - by enjoying what he is doing – the less his mind will jump to different thoughts. Thus, the first step is that in whatever you are doing, you need to have a desire for what you are doing.

Let’s consider the following example. A person comes to a shiur where he can hear a Torah lesson. Why did he come to the shiur? Perhaps he came in order to fulfill the mitzvah of learning Torah. He is doing so in order to fulfill his obligation of having fixed times for Torah study. But does he feel connected to his Torah learning? It is possible that he always makes sure to complete the Daf HaYomi by the end of the day, Baruch Hashem. If he is asked a few questions on what he has learned that day, it’s possible that he doesn’t know any of the answers. Still, at least he heard words of Torah, and he went to the beis midrash, and he will be rewarded for it. When he finishes his learning, he continues with the rest of his day.

A person cannot be genuinely focused on his Torah learning, when he lives like this. He is not really involved in his own Torah learning; he is not connected to it.

There is a fundamental rule for all of life, and to describe it briefly: In whatever you are doing (except for the things that come up which you simply need to take care of), you need to feel connected to it!

A person might be learning Torah but he is not that connected to his learning. A person might be teaching Torah to others, and he is not that connected to what he does. To counter this, the least a person can do is try to do an act of chessed for others and to feel connected to this act of kindness. In general, people need to feel inwardly connected to what they are doing, and to act out of a place of inner connection to what they do. The more that a person practices this, the more his soul will indeed connect to that which he does.

This is the basic step which is needed, in order for a person to attain the power of focus.

Step 3a- Identifying Where Your Thoughts Wander To

Even more so, when there is jumpiness in the mind, there are two factors which one needs to learn to identify.

The first thing to identify is: Where do your thoughts wander to? Understandably, sometimes the thoughts wander to one place, and at other times, the thoughts wander to a different area, and at another time, to something else. One should therefore take a pen and paper and write down where his thoughts wander to. After practicing this for 20 times and much more, you should be able to slowly identify where your thoughts wander to. Of course, there can be many different possibilities. But you can at least become familiar with the general types of thoughts that your mind wanders to.

Generally, a person’s thoughts will wander to one of the following two kinds of thoughts:

1)    A kind of thought related to one’s external environment, due to something that a person saw, or heard, etc. Dealing with this issue will depend on how much one can control his thoughts when encountering any external stimuli. (If one is on a higher spiritual level, he can also train himself not to look at things in his surroundings, which cause his mind to wander).

2)    In most cases, however, a person’s mind wanders due to deep desires and wishes that he has. The deep desires of person can be expressed on a subconscious level when his mind wanders to think about those areas. (If the thought is not related to a particularly strong desire that he has, it can simply be because he is bothered by something, such as something about his bank account, etc.)

So the first thing to identify is where the thoughts generally wander to.

Step 3b-3c – Identifying The Cause For the Transition of the Thoughts

The second thing one needs to identify, when his mind wanders, is to see: (A) Where exactly is my mind right now? After this, there is a third thing to identify: (B) What caused the original thought to diverge into this new thought?

We will explain briefly how this works. When you identify where your thoughts have gone, generally, it is either due to an external factor in the environment, such as something you have seen or heard, or, it is due to some activity you are involved with, which you have a desire for. If you see that your mind began to wander to think about something which you have a particular desire for, the inner work here is to uproot those desires (to know how to do this requires its own discussion).

Dealing With the Root vs. Dealing With the Symptoms

As long as a person has not yet uprooted his deep desires that are causing him to space out, he cannot deal with the issue of spacing out, because he hasn’t yet dealt the root of the issue. The fact that his mind spaces out is not the root of the issue - it is just the result. We must deal with the root reason that is causing the mind to veer off track: the deep desires and wishes of a person.

When people have difficulties with focus and concentration, they may take pills. What can this be compared to? It’s like a person who is addicted to candy, so we tie him down to his bed, so that he won’t be able to move. True, we have prevented him from getting to the candy, but we haven’t dealt with the root of the issue.

It’s the same when we want to deal with the issue of spacing out. It won’t be enough if we simply identify where the thoughts have wandered to. That is but a result of the issue. What we mainly need to figure out is: what the deep desires and wishes in the person are. We first need to figure out the main reason which is causing the mind to space out, and only then can we attempt to deal with the issue of spacing out.

The Relationship Between The Will and The Thoughts

Anyone can discover that this is the simple reason which causes his mind to sometimes space out and think about various other thoughts: His mind will wander to think about something he deeply desires.

