Sunday musings: about ‘maya’ and reality of making money in the stock market ~ Market Updates Tips Tricks Recommendations

In Hindu philosophy, the idea of ‘maya’ is a key to understand the concept of ‘Brahman’ (Cosmic Spirit or Energy). ‘Brahman’ is to be realised and can’t really be explained. But sages have tried their best by using the duality of ‘illusion’ and ‘reality’ to provide answers to questions like who we are, where we come from, and where do we go when we leave this world.

In the scriptures, ‘maya’ had an earlier association with wisdom and power. Later it came to mean ‘illusion’ or rather, ‘delusion’. Some scholars and experts refer to ‘maya’ as the power or energy of a Supreme Being that it projects on to the universe. That is what creates life, existence and death of all mortal beings in an eternal play (or ‘Leela’) for the pleasure of the Supreme Being.

Others refer to ‘maya’ as ignorance or delusion that confuses the individual soul (or ‘Atman’) from attaining divinity (or ‘Moksha’). The ‘Atman’ identifies itself with a body and mind and gets stuck in the pitfalls of the physical world and its transient feelings of being happy or sad, well or unwell, rich or poor.

In Hindu scriptures, the anecdote of mistaking a harmless piece of rope for a poisonous snake in indistinct light is used as a metaphor about the incorrect identification of the imperishable ‘Atman’ with a perishable body. The ‘snake’ is the impermanent and perishable body; the ‘rope’ is the reality (or ‘Atman’) and the ‘indistinct light’ is the delusion of ‘maya’ that causes the confusion.

The stock market is but a subset of the physical world. The illusion or ‘maya’ is the belief of anyone with a demat account that incredible wealth can be attained by simply buying a stock of a company. It is ‘maya’ that prevents even apparently intelligent individuals who are successful in their professional lives from accepting and understanding the reality (by learning the ‘rope’s) of the stock market.

Danger is lurking at every corner. Experienced investors with deep pockets are just waiting to take away the hard-earned money of small investors who are under the illusion that making money is as easy as sending an SMS.

Give yourself a chance. Learn the reality – not only of how the stock market works, but the steps and plans that are required to build and keep wealth for the long term.