Born with Wings

By BEHRAM PHIROZ GHISTA

Of all the choices that can positively impact your immediate and long-term wellbeing in miraculous ways, designing a remarkable life is the greatest. This is because self-design, of the spectacular kind, is the indispensable foundation for transforming an ordinary life into an extraordinary one. By becoming great on the inside, you inevitably experience greatness on the outside.

This book outlines the art and craft for designing an exquisite life, for only then can you know lasting joy and fulfilment, as you engage in the great and global purposes that call out to you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: INNER MASTERY CENTRE
• Release date: May 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386175025

BEHRAM PHIROZ GHISTA

Behram Ghista, a.k.a. “Master B” is a Buddhist meditation teacher of Indian origin and also the Spiritual Director of the Inner Mastery Centre in India. After much persuasion by his students, he has finally written his first book on how to live an exceptional life that is of great blessing to all. Although qualified as a Graphic Designer with a Masters’ Degree from the USA, Master B has chosen to dedicate his life to inspiring people around the world to know what can yet be possible for them through right spiritual practice, because of his passion to share with others the richness this awareness and practice has created in his own life. With over 28 years of experience in motivating people to be the best they can be,,, in India, Europe and Australia, Master B continues to make a profound difference in many people’s lives. This is just the first of the many books he is planning to write. So if you enjoyed this book, stay tuned for more. And if you can spare a few moments, we would greatly appreciate an honest review from you. If you would like to attend his talks, workshops or retreats, or would like him to address your group or organization, or even if you would like to be on his mailing list, please visit the website below for details: www.innermasterynow.net

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Testimonials

I first met Behram in 2001 and it has been my great good fortune and blessing to have attended many of his retreats and classes since then. Behram’s teaching, including reading this book, has guided me gently towards being the person I aspire to be – to come in greater touch with what is best in me and experience the deep satisfaction of sharing this with the world. This has been an incredibly precious and rewarding journey and one I could never have undertaken without his friendship and guidance.

Reading this book, like being on a retreat or hearing Behram speak – even in a casual conversation – drew me deeper into an awareness that there is a richness to life of which I largely remained ignorant of as I went about my days. This is what contact – any contact – with Behram does. It reveals a profound depth to life and living that is hidden in plain sight.

Within almost every line there is a disarming, playful and deceptive simplicity. There is the invitation to bring a refined quality to even our smallest choices and moments. The clear message is to accept this invitation as it not only leads to a rewarding and meaningful life, but also opens doors to a mystical dimension that is beyond our everyday awareness.

May this book touch you in the same way that it has touched me.

– Dr. Brendan Coutts, B.Sc. (hons), Ph.D.

(Formerly) Executive Officer, Hawthorne Academy

(Organisational Behaviour Education and Consulting)

Sydney, Australia

I am deeply privileged to have met Master B in 2001 on his first visit to Australia, and after having attended his talks, workshops and retreats, my life has been transformed in magical ways.

Master B’s unique ability to share his wisdom in a very simple, understandable and loving way made me realise that there was a whole lot of potential within me, which I was not yet tapping into. By letting go of my old conditioning which left me dissatisfied consistently, I have awakened to my heart's desire to live with greater purpose and meaning in my life, and through this, I have discovered deeper happiness, enthrallment and peace in my waking moments. In his characteristic style, Master B has finally written the book that we, his students, have been longing for.

Born with Wings is a wake-up call to remind us that we all have a role to play in this world – a deeper purpose for being alive – and it is up to us to find our part and direct our moments in ways that are exceptional. For, after all, a distinguished life is lived by design and not by default.

– Keshmira Elavia

Reservations & Ticket Office supervisor – Australia / South West Pacific

Garuda Indonesia

I was introduced to Master B some years ago through my wife who had been attending his sessions in Mumbai for many months, the first one being in 2009. I never missed an opportunity to ridicule her for the importance she gave to these sessions of self-help-hypnosis (as I called them!).

It was only after many months of subjecting my wife to such ribbing that I realised I had absolutely no idea what I was pulling her leg for. When asked about what exactly happens at these sessions, my wife guided me to a YouTube video of one of Master B’s talks in Australia.

That night, I watched the entire video (and a couple of other ones that I found on the same YouTube channel). Master B’s direct, common sense approach and articulate style of teaching immediately resonated with me and I was filled with a desire to meet him and hear him in person. Thankfully, since Master B was based in Mumbai, it wasn't difficult to arrange this and after just a few sessions I knew I had found a life-teacher, or rather a teacher for life.

Born with Wings echoes Master B’s teachings loud and clear to anyone sensitive enough to hear the stirring message it holds for them. This brilliant book repeatedly points to the fact that our personality plays a significant role in shaping the overall quality of our life. For these personal qualities not only determine the circumstances we create for ourselves, but also the way in which we respond to them.

Page after page it reminds us, that the first indispensable step towards living in a manner that is worthy of us, is to envision the kind of person we wish to be. And the next essential step is to focus less on the by-products of a super life and more on living superbly.

