Towards Enlightenment (3): What Can Be Done About Losing Focus/Getting Distracted?

July 16, 2015, 10:32 p.m. I just published the previous post and then I was going to sit in meditation, but I lost focus and my attent’on was claimed by Facebook and I briefly surfed a news channel. That didn’t last long. I ate another 8-10 black olives and about 15 almonds. Since we are recording, let’s record everything. I have written the title of the next day’s article above, maybe I will change it tomorrow. Towards Enlightenment (3): What Can Be Done About Distraction? . Now to meditation and then to sleep. I mustn’t drift off. 22:34.

06:54 In the morning I woke up with a feeling of fullness in my head, and my nose was stuffy and I had to clear it. My dad left the cat in my room in the morning and the cat started bothering me in bed, so I got up. My head is swollen, as they say, my head is swollen. I went on Facebook, there was a new friend request, I added it, there were a few messages, I left without reading much. Now I don’t know exactly why this swelling and runny nose happened, but I think I will find out in the coming days. The discharge has already passed. Now let me sit for a while and meditate and the head will improve. Let me drink some water. July 17, 2015 06:57.

08:21 Last night I intended to write about distraction today. In the morning, when my father left the cat in the room, my effort to focus to gather energy while lying in bed was in vain. I got up, I did some kind of change of environment. When I got up and sat in front of the computer and increased the effort to focus on the Spiritual Heart, because when I got up I started to go into a more awake more conscious mode, I started to become clearer, my mind started to become clearer. And then I sat in meditation and kept on trying to focus, and in the meantime the cat came again and started interacting with me. I was not wearing a tank top, he tried to climb on me. Fortunately he is learning to use his nails. I became her guinea pig and teacher. I got her when she was 2 weeks old. When he climbed on me and tried to suck my lips, I tried to keep the meditation going and took him in my hand. It seemed to be happening, but it would have made more sense to get up, put his egg on the stove and give him goat cheese. Or had I already given the goat cheese? I mean, I mean, the cat wanted to eat and I had to do something, so I did. And then I continued meditating. During the meditation, I started to think about these writings that I had been working on a lot in the last few days. More like what could happen, what could I write. And I also felt a sense of responsibility. After all, a lot of people were and would be reading this. Now, if I let myself go on the 3rd day, I definitely couldn’t continue to shed light in this way on topics that I don’t know in advance what I will write about, which I determine daily. But I feel a determination in me, I am determined to continue this for at least a month. Why a month? Now this is a rhetorical question. But it’s very relevant to the title. So I know this. I know that if I keep this focus all the time, with great determination, and go deeper and deeper, I know that I will reach enlightenment in 5-10 years. I know this from the information given to a friend at a similar level. What information? We’ll get into that later. I say, doesn’t God come running to his servant who walks to him? If you keep walking, doesn’t the distance eventually become zero? That’s how I know this. But I said one month, because I couldn’t continue with the very hard decisions I made in the past. Now I want to open the business in its natural course without putting pressure on myself. I just need to continue without letting myself go, and I can do that. But to go all the way? That scares me. But I will walk and I will face this fear on the way, so I told myself one month now. Maybe I will continue even more. Maybe I will stop writing after a month, but I will continue. There is also this. When I see this feeling of peace, serenity, the effects it has on me, it becomes an obligation for me to walk this path. Why? Now, you cannot do wrong in life on purpose, it creates a serious inner distress. As my knowledge increases, I feel acutely that I have to walk on the right path. Because when I turn on the news and look at the news, I see the misery of humanity… 🙂 I used that word. I wonder if I am like those mustachioed hodja’s talking on the screens. Focus! I mean the distress. Yes, I see the misery of humanity. There is nothing to say. The misery in Syria, North Korea, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the murders in America? The sleepwalking of politicians? The situation is not hopeless, but there are many problems. It’s too much to tell. It is necessary to do something in the midst of these troubles. Just like if someone is hit by a car in front of you, it is your duty, your conscience to help. If you can do something, you do it. It is a humanitarian thing. I also feel that I can do something. And when I don’t do it, I can’t find peace. And when I think about how I can do it, taking steps in the way I have described and hinted in these articles is what I feel in my heart and conscience right now.

