Roopa Pai > Quotes

“18. (a) It is not your parents, or your work, that defines you. Your nature does. (b) Stay true to your nature, and you will be happy.”
― Roopa Pai, The Gita for Children

“Isn’t it very hard to accept or reject every pair of opposites, especially since our entire world is made up of them? You bet it is. But one simple way to start on the long, long journey there is to stay completely focused on the work at hand, whatever that work may be – studying for an exam, helping your parents around the house, taking care of a cranky grandparent, researching a science project with teammates you don’t get along with… Don’t think about how disagreeable the work is, don’t wonder what the point of it is, don’t worry about whether it will bring you the rewards – or the failures – that you hope, or dread, that it will. Instead, put your head down and ‘Just do it’. Eventually, the work itself will become the purpose, and you will not care about the results. The work itself will become the reward, and you will stop looking outside it for rewards.”
― Roopa Pai, The Gita for Children

“trividham narakasyedam dvaaram naashanam-aatmanaha kaamah krodhastathaa lobhas-tasmaad-etat-trayam tyajet Three gates of hell lead to the soul’s destruction, and they are Desire, Anger and Greed, Therefore, abandon these three.”
― Roopa Pai, The Gita for Children

“You are now familiar with that wisdom, I hope, by which you can hear the unheard,”
― Roopa Pai, The Vedas and Upanishads for Children

“Each day, just like Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, we make excuses for our weaknesses on the battlegrounds of our minds and hearts, and whine about the right choices being too scary, too hard, too lonely, or just not as much fun. We become confused about what the right thing to do is, and wish we could run away from the battle rather than face its consequences. But unlike Arjuna, we often shut out the Krishna who lives in all of us – the still, small voice of our conscience that tells us, loudly and clearly, what we really ought to be doing – and end up doing what is convenient rather than what is right. Over time, our inner Krishna, tired of being ignored, stops speaking altogether, leaving us confused and clueless about what the right answers are.”
― Roopa Pai, The Gita for Children

“for”
― Roopa Pai, The Gita for Children

“third line reads ‘Lead me from death to immortality’, and there is nothing obscure about that.”
― Roopa Pai, The Vedas and Upanishads for Children

“CLASSIFICATION”
― Roopa Pai, The Gita for Children

“Before you know it, you are bound to Prakriti by her twisted, three-stranded rope; you begin to believe that what happens in Prakriti unconsciously – birth, death, pain, pleasure, desire, anger – is real, that it is all done by you, felt by you, made to happen by you. Or that they are all happening to you. Both are not true.’ ‘A three-stranded rope?’ Arjuna frowned. ‘What do You mean, Lord?’ ‘Know this, Mahabahu,’ said Krishna. ‘Goodness (Sattva), Rajas (passion) and Tamas (dullness) are the three strands of Nature’s rope, which bind down the soul. Rajas is part of Nature’s creative side – birth, energy, movement, change, action, the season of spring. Tamas is part of Nature’s destructive side – death, decay, inertia, heaviness, winter. Sattva is the state in between – harmony, wholesomeness, lucidity, stillness, summer. ‘Of these, Sattva, pure and good, can illuminate your soul in its shining light, but even Sattva is a golden shackle. Once you enjoy that happy state of Sattva – good health, knowledge, harmony and peace – you get attached to it, not willing to let it go, yearning for it when it is gone, as it will. ‘Rajas springs from desire, yearning, dissatisfaction with the way things are. It prompts you to action, and once you act, it attaches you to the result of your action, makes you want a particular outcome, makes you happy when you get it, unhappy when you don’t. Beware, Kaunteya, for Rajas binds your soul tight. ‘Tamas is born of ignorance - it confuses, deludes, makes you negligent. It binds your soul to indolence, sleep, sloth, laziness. ‘The power of goodness makes slaves of the happy, makes them constantly hunger for peace and harmony. Passion enslaves the doers, traps them in an unending cycle of wanting something and then acting to get it. Dullness enslaves the careless and negligent, who never want to leave that torpid state of ignorance and lethargy.’ Too true, mused Arjuna. No wonder human life was so full of torment. ‘Goodness, passion and dullness are present in all beings, Arjuna,’ Krishna went on, ‘combined in different ways, constantly in motion, rising and falling, one following the other. They are all present in you; they are your nature. Sometimes goodness prevails over the other two, making you feel calm, radiant, happy, at peace, fulfilled; sometimes passion prevails, making you feel restless, greedy, impatient, excited, excitable, full of energy. At other times, dullness prevails, which destroys clear thinking – anger, fear, grief, confusion arise in this state.”
― Roopa Pai, The Gita for Children

“Economists are so particular about looking at every problem from all sides that it often feels like they never have a firm opinion on anything. That can get pretty frustrating when you are asking them for advice. Harry Truman, the 33rd President of the United States, once famously requested to be sent a ‘one-armed economist’, because he was so tired of hearing every economist say, ‘On the one hand, this,’ and ‘On the other hand, that’.”
― Roopa Pai, So You Want to Know About Economics

“without loving it or hating it, he who neither desires something from his work nor rejects anything about it, is a man who has sacrificed everything, renounced”
― Roopa Pai, The Gita for Children

“names.’ Shvetaketu was puzzled. ‘It is like this, saumya. By knowing a lump of clay – its texture, its feel, how it moves on a wheel or in your hand – you understand intimately everything that is fashioned out of it, even if you have never seen those different”
― Roopa Pai, The Vedas and Upanishads for Children