Krishna’s counsel addresses Arjuna’s fear, doubt, and anxiety first by radically reframing the nature of self and death. He teaches that the atman, the true Self, is unborn, undying, and indestructible, while the body is perishable and ever-changing. Death is likened to changing worn-out garments for new ones, a natural transition rather than an ultimate catastrophe. By exposing Arjuna’s grief as rooted in misidentification with the body, Krishna seeks to dissolve the existential terror that underlies his paralysis. Fear of killing or being killed loses its absolute sting when the continuity of the Self is understood.

At the ethical level, Krishna addresses Arjuna’s moral confusion by clarifying the nature of dharma. As a kshatriya, Arjuna’s svadharma is to fight a just war; to abandon this duty out of misplaced pity or fear would lead to dishonor and inner disintegration. Krishna distinguishes genuine compassion from sentiment clouded by confusion, and he warns that inaction can itself be a form of tamas, a dark inertia masquerading as virtue. By restoring a clear sense of righteous duty, Krishna offers Arjuna a firm compass in the midst of doubt.

To address anxiety about outcomes, Krishna unfolds the discipline of karma-yoga, action performed without attachment to results. One has a right to action, not to the fruits of action, and clinging to those fruits breeds fear, agitation, and endless calculation. When action is offered as yajña, a sacrifice to the Divine, success and failure can be met with samatva, an evenness of mind. This shift from result-obsession to duty-centered action loosens the grip of worry about the future and the burden of “what if.”

Krishna also presents a psychological and spiritual ideal in the figure of the sthitaprajña, the person of steady wisdom. Such a one is not shaken by pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, and is no longer driven by restless desire, anger, and fear. By explaining the workings of the three guṇas—sattva, rajas, and tamas—Krishna helps Arjuna see his turmoil as a passing configuration of qualities rather than his true identity. Sattva brings clarity and peace, rajas fuels restlessness and anxiety, and tamas gives rise to confusion, fearfulness, and depression; recognizing this allows a more detached stance toward inner upheaval.

Finally, Krishna offers both devotion and knowledge as remedies for doubt and anxiety. Through bhakti, surrendering all actions to the Divine and taking refuge in Krishna, the individual ceases to bear the imagined weight of total control and participates instead in a larger cosmic order. The vision of the universal form reveals that beings are already moving within an immense divine process and that Arjuna is to act as an instrument rather than an independent controller. At the same time, jñāna—true knowledge of the Self and of Krishna’s nature—cuts through doubt like a sword, transforming ignorance into clarity. Supported by disciplined practice, dispassion, and meditation, this combination of insight, devotion, and right action gradually quiets fear at its very root.