During difficult times, we can be overwhelmed by stress, anxiety, and fear. When your world suddenly becomes extremely difficult, you may start feeling like you are living in a nightmare which can’t end soon enough. 

We may individually find ourselves in a situation like that for any number of reasons at different times in our lives. But today this is a mass global experience thanks to a small microbe, the novel coronavirus, that has created a level of uncertainty not seen on such a mass scale in modern times. 

The fear factor is exponentially magnified by our interconnected online world, through all forms of media, and the desire to be as informed as possible. 

The cloud of panic is thick and seemingly impossible to see through. In times like these, it’s important to remember a fundamental principle: everything is energy!

This principle holds up whether you assess it from a scientific or spiritual perspective, or anything in between.  Creation, preservation, and destruction are driven by the same underlying and unifying force. In India thousands of years ago, this force was called Brahman: the essenceless, changeless energy that forms all realities. In physics, we also recognize that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, the first law of thermodynamics, and that all matter is energy.  

Knowing this intellectually doesn’t really change much for us. But living this knowledge changes everything: each of us has the ability to experience the essence, the energy that makes up all of life, directly. Through the practice of meditation, we return to the essence of existence, and watch it move through the dance of creation, preservation, and destruction. That essence cannot be destroyed and it shines brilliantly. 

The nightmare always ends when we realize it’s not a nightmare. It’s the dance of existence itself. Once we recognize that, we can position ourselves perfectly in that dance, at which point the fear and suffering drop away by themselves.