Sometimes Brilliant: The Impossible Adventure of a Spiritual Seeker and Visionary Physician Who Helped Conquer the Worst Disease in History
Written by Larry Brilliant
Narrated by Fred Sanders
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
When a powerful mystic steps on the hand of a radical young hippie doctor from Detroit, it changes lives and the world. Sometimes Brilliant is the adventures of a philosopher, mystic, hippie, doctor, groundbreaking tech innovator, and key player in the eradication of one of the worst pandemics in human history. His story, of what happens when love, compassion and determination meet the right circumstances to effect positive change, is the kind that keeps hope and the sense of possibility alive.
After sitting at the feet of Martin Luther King at the University of Michigan in 1963, Larry Brilliant was swept up into the civil rights movement, marching and protesting across America and Europe. As a radical young doctor he followed the hippie trail from London over the Khyber Pass with his wife Girija, Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farm commune to India. There, he found himself in a Himalayan ashram wondering whether he had stumbled into a cult. Instead, one of India’s greatest spiritual teachers, Neem Karoli Baba, opened Larry’s heart and told him his destiny was to work for the World Health Organization to help eradicate killer smallpox. He would never have believed he would become a key player in eliminating a 10,000-year-old disease that killed more than half a billion people in the 20th century alone.
Brilliant’s unlikely trajectory, chronicled in Sometimes Brilliant, has brought him into close proximity with political leaders, spiritual masters, cultural heroes, and titans of technology around the world—from the Grateful Dead to Mikhail Gorbachev, from Ram Dass, the Dalai Lama, Lama Govinda, and Karmapa to Steve Jobs and the founders of Google, Salesforce, Facebook, Microsoft and eBay and Presidents Carter, Clinton, Bush and Obama. Anchored by the engrossing account of the heroic efforts of the extraordinary people involved in smallpox eradication in India, this is a riveting and fascinating epidemiological adventure, an honest reckoning of an entire generation, and a deeply moving spiritual memoir. It is a testament to faith, love, service, and what it means to engage with life’s most important questions in pursuit of a better, more brilliant existence.
Larry Brilliant
LARRY BRILLIANT, M.D., M.P.H., is a pioneering physician, visionary technologist, and global philanthropist. The first executive director of Google.org, he currently serves as chairman of Skoll Global Threats Fund. Larry co-founded the The Seva Foundation, whose programs and partners have restored sight to more than 4 million blind in dozens of countries. He has worked with four Presidents, the UN, G8 and Chaired the National Biosurveillance Advisory Subcommittee. He co-founded one of the first digital social networks, the Well. He and his wife Girija and their children live in Northern California.
Related to Sometimes Brilliant
Related audiobooks
A Life of Compassionate Service Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Majesty Of Hanuman Neem Karoli Baba Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lord Of All Hearts Neem Karoli Baba Stories Of Devotion Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Yoga Of Love Baba Ram Dass & Neem Karoli Baba Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Miracle Of Love: The Life & Words of Neem Karoli Baba Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Spiritual Journey: Two Classic Programs from One of America's Prominent Spiritual Teachers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Maharaji Neem Karoli Baba Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Love Above All Ram Das: A Spiritual Biography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maharishi & Me: Seeking Enlightenment with the Beatles' Guru Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Journey Home Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Miracle Of Love Deluxe Edition: Neem Karoli Baba Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRam Dass: On The Bhagavad Gita Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Be Love Now: The Path of the Heart Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5From Bindu to Ojas Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Transformation of A Man Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Being Here Now With Maharaji: Neem Karoli Baba Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNeem Karoli Baba's Beautiful Gang Of Four Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Flow of Grace: Chanting the Hanuman Chalisa Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Meher Baba the Heart of the Avatar: Memorable Quotations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSwami Satchidananda: The Divine Dance of Deathless Delight; The Words & Wonder of a Jagat Guru Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Swami Vivekananda Echoes of Eternity: America’s 1st Guru in His Own Words Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two Old Sadhus Stories of Baba Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hollywood to the Himalayas: A Journey of Healing and Transformation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Avatar of the Age Meher Baba: Intimate Disciple Darwin Shaw on the Divine Beloved Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaharaji Is Always With You: Neem Karoli Baba Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow Can We Help? Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gopi Krishna: An Interview with Louis Rogers: A Personal Experience of Kundalini Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cultivating the Courage to Love Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Biography & Memoir For You
And Then There Were None Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From Blood and Ash Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House in the Cerulean Sea Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Divine Rivals: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twisted Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Bulletproof: Protect Yourself, Read People, Influence Situations, and Live Fearlessly Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Series of Unfortunate Events #1 Multi-Voice, A: The Bad Beginning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Child Called It: One Child's Courage to Survive Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fairy Tale Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Dutch House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If He Had Been with Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When No One Is Watching: A Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Local Woman Missing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ivy League Counterfeiter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good Girls Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pet Sematary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Five Years: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5See You on the Way Down: Catch You on the Way Back Up! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Institute: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: One Introvert's Year of Saying Yes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nothing to See Here Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Sometimes Brilliant
14 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What a life’s story! Simply inspirational, fun, amazing and brilliant??
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is such an inspiring book, and I had started from a position of skepticism. When I first heard that Google had hired Dr Brilliant to run Google.org I knew little about him and could only see Google messing up the opportunity.
Reading the story of his legacy is amazing. How he was brought up, what his father stood up for, what he stood up for, all wonderful background. And then he really was destined for and instrumental in eradicating smallpox.
But then the stories he brings... such enjoyable reads, they are almost like 1001 Nights, each story brings another, brings another. Worth every minute, and I was sad when the book finished. But what a happy ending it was for humanity. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Such an excellent book! It's non-fiction. It has adventure, intrigue, miracles, suffering, and divine love. This is a book everyone can enjoy.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I absolutely love this book! Larry Brilliant has lived an extraordinary life and helped so many people in India as he worked to eradicate small pox in the 1970’s. The book opens with a brief introduction of Larry’s early life. The significance of this book is his story of being a hippie and growing spiritually. The list of amazing people he has met is impressive; MLK, Wavy Gravy, Ram Dass, Maharaj-ji, Dalai Lama, and Steve Jobs. His Hindu guru, Maharaj-ji, encouraged Larry to work with the UNO as he predicted that small pox would be eradicated in India. It’s a fascinating story. I was completely engrossed and inspired.