Cloudscape

Some teachings urge us to live by the principle of concentrating upon the here and now, and for many years I myself have lived by this principle. But I have come to believe that this principle is incomplete. What does it really mean, to live in the here and now?
Many doctrines, notably Buddhism, seem to urge us not to think. But I believe this is, if not inaccurate, then at least misleading: thought can be a beautiful thing. Not merely useful, but actually immanently beautiful.
For although we should be aware of the beauty there is in the world, so too there is a world within each of us whose beauty we should be equally aware of, a world, that is made of thought; a vortex of thought that can brings us from one place to another every second. It is a place where everything can happen and nothing is bound to time and space. It is a beauty we can experience just like a landscape, a landscape within the noosphere, the sphere of notions. We should enjoy its wonders just like the wonders of nature, for thought is one of our greatest assets as humans.
For what are daydreams, what is our inner world but an emulation of the real world? And if we are to live in our senses, should we not just as well live in the senses in our dreams? The sensations of our imagination are just like any other, less felt, but with far more possibilities, and if we enjoy them, they as well will grow with time. Thus, our inner world is part of the here and now just like the real world, and must be experienced just the same.
We would miss much beauty in the world if all of us had overlooked the beauty of thought. There would be no technology or science or even philosophy if we used thought merely as a practical tool, for all these things approached thought as something that is beautiful.
Thus, thought should be appreciated for its beauty for it is part of our experience. Thought is more than a tool to create beauty, for it is in itself beauty. There is beauty in our daydreams, but so too there is beauty in biology, in physics, in chemistry, in mathematics, in geology, in psychology, in languages, in everything.
This is, quite simply, because even knowledge is part of our experience. Knowledge is a very abstract construct in our inner senses. Concepts are made of imaginary sensations, which are usually visual; it is no wonder that 20% of our brain is visual cortex, because we think in a visual way. For instance, numbers each have a place in a long row in our mind, like a ruler; it may be made of the inner sensation of a ruler. When we say six, in our subconscious we may see of six dots, or a figure with six angles, or just the number six with other numbers next to it. When we say square, deep inside we see a square before us. When we say "atom," deep inside we see a nucleus with orbital electrons. If we say plate tectonics, we see the plates of the crust before us. All these things have their place in another world, a world of ideas, which is called, as mentioned before, the noosphere. Thought is mechanical. It knows space and time just like the real world, even if it is a world which is bound to no physical laws - only to the laws we impose upon it ourselves.
All these thoughts can fit together into such constructions of perfect elegance that it would be folly to state that one can find no beauty in thought, only in real experience. We should enjoy that elegance, revel in its wonderful panoramas. The beauty of thought is the beauty of connections, connections which take place in the mechanics of our inner world; if we should enjoy the touch of the wind, the smell of rain or the beauty of a forest, then we should enjoy the brilliance of a novel's plot, the ingenuity of our own bodies, the awesomeness of the giant balls of fire that show in a clear night's sky. We should enjoy the beauty of all the connections there are between all things, connections that aren't there in our sensations but which we create in our intellect. And we should be grateful for the gift to see these connections in the world.
We should live in the here and now. But even things that existed in the past or things that may exist in the future, as well as things that could never exist in the real world, can be part of the here and now within our mind. For they exist as thoughts, and these thoughts can be just as beautiful as real sensations or even more so.
But if that is so, then everything is actually part of the here and now. Does it still make sense, then, to say that one should live in the here and now? Whatever one perceives is "here and now" in that person's experience; is it possible to be not here and now, but rather there and then, if in one's mind there and then is here and now?
What is really important, then, is not to live just in one's sensations. It is senseless to exclude part of reality to concentrate on the rest of it, because then one omits part of life and its beauty. All one achieves in this way is too narrow the scope of one's existence. There is no such principle by which one can live.
There is, then, only one attitude towards life which can always lead to greater beauty, without excluding part of it, and it is to love everything in life, to love the beauty in everything, and to enjoy it. The love of beauty is the most beautiful, most powerful and most creative principle by which one can live.
Whatever one loves will grow; thus, if one loves beauty and cherishes it, it as well will grow. This just goes to show, that the sole fundamental principle in the universe is that of love: love is an act of creation. For love is that which causes whatever it loves to increase. Love is therefore the driving force of existence. Love creates, love is creation, and it is in this way that everything came into existence.
For even if that love was only present in a fundamental way before there was life, even so it was there: then, it was the love of an electron for its proton, or the love for mass for yet more mass, or the love of energy for yet more energy, or the love of complexity for yet more complexity. The universe loved itself in whatever form it was until it became what it is today, and we, as part of a universe, should love it with all our hearts so that it keeps becoming more and more beautiful until we become one with all things.