The Gemara (in Tractate Succah) says that the feet will naturally take a person to where he wants to go. On a deeper level, the same can be said of the will, which steers the thoughts. Thoughts are called a “flying bird”, but they are powered by the will. The thoughts will therefore “fly” to the desires of the will.

That is why a major part in dealing with issues of focus is to discover what a person wants. When a person wants something badly, that is what causes his mind to wander and to think about those things. Therefore, the more a person discovers what he wants, the more precise his thought process will become - his mind will ‘stay in place’ more.

So, when we want to improve on focus and concentration, a large part of the process involves getting in touch with the deep desires contained in our will. This is a way to deal with the issue at its root. It is particularly relevant to the issues with focus that stem from fire-of-earth, which is a more subtle kind of losing focus, but it is also true in general about all issues with focus.

Returning The Thoughts After Spacing Out

We also explained that a person needs to identify where his thoughts have wandered to. Let’s explain more about this now.

When the mind wanders to think about other thoughts, it is really a way of disconnecting from where you are. But if you learn to identify where your mind wanders to, it will greatly lessen the amount of disconnection (though not totally). Why? Because as soon as you identify where the thoughts have wandered to, you can now easily return to your original thought. It is like when a person gets up from his chair to do something and then returns to his chair. Although he has uprooted himself from the chair, it is only temporary, and soon he returns to sitting in the chair.

In this way, even though the mind had become disconnected from the original thought, at least the disconnection won’t be total, because the person quickly returns to what he was originally thinking about. Here, the ‘fire’ doesn’t have complete control over his ‘earth’. Although the fire still overtakes the earth, the earth has to return things to their original place.

In order for a person to return his mind to his original thoughts, he needs to be somewhat aware of what he had been thinking about originally.

Sometimes a person can be talking for a long amount of time, and then he says, “So, what was I talking about…?” He needs to be reminded what he was in the middle of. This may also happen when a person is in middle of a shiur and suddenly an argument erupts, and everyone is talking, and a person may then lose focus on the actual topic at hand. But it also happens simply when people are talking with each other for a while, and they forget what they were originally discussing.

But if a person trains himself to immediately return to his original thought – whether he is in the middle of talking, or even when he is the middle of thinking about something, which is what we are currently discussing – then even when he does occasionally space out, it will not be for that long, because he can quickly stabilize his mind. His “earth” can quickly take over the “fire” and bring the mind back to its original place.

Identifying What Caused The Mind To Space Out

The third thing to identify, as mentioned, is to examine: What caused my thoughts to think about something else?

1) Factors In The Environment:If it happened due to an external factor in the environment, then the solution is more obvious – one needs to avoid those things he is seeing or hearing which can distract him, as much as he can.

2) Bothered By Something:If a person discovers that he has “spaced out” because his mind is heavily bothered by something, this is a broader issue to examine. In some situations, we may be able to lessen the busyness in his life which is bothering him, and in other situations, we may be able to change a person’s attitude towards the things that are bothering him, which would mitigate his stress.

3) Imagination: However, what is particularly relevant to our topic, focus, is that it is generally the imagination which causes one thought to suddenly jump to another thought. The imagination will link together two different thoughts, mentally “comparing” them with each other and deeming the two thoughts as similar. When that happens, a person will suddenly start thinking about something else, while he is the midst of thinking of another thing.

If a person is the type to strongly imagine, this problem with losing focus is rooted in imagination, and not in fire-of-earth. A strong imagination causes the element of fire to dominate on an extreme level, where the person’s thoughts are generally unfocused, lacking consistency. We have discussed imagination elsewhere,[2] and here is not the place where we will discuss it. Here, we are speaking about a subtler form of losing focus.

When one’s thoughts jump from one subject to another, it is a mental comparison between two similar topics. If the thoughts wouldn’t be similar, the mind wouldn’t jump to those thoughts. If the new thought isn’t about something similar to the topic of the first thought, what caused the mind to jump to this new thought? It can only be because the thoughts are about something similar. The mind quickly makes a similarity between the thoughts and jumps to the new thought. Then the person becomes involved with another thought, completely unrelated to the first thought, once his mind has made the transition from the first thought to the second thought.

What is the solution to this issue? How can we get the mind to become more consistent in the thoughts?

