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The equilibrium state is a state of no change --effectively a timeless state. The happiness that comes from this state lives only in the "now." It is the unhappiness of an unstable, non-equilibrium situation that thrusts awareness into time. The arrow of time is defined by the direction of increasing entropy, the direction a system spontaneously adopts as it tends to equilibrium. Having attained that goal, time loses all meaning. It is the unstable state that creates time.
The equilibrium state, the 'happy state' that the human being usually sees as desirable, is one that, at base, reflects the archetype instinctive urges deriving from the hard-wired, paleomammalian limbic system and the reptilian core. These are the most primitive 'animal' components of our brain. This kind of equilibrium is a metastable state, a pseudo equilibrium that is poised on the verge of collapse.
The state that Jesus called 'being reborn' can only occur when we let go of this animalistic metastable state. In doing so, we free ourselves from the false goals that our minds have invented to disguise the reality from which those animalistic goals are derived. These are the basic instincts of appeasing hunger, the urge to survive, the fight or flight instinct, their derivatives of hate, anger, and fear, plus the sex-based instincts that serve to ensure the perpetuation of the species.
The death of the old heralds the birth of the new, a new stable state into which the lessened ego-self settles, one that is both simpler and more beautiful. Out of that death comes more perfect life, for death is the midwife of creative change, of transcendence.
At root, the goal of the new metastable and timeless state has a commonalty of insight in all the great religions:
Christianity: All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do even so unto them (Matthew 7:12)
Judaism: What is hurtful to yourself do not to your fellow man. (Talmud)
Taoism: Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain, and regard your neighbor's loss as your own loss.
Hinduism: Do nought to others which if done to thee would cause thee pain. (Mahabaharata 5.15.17)
Buddhism: Hurt not others with that which pains yourself. (Udanavarga 5.18)
Jesus: This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. (John 15.12)
The feeling that each of us is capable of 'loving the world' is a common human intuition. At taproot level we are our fellows, the distinctions that divide us are functions of our animal ego and of differing phases of growth. The collective reality of pooled human consciousness--not separate as in ego, but together as in true communion--is one and indivisible. One cannot cause pain to another without causing pain in oneself. "I and my Father are one." affirms Christianity. The Atman is the Brahman, says Hinduism. (i.e. the true Self is the Supreme Being)
Each human individual can connect to beings and objects around him, starting with another human being, perhaps a sexual partner, and ending with the totality of all, the universe. Through these successive communions, one rule, one basic premise has always held true. Each act of union lessons the boundary between self and other. This is the absolute and final criterion by which all action can be measured and judged.
There is a 'gap at the center' in Western civilization due to the breakdown of the old faiths. The restoration of a sense of the sacred is the most important task of this generation.
People may say it is more important to combat the greenhouse effect, planetary pollution, and so on. But these are the direct consequences of the "me-first" competitiveness of the ego-self. The only way to reverse planetary degradation is to break down the barriers that wall us off from each other and the world, and to recognize that aphorisms like "brotherhood of man" are not romantic, pie-in-the-sky daydreams but practical patents.
To help achieve this, we need to re-introduce a cycle of rituals into life--not grandiose self-important charades but participatory ceremonies that have their roots in human needs--rituals that give meaning to our lives by connecting us to the goal of the sublime glory that we shall be. We all need human contact because we belong to something bigger than ourselves. We should create new rites of passage to celebrate the phases of the human life cycle, rituals for birth, rituals for the transit into adolescence, and above all, rituals for dying. Dying must again be associated with a sense of the sacred, for it is here that the psyche transcends its human limitation. Consciousness cannot be extinguished by death for consciousness transcends time.
We should learn to approach death with gratitude, seeing it for what it is, the elimination
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