See also:
The Innerverse
Love is Immortal
Love Life

Beauty is no more and no less than the degree of complexity of patterns; any patterns, whatever they may be. In everything there are patterns; in fact, everything consists of patterns. "Patterns" does not have to mean symmetry, as patterns often occur in lack of symmetry, ie asymmetry. Whether or not those patterns appeal to us is merely a matter of perception.

To this day, there is no therapy specific for psychosis except for antipsychotics. A therapist can talk to a psychotic in the hopes that they will gain more insight in their own situation just like any other patient, but they can't give them any treatment which focuses particularly on psychosis.
Perhaps to this purpose, psychologists could subject the patient to a kind of training, a reality training. In such training, questions could be asked about a purely hypothetical person in a specific circumstance which relate to the patient's psychosis, such as:

"Person A finds that someone is following him or her. Is it more likely that:
A) the follower is involved in a governmental conspiracy, or
B) the follower wants to ask person A directions.

It may be useful to sketch the characters in the hypotheses as specifically as possible, so that, although they may be similar to the patient, the patient can think of them as other people. They do not have to be of the same age, sex, race, or personality. Important is that it is asked not what IS true, but what is more likely to be true. Implying that their delusions are false may make them defensive about their truth; they have to decide for themselves if they are true or false, but we can make them have a clearer view of their own situation by projecting it onto other people, so that they learn how others deal with them.
If one tries to convince a patient that their delusions are false by arguing about it, it is very possible that they will see one as being part of the conspiracy in their delusions. This probability is increased by the fact that many schizophrenics are often highly sensitive and might see criticism about their beliefs as a personal attack.
Because psychotics have a lot of imagination, they think highly parallel. They think in multiple possibilities, but are unable to see which is most relevant. They see so many possibilities in their mind that they no longer see which are likely to happen in reality and which are not.
Most people will tell psychotics that their delusions are impossible. In fact, nothing is impossible: it is always possible that they are being followed by someone who is involved in some conspiracy, but it's just very unlikely. Because psychotics are so good in hypothesizing, when they are told that something is impossible, they will eventually realize that this isn't true. "What if my father had somehow gained access to top secret information without my knowing and is keeping it somewhere, what if the FBI is pursuing me for this?" What often happens then is that when the psychotic realizes that their delusions are, after all, a possibility, they will wonder why whoever is telling them that they are impossible is "deceiving" them, which might make them believe that they as well are involved in some conspiracy which is meant to keep them from knowing the truth. Instead, it is better to tell them that their delusions, while possible, are very unlikely.
To a schizophrenic, the relevant possibility is no longer the most probable one, but the most drastic one. Because of their high faculties of imagination, they will also be able to imagine all possibilities very vividly; what then matters to them most is those imagined possibilities which elicit most emotion when they imagine them, that is to say, those which they fear or hope for the most. It doesn't seem to matter how likely they are because in their minds, they are already real: they happen in their fantasy as vividly as a dream happens in our own.

