Larry Brilliant
b. 1944
“Maharaj-ji told me I would work for the UN and help eradicate smallpox. I laughed. It was the last thing I wanted to do.”
Larry Brilliant arrived in the Kumaon hills around 1970 as a young, restless American physician. Maharaj-ji took one look at him and told him, to his disbelief, that he would join the United Nations and help rid the world of smallpox.
Brilliant resisted — but Maharaj-ji simply kept telling him to go. He eventually joined the World Health Organization’s smallpox eradication programme in India, part of the global effort that in 1980 declared the disease eradicated: one of the greatest victories in the history of medicine.
Brilliant never forgot whose instruction set him on that path. With Ram Dass he co-founded the Seva Foundation — seva meaning selfless service — which has gone on to restore sight to millions of people through cataract surgery and eye care across the developing world. It is, quite literally, Maharaj-ji’s “serve everyone” made flesh.