Sometimes Brilliant: The Impossible Adventure of a Spiritual Seeker and Visionary Physician Who Helped Conquer the Worst Disease in History

Sometimes Brilliant: The Impossible Adventure of a Spiritual Seeker and Visionary Physician Who Helped Conquer the Worst Disease in History

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. “One of the best books I’ve ever read, period. An extraordinary adventure, scientific odyssey, and spiritual journey of the highest orders. Beautifully written and deeply inspiring; a klieg light in the darkness. Brilliant in every way!” - Dean Ornish, M.D., Founder & President, Preventive Medicine Research Institute, Clinical Professor of Medicine, UCSF, author, The Spectrum and Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease “Sometimes Brilliant is a candid assessment of a tumultuous time and an insider’s account of what can be achieved through the sheer force of a shared vision.” - Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and bestselling author of Lean In “What can I say? It’s wonderful. It’s Larry on the page. It shines with Maharaji’s advice to us: love and service.” - Mirabai Bush, co-founder and senior fellow for the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society “Larry Brilliant’s story would be worth reading just for the fascinating cast of characters he introduces and the turbulent times he describes so vividly...a rare bridge between science and spirituality, and a reminder that real progress in improving the lives of other human beings is within our grasp.” - Steven Johnson, author of The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic “Fabulous! A wildly inspiring, wondrous, improbable, heartbreaking, and triumphant tale. Makes you want to do beautiful courageous things.” - Jack Kornfield, founder of Spirit Rock Meditation Center and author of A Path with Heart “Larry Brilliant is an extraordinary man who has lived an extraordinary life. Sometimes Brilliant is a mesmerizing read―at once one man’s unexpected journey through life, a window inside some of the most unique social and spiritual movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and the story of how people from a dozen nations came together to eradicate one of the world’s most terrible diseases. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.” - Jim Wallis, New York Times bestselling author of America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America, president of Sojourners, and editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine “Sometimes Brilliant is a mesmerizing read―a window inside some of the most unique social and spiritual movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and the story of how people from a dozen nations came together to eradicate one of the world’s most terrible diseases. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.” - Jim Wallis, New York Times bestselling author of America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America, president of Sojourners, and editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine “Sometimes Brilliant is a must read for anyone who believes that hard work and good intentions can overcome even the most immense and evil test. Billions of lives