Unknowingly, we repress a lot of things in our lives because we are unable to deal with them. In fact, we usually only let in a small part of our stimuli into our consciousness because we would otherwise be overwhelmed by them.
Upheaval is the bubbling up of stimuli we usually repress, which can be either of positive or negative stimuli specifically or both stimuli in general.
If such upheaval occurs, we have two options: either we re-repress the feelings that emerge to the surface, or we learn to deal with them. If one is open to it, upheaval can be very enriching to one's personal development.
We all experience some extent of upheaval every day as we are subject to stimuli we cannot accept, and most of the time these stimuli are promptly repressed. Upheaval can arise from thoughts and insights, life-changing events, meditation, and so forth. In general, any stimulus we aren't used to may cause some degree of upheaval; it is therefore part of what makes us alive.

Anything we do can be profound if only we are doing it profoundly. An entertainer which experiences humor as a form of art and his audience as friends with whom he wants to share this art is just as profound about this as a scientist who experiences the knowledge as a connection with the wonders of the universe. The depth of awareness of something one experiences comes with the depth with which one experiences it, and any experience is far deeper than can be seen at the surface. Nothing at all in the universe is superficial; people simply tend to remain at the surface of everything. Ordinary things aren't banal; we make them banal, or make them seem banal, by treating them banally and perceiving them banally. In truth, everything is wonderful if only we aren't afraid to explore it to its depths.

Doing is being. Being is doing.

One's personality is made of inclinations, things one tends to do or would do: thus whatever one does is part of who one is.

If one is hurt by something or someone, one is also hurting oneself. There are always two causes of a feeling: one is an external stimulus, the other is the internal reaction to that stimulus. One can be hurt by anything if one is sensitive to being hurt. One cannot always know when one could hurt someone else, and when one is hurt one must know that unless they are enemies, the other does not mean to hurt you; people who hurt others usually do so because they are hurt themselves, and to stop the hurting.
If you cannot accept a loved one, they will not accept this because they cannot accept not being accepted. All quarrels between loved ones springs from mutual lack of acceptance, which is in turn always caused by a lack of understanding. For if you would understand them and why they are doing what they are doing, you would forgive them.
Suppose that you do something a loved one can't accept; this means that whatever you are doing is hurting them. He tells you that he can't accept this in a way which makes you feel hurt, and you then tell them in turn that you can't accept being hurt yourself, in such a way that he as well gets hurt again. Before you even know, there is a breach in your relationships because you both want to stop being hurt by the other, although this was all you really wanted to do in the first place.

In all cases, when is hurt there are two things that are responsible: one is one's own inability to accept the other or what he is doing or saying, the other is the other's inability to accept one or what one is doing or saying. There is no need to blame one another because both are responsible.
Of course you want the hurting to stop, and to do this you will often try to change the other or what they are doing or saying. It is fine to make them understand that they are hurting you, but at the same time, do not forget that part of the problem is always in you as it is you who is hurt.
There is no reason why it would be more right or wrong to do one thing more than something else if it hurts the other person the same. And whether one is cheating one's lover or just smoking in their presence, if it hurts them the fault is always in both parties.
We base our morality on norms. We say it is more immoral to be unfaithful to one's lover than to smoke in their presence because most people will not object as much to someone smoking in their presence as they would to their lover being unfaithful to them. This is just, however, as most people's emotions are programmed.
There isn't anything inherently wrong with a lover being unfaithful, for example: we just perceive it this way. That is how our mind works. But if someone is just as upset about someone smoking in their presence as the average person would be about a lover being disloyal to them, no-one will take them very serious if they shout at them about this. Yet the emotion, the hurting is the same, even though in the second case the person who is hurt is neurotic. In both cases, there may be some damage done, be it to one's relationship or to one's health; how much damage one can bear before one is hurt depends merely on one's own threshold. Although one isn't necessarily partly responsible for the damage which is done, one is always partly responsible for the hurting as one is hurt oneself, and one can do something about this.
In fact, one can do more about how one perceives whatever it happening than about what is happening; both must be done. We should make both our perception of life and life itself more positive.