Rules of Greatness

Greatness is not achieved by words but by hard work, difficult choices, actions and sacrifice. It takes more than intellect and general knowledge to make a leader ethical and moral. It takes courage and ethics. Certainly evolution's path towards greatness is not easy. The problem before us is how can courage and ethics be concentrated so that society can create ethical men, women and leaders. History has been dominated more often by unethical men and women who have rejected the principles of life "awareness" and embraced the principles of destruction (happiness without awareness and domination of some aspects of Machiavellian philosophy). Ethics are rules of optimal behavior. The ethics of life are the pursuit of awareness for ourselves and others. Awareness implies the ability to understand a problem domain (without dogma) and apply it to a solution domain, to predict and control. Our "total awareness" is measured by the extent to which we can predict and control our total environment -physical, biological and social. Ethical ends can only be achieved by ethical means.

In order to define rules of optimal behavior throughout human history, it is important to examine human emotion. Human emotions such as fear, hate, greed, jealousy, and anxiety are destructive and prevent expansion of awareness. The only human emotion that can serve a constructive purpose is love. "Love" is defined as the state of mind in which the welfare of other persons is sufficiently important to us that we are willing to sacrifice part of our own welfare for theirs. Love will be the binding force that will enhance the initial joining of the human societies. It is only through love that it becomes possible to achieve the intimacy of communication with persons, which enables us to amplify our individual awareness. Love makes it possible for the awareness of one to be communicated to others at the unconscious level. Only love and awareness give quality to human existence. It is only by understanding ourselves that we can eliminate all emotion except love.

The above brief description for greatness, ethics, and human emotions are used as a basic guideline to identify the most ethical and greatest political leaders throughout human history. One of the most difficult tasks involved in writing this is the relative importance of various political leaders. For this purpose the following moral and ethical criteria is chosen.

The primary evaluation criteria and rules of optimal behavior that it has been identified and selected are as follows:

· Was in position of high power (head of state).

· Influenced the world in a positive direction.

· Believed in Liberty & Justice for all.

· Proven record for high ethical and moral values.

· Despised cruelty.

· Non religious leader

· No thirst for bloodshed

· No interest to abuse their great power.

· Desired to change and create a better world.

· Positive effect on human history.

· Brave and was an icon for just principles.

· Their positive effects will be seen forever.

· Respect for human rights.

· World wide acceptance

· Icon of religious and cultural toleration.

· Belief that all men are borned equal.

· Had a great and innovative contributions toward human history.

If we examine and evaluate leaders throughout human history with the above criteria, we observe that some of the most powerful, successful and influential political leaders and empires of the past are the most ethical ones with total awareness, like Cyrus the Great, Thomas Jefferson, Gandi,

Masoud Marvasti 1993








Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth. I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.
Kahlil Gibran