A Life of Compassionate Service

Summary

There are some whose major influence was the ‘60s: who protested the Vietnam war, used psychedelics, marched for civil rights, traveled to India and found a guru, and then went on to make a positive contribution to the world community. Dr. Larry Brilliant is such a person.

This dialogue explores how, at the behest of his Indian guru, Larry was inspired to join the World Health Organization to launch a program to eradicate smallpox in India. And this story of smallpox eradication is but one proof that something can be done, that little by little we can make this planet a place with less suffering. Although we are finite beings, we can still create a world with infinitely more love, more joy, and less pain. Larry’s story will take us on a trip from being a radical young hippie doctor from Detroit to being inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to become an activist for the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war protests. He joined with friends from the Hog Farm Commune traveling by bus from London over the Khyber Pass and then found himself with his wife Girija at the most unlikely place, Neem Karoli Baba’s ashram in Himalayas.

Many of us remember that this is the same guru written about in Ram Dass’ seminal book Be Here Now, his story about the search for a balance between a spiritual life and being of service in the world. Brilliant tells us, “My guru taught me a kind of yoga, which is to work in the world to help alleviate suffering without attachment either to the results or to yourself doing it. And he told me to go work in the smallpox program because he said that God would eliminate this one form of suffering, to relieve that one burden on humanity. And that my job was to try to work in my heart, inside, to rid myself of anger and hatred and become more equanimous in the process, to offer to God the work that I did and not take credit for it or make a big deal out of it.” (hosted by Justine Willis Toms)