– Visheshwar Raj Singh

Vice President and General Manager. The Oberoi, Bengaluru /

The Oberoi Motor Vessel Vrinda / Trident, Cochin

The Oberoi, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Copyright © 2019 by Behram Phiroz Ghista

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author.

For permission requests, please write to the author, addressed Attention: Permissions Required, at the address below.

Behram Phiroz Ghista

[e-mail]

First Edition, 2019

ISBN 9781794455573 (paperback)

Book and Cover Design plus Master B’s photos – Visheshwar Raj Singh

Editing by Dr. Brendan Coutts

www.innermasterynow.net

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

1. A MATTER OF CHOICE

2. SO MANY IDIOTS, SO FEW BULLETS

3. DO YOU REALLY ENJOY YOUR BIRTH-DAZE?

4. OUR VIBE ATTRACTS OUR TRIBE

5. SEEK THE DEPTH OF THINGS

6. THE CALL TO ADVENTURE

7. PARADISE REGAINED

EPILOGUE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PROLOGUE

Happiness does not obey the laws of mathematics.

When you start dividing it among others,

It, in fact, multiplies!

As a baby, I was lactose intolerant, even towards my mother’s milk. After many failed attempts with a variety of medications, my mother finally approached a reputed Homeopath noted for his accurate diagnosis and lightning-fast remedies. Then, within a week of my taking this wizard’s medicine, my dire situation was resolved miraculously once and for all. As you can imagine, my parents were overjoyed at my recovery and so was I, for no longer experiencing the agony of diarrhea every day.

The point of this little story is that no matter how many attempts you make to be joyous and fulfilled, unless you identify and remedy the cause of your discontent, your ailment will continue indefinitely.

For instance, a young woman who was worried about her habit of biting her fingernails down to the quick, was advised by a friend to take up yoga to ease her nervousness. This she did, and soon her fingernails were growing beautifully. A few months later, her friend met her at the mall and noticing her long healthy nails asked if yoga had cured her nervousness.

Oh no, I am still quite a nervous wreck, she replied, but I am a lot more flexible, so now I bite my toe-nails instead. Obviously this young lady had missed the significance of her yoga sessions, for her priorities lay elsewhere. And so her problem – her anxious temperament – continued because she was satisfied with a temporary solution instead of addressing and removing the cause of her distress.

A similar scenario takes place with the lingering frustrations and resentments in relation to our work, our relationships, our health, our finances and a whole lot more which can be traced to an incorrect appraisal of our reality. And so despite all our efforts to change or fix things, the unskilful responses that emerge from our misperceptions prevent us from creating the outcomes we desire. How to identify and remedy the cause of our discontent, through the discovery of our strengths and the immense joy this brings, is the central theme of this book.

Now, my dear friend, even though I have no knowledge of your aspirations, I am certain that you can make progress towards them, and materialize them as a matter of course, with the right principles and methods as your foundation. You have a brilliance inside of you just waiting to reveal itself. We all do. But, for this brilliance to emerge, your thoughts, words, feelings and actions have to be channelled correctly, so that your presence on this planet adds value to your life, and the lives of many around you, for the longest period of time, just as have the lives of the noteworthy – whose positive influence is still felt centuries after their passing.

If you are keen to make the rest of your life the best of your life, this book is for you. The contents of these pages, through stories, real-life examples, a sprinkling of humour and down-to-earth suggestions, will lead you to your innermost heart’s desires with mathematical precision when you diligently apply the guidelines outlined in this book.

So, let’s talk about how you can unveil and savour your brilliance in the common occasions of your life. The first thing you have to acknowledge is the fact that you cannot rely on motivation or inspiration to begin crafting a distinguished life. What is always required is a daily discipline that is rooted in the right principles and methods for achieving what you desire.

The lack of foresight in waiting for the right moment or the right amount of inspiration to begin anything, is illustrated by this Chinese aphorism which cautions us against this faulty perspective: Man must wait with mouth open for a very long time before a roast duck will fly in! You really are capable of making better choices. The vital need for discipline in crafting the quality of life we aspire to is illustrated in the following paragraphs:

Like everyone else, you seek freedom to think, feel, say, and do, what you want. But true freedom is never freedom for the self, but freedom from the self. This is the self that keeps deluding you into believing that you can actually prosper in this world without being spiritually awake. It is this massive error in discernment that keeps derailing you from achieving your best in whatever you aspire to.

In the absence of spiritual clarity, greed, hostility and delusion reign supreme. Yet, in every act prompted by greed, hostility or delusion lies the germ of its own defeat and destruction. For these actions are not life-supporting; they are inherently destructive of our well-being and the well-being of others. In the absence of foresight, we are unable to see the painful consequences of our misinformed desires and so we keep indulging in actions that only bring us more misery. Hence, it is in our best interest to be vigilant in channelling our thoughts and actions correctly to prevent a head-on collision with disaster.