Using Earth\Consistency To Stabilize Jumpiness (Fire) In The Thoughts

When this process of “spacing out” into other thoughts stems from fire-of-earth, the problem is that the mind is jumpy. Since the problem here is rooted in the element of fire, the solution will lie in the element of earth, which has the consistent nature to counter the jumpy nature of fire. In such a case, a person needs to keep awakening his element of earth, which will stop the ‘fire’ in its tracks.

1) One way to use the element of earth (when it comes to regaining focus) is to return to what you were previously doing or thinking, before you began to do something else or space out. That is one way to awaken the power of consistency. 

2) A second way to use earth\consistency is by identifying what caused your mind to veer off track, and then, to allow your mind to connect to the “similar” thought that your mind has begun to think about – as opposed to connecting your mind to an unrelated thought which your mind has jumped to. In this method, you are connecting to the aspect of consistency that can be found even within the jumpiness of the mind.

This is a subtle idea: You identify the consistency that is within the changing process of the thoughts. In this way, you can train your soul to become used to the connection between the different thoughts which caused the mind to think of the new thought, rather than identifying with the disconnectedness in the thoughts which has caused the mind to think of the new thought.

When a person gets used to practicing this, he slowly strengthens the element of earth in his soul.

Gaining Control Of Your Thought Process

When one traverses all three steps described here, he will slowly be able to feel that there is a lot less jumpiness in his mind. The amount of times that he spaces out will be less, and even when he does space out, it will be for a noticeably shorter amount of time. Even more so, he will find it easier to return to his previous thoughts. He will attain a stronger power of focus.

As long as there remains a possibility of spacing out and getting involved with other thoughts, it is difficult for a person to be strongly focused in what he is involved with. The mere fact that his mind can easily space out into other thoughts, is already a disturbance to his focus. The easier it is for his mind to space out into other thoughts, it hard for a person to stay consistently focused on what he is doing.

We can compare it to a tree with weak roots in the ground. A strong wind can uproot it from the ground, whereas a small wind will not uproot it but it will still bend it to and fro. Similarly, if a person’s mind is easily ‘blown around’ by different thoughts, his mind will become disturbed by particularly bothersome thoughts, and if the thoughts are not that bothersome and they are only a bit distracting, they may not take his mind over completely, but they will be enough to disturb his thoughts. In contrast to this, if a person has worked on the steps outlined in this lesson, his mind will be able to hold strong and not become easily distracted by other activities and thoughts.

When one works on the steps outlined here, and he is also a more internal kind of person, he can set aside a considerable amount of time and watch the consistency of his thoughts. He will notice that in the amount of time given, his mind normally would have spaced out into other thoughts, but now that he has worked on the steps here, his mind has become more focused and his thoughts will generally be more consistent.

This is like a “redemption” of the thoughts within the very “exile” of the thoughts, because if offers a noticeable amount of consistency in the thoughts amidst of all the jumpiness of the thoughts. The mere fact that the mind tends to jump from one thought to another, is an “exile” to the thoughts. But when one strengthens his element of earth, as explained in this chapter, he will greatly increase the consistency in his thoughts. This is a “redemption” to the thoughts, and it is also a form of redemption to the soul.

In Summary and In Conclusion

In summary, these are the steps which one will need to traverse, in order to increase his focus.

Firstly, one should disconnect himself as much as he can from our outer world [social media, news, etc.], which is responsible for a constant disturbance to the mind’s thoughts. The connection to media outlets today must certainly be avoided, and one must try to avoid even the “lesser” connections to the world, by setting side quiet time every day, where one disconnects from everything going in the world, so that he can at least have some time of the day where he experiences focus.

Secondly, one needs to gain control of his thought process. This contained three steps. (1) One needs to identify which kinds of thoughts his mind tends to think about. (2) One needs to return to his mind to his previous thought\activity. (3) One should identify the transition from one thought to another.

When one lives in this way, he will have great consistency in his mind. This is not to say that he will never lose focus at all about what he is thinking about, but he will become considerably focused - enough that he will be able to identify which thought caused his mind to veer off track, and he will be able to easily return to his original thoughts. In this way, he builds his soul’s power of consistency,[3]as well as his soul’s power to have order.[4]

Consistency and orderliness, together, can slowly develop a strong power of focus in the mind. It will be more inner power of focus, and a place in his soul which is more consistent.

Fire-of-earth is a power in the soul which most people in our generation are far from using. Whatever we have explained here is but a way to return to the simple situation which used to exist, a number of years ago. From that point onward, one can learn how to lessen the minor distractions which causes jumpiness in his thoughts - in their amount, in their quality, and in their consistency, which allows one’s soul to remain focused in its place.