But it is not like sacrificing yourself. After all, this inner love is having the best effect for you too. It’s not torturing yourself. It’s doing what is best for the whole universe at that moment. And that is actually the best for you too. Yes, it is necessary to face the truth and abstain from some things on this path, but when you focus on that love, you find the strength to do it naturally. It already carries you in the way you can handle it. So what can be done about distraction? First of all, don’t worry about it. Your focus will be scattered. Rather than struggling with why it is scattered and why it shouldn’t be scattered, refocus the moment you realize that it is scattered. This is a very simple formula. Let me make it shorter and finalize it: Refocus the moment you realize that it is scattered. This is the most accurate version. We may or may not improve it a little bit, but let’s expand it: What do I mean by focus, I mean pay attention, where do we pay attention? This is a choice you have to make in relation to the level you are at. Right now I am paying attention to the Spiritual Heart when I focus. For meditation, there are those who focus on the breath. Or there are those who stay in the state of awareness. So those who focus on awareness. We focus on so many different things throughout our life. But this Spiritual Heart, Breath and Awareness are the focal points that carry us to the inner world. It is normal if these are foreign to you. If you come from the Islamic school, focusing on Allah, focusing on Allah’s pleasure may be the answer to the question of where to focus. But I don’t want to tell you where to focus, that’s your choice. I will tell you as much as I know about where I focus and what it means to focus, and you make your own decisions. You do your research.

The Spiritual Heart. Is this something tangible? Is it edible? What I do is I focus on a spiritual point in the center of my chest. I can’t actually feel it, but I focus on the center of my chest as an area. And my intention is to get closer to God, or to live under the guidance of the Higher Consciousness. The Higher Consciousness is the consciousness created by God that encompasses the whole universe. So in a way it is the mind that God created to govern this universe and creation. If nothing was created, God would still exist. But then there is nothing created to focus on. Only God exists and we don’t exist anyway. But I am not focusing on the Supreme Consciousness. I focus on the Spiritual Heart because it is the deepest center where God’s love flows into the human body. What happens when I focus? From this stage I feel a quiet energy in my heart area, sometimes quite faint, sometimes more pronounced. Sometimes I can also feel a warmth, but it is not that energy, I think there is some activity in the Heart Chakra. Let’s ignore that. I feel a quiet energy, a source of stillness. It can move me during meditation, it can rotate me on the spinal axis like the Navis in the movie Avatar rotate during the ritual. Sometimes in very light but long (2 hours) meditation sessions, when my focus is deepened and strengthened, this rotation can be similar to those Navis with wide movements. When I don’t do seated meditation, when I make the effort to focus here while living my daily life, I experience a state of centeredness. This effort puts me in a much more centered, settled, serene state than the normal scattered, half asleep way of life. And, as I feel serenity, my life flows more clearly, I can control myself, but not as an ego, in this state of serenity you are already living your life naturally, you feel that you are doing the things you are supposed to do, but without pressure, without compulsion, you are acting conscientiously. Because you are already focused on your conscience. You know they say put your hand on your conscience, and there are people who put their hand on their heart. They don’t do it on purpose, but actually this heart area, the center of the chest, has this Spiritual Heart center in the deepest part. Sometimes people close their eyes when they are happy or when they are peaceful. Actually, it’s always an indication that the person is moving into a meditative, centered state, a state of focusing or becoming focused on God (God, the Uncreated, the Source of Everything). This happens to some degree according to the level of that person.

So if you say I can’t meditate, I can’t focus, here’s the solution. Focus as much as you can. Do your best. When you get distracted, focus again. For years I was going around and around this basic problem. I had this idea that I have to focus for a certain period of time without interruption. There is no such thing. You will get distracted. Or rather your attention will be drawn to the moving thoughts in your mind like a cloud, or to the emotions in your emotional body, or to your body sending signals through your five senses, and through that to the events and objects in the world. This is human experience, your attention can go to anything. The thing to do for meditation is to bring your attention back to the object you are meditating on when that happens. That is to refocus. Everything else, your being disturbed by the distraction, feeling hopeless, judging yourself and thinking that you are not a good person, etc., are all thoughts that come from the content of your mind at that moment. They come… they pass… they will happen during meditation, whatever is your inner world will be shown to you. Just keep trying to focus on the object of meditation, and when you realize that you are distracted, focus again. Everything else will unfold by itself and you will gain insight and wisdom.

