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    Beattitudes of Greatness: Greatness Series
    Beattitudes of Greatness: Greatness Series
    Beattitudes of Greatness: Greatness Series
    Ebook137 pages1 hour

    Beattitudes of Greatness: Greatness Series

    By Dr Patrick Businge and Greatness University

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    About this ebook

    What do you need to do to be great?

    Professor Patrick Businge's answer is straightforward:

    Be attentive

    Be intelligent

    Be reasonable

    Be responsible

    Be imaginative

    Be virtuous

    Be loving

    Be hopeful

    Read and discover the system you need to create a great life.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPatrick Businge
    Release dateMay 13, 2020
    ISBN9781393698845
    Beattitudes of Greatness: Greatness Series

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      Book preview

      Beattitudes of Greatness - Dr Patrick Businge

      CONTENTS

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      Thanks to all the people who have inspired me to conceptualise and cultivate the beattitudes of greatness expressed in this book.

      Introduction

      I might not know you personally, but this is what I know about you. You have a great desire to make a difference. You are longing to be a person of significance and influence. You want to make a mark on the planet and leave a legacy. However, like many people, you might have spent a lot of time, money and energy doing things but you are feeling zero greatness. This is probably because no one has ever described to you what greatness looks like and what you need to BE in order to be great. It is possible that you have been travelling to a place but you have no idea where that place is and how it looks like. 

      I have written this book in attempt to describe what greatness looks like so that you can recognise it when you see it. It is my first belief that this book will reveal to you what you need to BE to manifest your greatness.  As you read this book, you will discover the eight BE attitudes of greatness. Whilst the four BE attitudes of be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, and be responsible will require you to use your mind; the other four of be imaginative, virtuous, loving and hopeful will demand that you use your heart to create your greatness.

      It is my hope that this book will help you recognise what your greatness looks like. Augustine of Hippo wrote, ‘People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.’ It is my intention that this book will allow you to stop, create a space in your busy routine and make YOU and your BEING the subject of study.  It is my aspiration that by the end of this book, you will have a greater understanding of what you need to BE in order to be great. It is my hope that this book will give you principles to live by and the attitudes to adapt in order to reach your greatness.  Before delving into the beattitudes of greatness, it is vital to know what greatness is.

      Greatness

      What is Greatness?

      When we look at history, on one side we discover that there have been generations that have come and gone with hardly any trace of their existence. We don’t have to be this kind of generation. On the other side of history, we see that there have been tribes, races, families, leaders that have monopolised greatness and deprived it of others. This monopoly of greatness has resulted in evils against humanity such as slavery, discrimination, apartheid, terrorism, genocides, and wars. We don’t want to be this kind of generation either.

      In the midst of all this, there have been generations that have amazed us with their ideas, surprised us with their invention and astounded us with their discoveries. For instance, the generations that built the great pyramids of Egypt, the great colosseum in Rome and constructed other human wonders of the world. Looking at these wonders, we can hardly understand the brains that brought them to their existence. As we intellectually thirst for answers, we aspire to be like them: be great. In fact, we want to be the greatest generation that ever lived in this universe.

      This desire to be great leads us to the question that has occupied the human mind for many centuries: Why are some people great and not others? Or, are people born great or they become great? For many years, any attempt to answer this question has proven dilemmatic. Just as physicists have argued over whether light is a wave or a particle and theologians argued as to whether God is male or female, so have greatness scholars argued over its answer. In this chapter, I present the greatness dilemma using two concepts: natural greatness and nurtured greatness.

      Natural Greatness

      At the heart of the greatness dilemma is the nature or nurture debate. On one hand, there is the argument that all people are born great. We are great by nature. Nature gives us greatness. In other words, we are all inherently great because of our positioning as human beings. This is natural greatness which is hereditary, is determined by nature and bestowed upon us by the creator.  Various versions of this argument exist. For illustration purposes, I will only present 3.

      First, theists or people who believe in God have come up with the image of God concept. They firmly believe that ‘All human beings are made in the image of God’. Given that God is great and humans are made in his image, they too are great. Theists thus consider greatness to be originating from God and dwelling in human beings. In this line of thought, greatness is understood as the image of God living within each human being. This greatness is sometimes conceptualized as the soul, the Holy Spirit and conscience. This is evident in the French philosopher Teilhard de Chardin’s assertion that, ‘You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience’. Then in Robert Collier’s book The Secret of the Ages where he writes, ‘You have within you a force against which the whole world is powerless’. And in one of the foremost spiritual authors Anthony de Mello that:

      I have a treasure: the thing that I value most in life. I relive the events that led me to discover it. I think of the history of my life from the time I found this treasure...what it has done and meant to me. I stand before this treasure and I say, Of all the things I have, you are the dearest.

      It is this spiritual reality, this powerful force, this hidden treasure which has been perceived by theists as the source of greatness in the world.

      Second, the scientific version of natural greatness is revealed by genetics. According to some scientists, all people are genetically great. In other words, all human beings have a natural ability to be great. Even within people with limited ability or disability, psychologists tell us that there are islands of genius within them hence genetic greatness. This has been referred to as savant syndrome in that these people possess exceptional skills, instinctual ability, giftedness, and inborn talent in certain areas such as music, art, mathematics, memorization, etc. In effect, genetic greatness allows human beings to know beyond their own existence. It allows them to know the things they never learnt. For instance, there are people who have genetic memory that allow them to view a whole city like London, New York or Paris in a short helicopter flight and

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