Last Updated on October 11, 2026 at 9:15 am
The very first verse of the Bhagavad Gita begins with a question.
Dhritarashtra, who cannot see the battlefield himself, asks Sanjaya: What is happening out there? (Chapter 1, Verse 1)
Many of us quietly ask this question on a difficult day in the market. We check the news. We check our portfolio. And often, the more we look, the less clear things become — because what we are really struggling with is not the market. It is our own reaction to it.
About the author: Mahesh Kumar K is a SEBI-registered Investment Adviser and Principal Adviser at ClearPath Wealth. He is a member of Fee-only India, a group of fixed-fee-only SEBI RIAs.
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Generations of commentators have read the Gita’s battlefield as something deeper — an inner battle between what we know is right and what our fears and impulses push us toward.
The war is never really in the market. It is in our own head.
We already know. So why is it so hard?
Most of us already know the sensible things. Stay invested for the long term. Do not panic when markets fall. Do not chase whatever did well last year.
Then markets fall 20%. And somehow, the long-term investor wants to pause his SIPs “until things settle down.” The disciplined investor finds himself checking his portfolio three times a day.
Knowing what to do and actually doing it with real money — these turn out to be very different things.
Arjuna faced the same struggle. He knew what needed to be done. But when the moment came, he could not move — his limbs failed him, his bow slipped from his hand (Chapter 1, Verses 28–30). Fear and worry about the outcome had quietly taken over.
Krishna did not give him a new strategy. He simply helped Arjuna see what was really stopping him — his attachment to the outcome.
Our responsibility is to the action; the result is not entirely ours to command. (Chapter 2, Verse 47)
For us as investors, this means something practical. Our job is to understand what each part of our money is meant to do. In my earlier article, You Don’t Drive an Entire Journey in One Gear — Then Why Invest That Way?, I compared investments to different gears for different roads. We choose suitable investments, take risks we can genuinely live with and review when facts change.
That is our part. It is important, and it is real. But we cannot decide what return the market will give us.
The return is uncertain. The ride is part of the journey. We choose the gear. We do not get to choose what lies ahead on the road.
Being the same investor in good times and difficult times
When our portfolio rises 30%, we feel we made great decisions. When it falls 20%, we feel something has gone wrong. But the investment was the same. Only the price moved.
Before sending Arjuna into battle, Krishna gives him a specific instruction: treat pleasure and pain the same. Gain and loss the same. Victory and difficulty the same. And then give it your best (Chapter 2, Verse 38).
And then he says something even more striking — this evenness of mind is not something that comes after we become skilled. It is itself the skill. It is itself the discipline (Chapter 2, Verse 48).
Think about what that means for investing.
The real work is not just finding the perfect fund. The real work is being the same investor in March 2020 that we were in January 2020. It is continuing the same SIP in a falling market that we happily started in a rising one.
Staying steady through both the good stretches and the difficult ones — that is the real work of investing.
One question can help when the market shakes us: What actually changed — the facts or my feelings?
We do not dig up a seed every month to check whether its roots are growing. It grows because we gave it the right conditions and then let it be. Investing asks the same of us.
How we quietly lose our way
There is a moment in the Gita where Krishna explains to Arjuna how good judgment falls apart — step by quiet step (Chapter 2, Verses 62–63).
It starts with dwelling on something desirable. From that, attachment grows. From attachment, desire builds. When desire is not fulfilled, anger follows. From anger comes delusion. And from delusion, judgment collapses entirely.
A fund returned 40% last year. We hear friends talk about it. Slowly, we start wanting it — not because our plan needs it, but because the result is attractive. That is the first step. We invest. Now we are holding not just a fund but an expectation. That is the attachment. The fund does not repeat that performance. Disappointment builds. Eventually we sell and move to whatever is doing well now. The cycle begins again.
In my earlier article, Should You Invest in an International Fund? Try This Test First, I suggested a simple test: if the recent return chart were hidden, would we still want the investment?
Recognising where we are in this chain, before frustration takes over, may save us from many bad decisions with our money.
Why we invest at all
If markets are uncertain and even our own minds work against us sometimes — why invest at all?
Because we believe that despite wars, recessions, pandemics and crashes, over time, businesses grow, economies expand and markets reflect that growth. Every decade has given investors a reason to sell everything. And every decade, the investor who stayed has been rewarded.
The Gita tells us something that fits beautifully here: whatever is happening is happening for good and is part of a larger will. Not everything will feel good in the moment. But the direction is forward.
We do not invest because we expect an easy journey. We invest because the future we are building is worth it.
One final thought
The Bhagavad Gita does not tell us which mutual fund to buy or what return to expect. But it tells us something about ourselves that no factsheet or calculator ever will.
That the real battle is in our mind, not in the market. That our job is the action — choosing well, investing carefully, staying the course — and the result will follow its own timetable. That steadiness through both good times and difficult times is not a bonus that comes later — it is itself the discipline. That wanting quietly becomes attachment, then anger, then broken judgment — and seeing this chain early can save us from our worst decisions. And that whatever is happening is happening for good and is part of a larger will.
Do what is ours to do — earn, save, invest and plan — and do it as well as we can.
A saint once said, “Everything in future will improve if you are making spiritual effort now.” For an investor, the parallel is simple: our tomorrows are being built, quietly and steadily, by the right work we do today.
Our money should work for our life. Our life should not quietly start working for our money.