In the story of “Alice in Wonderland” Alice is bored with the mundane world and is intrigued with the rabbit that always seems to be in a hurry. She follows him down the rabbit hole and the rest we know is a fairy tale of fantastic proportions. I want you to get bored with the complacency that life offers and follow me down the rabbit hole of greatness. As we plummet down this rabbit hole of greatness (only to rise at the other end) we will go through the spectrum of what is not great to what is great. Greatness is perched like an eagle’s nest atop the three pillars of health, wealth, and wisdom. We all must endeavor to work towards great health, great wealth, and great wisdom. If one of the pillars is weak then the edifice will crumble.

Great Health-Socrates has said “No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.” Socrates was the wisest of the men of his times, the oracle at Delphi had spoken his name. He would chisel a statement to its offal and bones, till the soul of clarity could be seen. And no has put it so directly and succinctly as Socrates. Indeed it is a shame not to strive for great health. You have the blueprint of great health inside you. It is time you brandish your health like a sword made from Toledo steel. There is no right age to start building great health. Fauja Singh was into his eighties when the successive deaths of his wife, daughter, and then one of his sons, jolted him out of his pedestrian routine, and with a renewed zest for life, he took to competitive running at the age of 89. He held 8 world records at the age of 100. The Turbaned Tornado retired at the age of 102 from competitive running. We should have people like Fauja Singh as our inspiration, he is the quintessential example of the zest for a healthy and fulfilling long life. We must decide that we will live to the age of 100. We should all desire to be like Methuselah. In Sanskrit, we have a blessing- “Jeevet Sharadah Shatam” (May you live to see 100 autumns. This is a blessing we all should give to ourselves every day. We should look in the mirror and say “Jeevem Sharadah Shatam” (May I live to see 100 autumns).

Great Wealth– After running a restaurant for several years, this man found himself penniless at the age of 65. All he had was his social security check for 105 dollars. But he had something. He had a belief that he had the greatest chicken recipe in the world. He went door to door and tried persuading restaurant owners to partner with him for his recipe. He would even cook for them on the spot. He met with a thousand and nine rejections before he got a response in the affirmative. The rest is history. Kentucky Fried chicken has branches all over the world (in all probabilities – your city as well). It is a household name along with other fast-food giants like MacDonald’s and Pizza Hut. Legend has it that their coveted recipe is stashed away in some extremely secret place heavily guarded by men in uniform.  I cannot vouch for the veracity of this information, but there is one thing I can certainly vouch for- Colonel Sanders, the penniless 65-year-old man, had a secret recipe even before he started. And that was his belief in building great wealth by selling what he knew best- the greatest chicken recipe in the world. We should never shirk or shy away from wanting to be rich. Neither should we feel guilty or apologetic about it. If everyone is to use great ingenuity and creativity in their approach along with hard painstaking effort, there is no dearth of opulence. Opulence creates opportunities. Opulence creates employment. Opulence cascades and trickles down to those less fortunate than ourselves. We owe ourselves an astonishing amount of wealth, only then we can give some of it away to great causes of philanthropy.

Great Wisdom– In 2018, a Japanese author retracted his nomination for the most desired, the alternate Nobel Prize in literature. One of Japan’s most influential writers, and also one of the richest, whose books sell by the millions across the world, in Japanese as well as English, was stoic and unflinching in his demeanour when he conveyed his decision to the Swedish authorities who had instituted this award. The reason was simple “he wanted to concentrate on his writing and did not want any distraction that would take him away from his powerful tools of self-actualization. A billionaire author, a veteran athlete, an erudite connoisseur of western music, Haruki Murakami, was just one step away from what would be the epitome of his writing career- the alternate Nobel Prize in literature. His decision speaks oodles about the position of wisdom from which he made this decision. Murakami symbolises the epitome of great self-love. His love is so intrinsic; it does not need any external validation. He knew that winning the Nobel would just take him away from that very thing he holds so dear to his heart- Self-actualization through his craft of writing. We all must strive to be like Murakami, we should accumulate great wisdom so that nothing extraneous of any proportions is able to make even a small dent in our respective cause of Self-Actualization. Think about this before you grab your next Murakami book.

Great Intent-There is one important question that we need to address here. Is power equivalent to greatness? One story comes to my mind, often attributed to Solomon the wise. The Wisdom of Solomon was known all over, a charlatan decided to trick the wise king and make a fool of him in front of the court. He carried a bird clasped in his palm, a live bird. He asked the King “Your highness is known for his prudence and wit. I have a question for you O wise one, pray tell if the bird in my hand is alive or dead.” The charlatan thought to himself “ If the king says it is alive I will quickly clasp it tighter so it dies of suffocation, however , if the king says it is dead, I will just open my hand and let it fly away. In any case the king will make a fool of himself” The King looked at the man for a while and said firmly but quickly- “the fate of the bird rests in the intent of your hand”  Intent- Intent is what makes all the difference. Intent is what separates the great from the not great. To become a great self we must have a great intent.

Once Prince Siddhartha and his cousin Devadatta went for a walk in the woods. They both saw a swan flying. Before Siddhartha could stop him, Devadatta shot an arrow and brought the swan down. Before Devadatta could claim his game, Siddhartha dashed ahead of him, picked the bird and nursed it back to health. Devadatta reached the spot soon after and asked for the bird since he had shot it. Siddhartha refused to part with it, saying he had saved it and therefore the bird was his. They both went to a Sage to arbitrate over their problem. Having heard both sides of the story the sage declared that the bird belongs to the one who save it’s life and not to the one who tried to kill it. Siddhartha went to become Gautama Buddha. In our lives it is the intent which decided we can lay claim to the bird of greatness no matter how powerful or affluent we may be. We should all strive to develop great intent in all our actions. Only then can we be truly get. Let us now have a look at few cases where powerful personalities could not achieve greatness despite their best efforts, because they lacked one thing- Great Intent.

From a sick and a weak child with a troubled childhood, who spent his days in and out of hospitals, he went to live to his nineties. Not only that, he became a leading psychoanalyst of his times who founded the “Rational Emotive Behavioural Theory” (REBT). Here is what Doctor Albert Ellis has to say “The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.” All the people who suffered from the lack of great intent were those who blamed their problems on someone else. Adolf Hitler (whom we shall discuss at length) blamed the Jews for all his failures in life. And look at what happened as a result of that. We need to take entire and whole and perfect responsibility of our life and our choices. Only then we can develop Great Intent. Great Responsibility and Great Accountability lead to Great Intent.