WHERE DO GREAT PEOPLE COME FROM

WHERE DO GREAT PEOPLE COME FROM


It is said that some people are born great and on some greatness is thrust upon. Without going into the merits and demerits of this saying, I would like to state that some people are destined to be great. We all have been fortunate enough to have opportunities big or small but we let them pass. If at all we took advantage of the opportunities, that was for our personal good and not for the good of the humanity at large. I will proceed with some examples and then summarise how some people are destined to be great. By this I do not mean to imply that they were picked up by the Almighty. God gave us birth and with this the pains, the conflicts and finally death. Between birth and death, we all go through some pains and conflicts. The whole journey is the sum total of the good things we did or could not do.

1. Hypocrate;

There are so many stories about Hipocrate, the great Greek Physician and many of them ture. There is no denying the fact that Hypocratic Oath has influenced the very concept of professional ethics for doctors. All doctors swear by this oath at the passing out convocation. It is said that Hipocrate’s father, Heraclides, himself a physician, suddenly fell ill and collapsed in the street in the middle of the night while returning from a theatre. Hypocrate, a teenager at that time was clueless. He ran to the nearest physician he knew and implored him to help him. This physician not willing to come out of the comfort of his house asked Hypocrate to go elsewhere. Fortunately, his father, meantime, regained his cosciousness and all was well. This however left a very strong impression in his mind and he vowed to attend to all such calls immediately when he himself becomes a physician. As a result, we have Hypocratic oath.

2.Sir Issac Newton;
Newton was not a bright student. He was called “back bencher” as he always sat on the last bench in the class. Sitting in his garden one day, he saw an apple fall down from the tree in front of him. There was nothing new about it but Newton wondered why the apple did not go up and why it came down on the ground. Was there some attraction on the ground that things that are thrown up come down? The Law of Gravity was born. Issac Newton became the renowned scientist as the world know him today.

3.Gautam Budha.

Young Prince Sidharth is taken on a conducted tour of the capital . On way for the first time in his life he saw aged people. He was told all have to be old and aged one day. Then he saw a group of people crying and following some thing being carried by four people on their soulders . He was told some one had died and those people following were family or friends and that we all have to die one day. Young Sidharth is overwhelmed by thought of the inevitable….. the sickness, old age, and finally death. He renounced the world in search of Nirvana. Years of search for the truth and the final realisation came in his life. The enlightened one was called Budha.

4.Mohan Das Karam Chand Gandhi

Born in Gujrat, India, Bar at Law from England, moved to South Africa for Legal Practice …. Just a common man’s journey! He is thrown out from a First Class compartment , though with a valid ticket, on the platform of some obscure town in South Africa as the fellow white traveler could not tolerate a colored man traveling with a white man! Gandhi had seen and heard about racial discrimination but was perhaps for the first time the victim. This was the begining of the long fight for equality which ended with the Independence of his own country in 1947 from the British Rule.


Hisory is abound with such stories .What is it that a tiny spark spreads a big fire? Day in and day out we come across many such happenings around us and we simply we walk by. Are therefore some people destined to change the course of history for the good or bad. I think so. They good ones were different because:

*All great people had very humble beginning. They were focused, resolute and persevering in their efforts.

*They had very little to gain from their struggle and every thing to lose.

*Their struggle was for the humanity at large and nothing to do with cast, creed, color or nationality.

*They had no enemosity or hatred for the persons or group they were fighting against.

*They were not attached with the result of their struggle and they were not afraid of failures.

*For them nothing was bigger than the cause not even their family or friends.

*Their conviction was so great that people joined them of their own.

*They could carry with all criticism and had the capacity to endure hardships.


Humanity will always be indebted to these many great souls. They came from all casts, creeds, and nationalities and enriched the whole world. Some of them like Budha became living God in their life time and are worshiped like God. God therefore is within us , among us.