Focus ~ Meditation Practice

Srila Yogeshwarananda wanted me to explain what he said about focus and its application. He stated this:

Newbies feel that focus and its application are one and the same thing. This is a confusion due to not having clarity when in abstract meditative states. One must separate focus from its application, just as one can disengage an engine from the gear box in an automobile.

In the neutral position one can study the engine but as soon as a gear is engaged, the engine is under strain and cannot be studied by itself. One can also study the gear mechanism by itself but only when it is not linked to the engine.

Usually the newbies never think of the details. They feel that mediation should be natural and easy and that whatever their little minds think about should be done or not be done.

One should work in meditation to sort between the focus of the core-self and the application of its focus to this or that reality or object. First cultivate focus.

In meditation how long does it take before whatever you focus on is lost, where you find that you are forcibly focusing on something else or you are not focusing on anything, you lost all focus.

How long on the average can you hold a focus on anything?

Is it 3 seconds?

Is it 15 seconds?

Is it 2 minutes?

Cultivate the focusing power so that it remains stable when it is not applied, like when an engine runs in neutral, we find that it will run until there is no gas in the tank.

The application of focus is not focus. It is the application. The ascetic should cultivate focus, hold focus steady and not be involved in applying a focus which is unsteady even before it is applied.

How will it be if engine shook and blurted, ran erratically in neutral and then was applied to a gear system. How would that be?