But while doing all this, try to keep your intention sincere and act with your most sincere intention. So for example, I am giving you all this information, but if you use it for selfish purposes, for example, which you may want to do if that is your level, you will get results accordingly, but you can start from where you are, not from a different place. So I can say go for the good, I can say listen to your conscience, or whatever is the highest truth for you. You cannot reject where you are, because you have created it within you. If you try to reject it, you are in a position of fighting with yourself, which is a battle that cannot be won until the battle is over. But even fighting may be in the experience that awaits you, in the path that you are going to go through. So meditation is the thing that will take you forward, no matter what stage you are at. Even when you are fighting, if you try to learn meditation, which you will learn on your own path, maybe not from this text today, eventually you will find your center, you will learn to find it, you will learn to stay here.

So the question may arise, how can we even ask for that? How can we even ask for focus? And I thought a lot about that too. I learned the answer later on. Start. Start focusing. The will is in a way the focusing itself, and once you start, changes will start happening inside you. Your mind, your emotions, your body will start changing. One day you will realize that your capacity for meditation has increased, and all because of your little efforts.

I remember, I couldn’t meditate regularly. Finally, a year and a half ago, I tried with all my strength to maintain my focus. Even when I was lying in bed, even when I was weak, even when I was asleep, I did as much as I could. There was a breakthrough in those days. I started to be able to do it. Before that, as soon as I tried to focus, I was distracted for a very long time. So the effort… the effort is not wasted, be sure of that. But you will go through everything.

Can you feel the resilience in Ataturk in his videos? If you ask me, it was the work, the inner work that made Ataturk Ataturk. Can you see the level of concentration? Look at this video. The look at the end: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2gg8dc_nefesinizi-tutarak-izleyeceksiniz-1930-yili-ve-ataturk_news

Concentration, focus. And Atatürk was focused on the good of the nation, not on himself. He wanted that. He was focused on the highest truth. I have not had the opportunity to study Atatürk in depth. But the main theme was the rise of the Turkish nation, and Atatürk was also working for humanity, otherwise who could say this without thinking about the good of humanity, without feeling love for all of humanity:

“HEROES WHO SHED THEIR BLOOD ON THE SOIL OF THIS COUNTRY, YOU ARE HERE ON THE SOIL OF A FRIENDLY HOMELAND. SLEEP IN PEACE AND TRANQUILITY. YOU ARE SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE SOLDIERS. MOTHERS WHO SENT THEIR SONS TO WAR FROM DISTANT LANDS, STOP YOUR TEARS. YOUR SONS ARE IN OUR BOSOM, THEY ARE IN PEACE AND THEY WILL SLEEP IN PEACE. AFTER GIVING THEIR LIVES IN THIS LAND, THEY ARE NOW OUR SONS.” M. Kemal Atatürk.

Imagine the internal and external challenges Atatürk went through. But what happened in the end? He became the greatest leader of a nation. He left a great legacy for her and for humanity. Potentially we can all have such an impact on humanity in our own way. Don’t you feel happy when you help someone? You can help on a much larger scale and on a much larger scale. But even if you are crawling on the ground where you are. Your labor is equally valuable. Because that is the test you are being given right now. Because it is the same intention, the same energy that will lift you off the ground and make you fly like an Eagle and give you clairvoyance. I’m going to take a break from writing. I’m going to meditate for a while and go to Gallipoli with my father. July 17, 2015 09:23.

09:31 I will publish this article like this, because I want to write another article under another title today. I will give the title here. It will be something similar to this one, covering and summarizing all of this: Towards Enlightenment (4): It is not happening. I cannot focus, I am distracted by desires, by life. I am very upset.