Observe how easily your untrained mind can get swept away in the flood of untamed desire and the painful downstream consequences you pile upon yourself. Think of those who languish in prisons because of their inability to circumvent their rage, or those that are now destitute from having gambled away all that they worked for, or those who suffer in hospitals from the psychosomatic illnesses they called upon themselves from the volatile emotions they indulged in on a regular basis.

These are all examples of not having the discretion and the discipline to be anchored in the right set of rules, principles and values that allow us to navigate safely and skilfully through life’s many challenges and illusions.

Goethe was spot on when he said: There is nothing so frightening as ignorance in action.

The tragedy is that though we mature in years, our wisdom, love and joy do not necessarily follow likewise. Think of how our freshness of perception and enthusiasm for life dwindles over the years. Reflect on how the many relationship fiascos around the world could have been prevented, if both partners were dedicated to personal excellence long before they met.

As the saying goes, at times marriage is grand, but divorce is often a hundred grand! Painful realities, such as divorce or separation, emerge when our choice-making faculty is impaired by the lack of sufficient love and clarity in our lives – love and clarity that could have been our salvation had we made better decisions way upstream.

Besides, you really do not wish to echo the regret of countless beings who, when nearing death, lament, I’ve travelled the world, but I’ve never been to me. How sad that their incessant indulgence in all forms of sensory pleasures and possessions did nothing to unveil the exuberance they were blessed with.

We all have a natural brilliance for adding value to our lives and those around us. And yet, many of us rarely live up to our full potential to be happy and to bring happiness to others. This brings us to the practical question: How do we discover and develop this brilliance that calls out to each of us every single day for making our best contribution in this world before our time on this planet expires?

Well, if you wish to learn and to master any art, sport or science it is best to acquire a firm grasp of the right principles and the right methods that offer you the know-how for excelling in what you wish to accomplish. This is true for excelling in any human endeavour.

Observe people closely and you will see that the happiest people in this world are not those in a special set of circumstances, but those who have cultivated a special state of mind. It is this special state of mind that awakens them to all that is finest in this world. You too can be like them when you train yourself to live in accordance with the right set of rules that allow you to nurture what is best in and around you.

For instance, it is one thing to be married and another thing altogether to nurture the best in the person we have chosen to love and cherish till the end of our days.

It is one thing to secure a really great job, and another thing altogether to relish what we do and to ensure that it

Reviews for Born with Wings

[Shernavaz Mistry · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Born with Wings has opened my eyes to the vast possibilities before me for correcting my unwholesome behaviour patterns that have restricted me for decades in living the quality of life I wished to live. In a way, this book has been a fantastic brain-gym that has rid my mind of emotional unrest and faulty forms of thinking, as it is a practical guide that highlights life’s deeper truths in a manner that is profoundly inspiring. The ample stories and examples along with a generous sprinkling of humour kept me riveted to what Master B has shared till the very last page.

Here are a few gems I picked up from reading this brilliant book: We all feel a deep longing for something inspirational out there that will fulfil us. But actually this longing for an inspirational “something” is that it is the “inspiration” we are after and not the “something.” This is because even after we achieve that special something, once the inspiration fades, we seek something else.

I have now realized that I must wake up to the fact that there is no gigantic joy out there waiting for me. This gigantic joy is already within me, and my task is to let go of my misinformed opinions and journey within to discover it.

I always took life with a grain of salt, plus a slice of lemon, and a shot of tequila, but now it is very clear to me that only by developing the specific skills and conditions that allow me to manifest my deepest desires, that I can live a full and nourishing life – never otherwise.

Before reading this book, I was someone who would look at the land of milk and honey and see only calories and cholesterol. But now I have understood that it is from an intuitive grasp of life’s astonishing magnificence that empowering potentials manifest and new capabilities are born. So I have made it a practice to steer away from all that limits my growth and wellbeing while staying on course to all that enhances my joy, love and laughter instead.

Finally, I absolutely love the summaries at the end of each chapter, plus the advice on what to “Start, Stop and Continue” as these guidelines clarify how I can establish and nurture enriching friendships, experience greater health and well-being, spark my untested potentials, discover and refine my unpolished gifts, and seize opportunities for abundance – in its various forms – to come pouring into my life till the end of my days by living in tune with what is finest in me.

[Geoff Havenaar · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I believe that a good life is the delicious fruit of good character. When we develop a good character, all is well in our world. When we fail to, nothing ever satisfies us

Born With Wings points out very clearly that our inattention towards personal refinement often comes at a tremendous price – obsessions, addictions, ill-health, relationship fiascos, violence, loss of meaning and a deep conflict with life in general

In this amazing book, Behram Ghista cautions us repeatedly by saying that to not choose personal refinement as a way of life is a big error because this not only deepens and prolongs our suffering on a grand scale, but we also inflict a vast amount of suffering onto others also, as an inevitable consequence of being unwise.

The only way to stem the tide of this constant outpouring of dissatisfaction and suffering is through spiritual education for this roots us in aspirations that fulfil us, instead of chasing after aspirations that lead us off course and leave us wanting. Our hunger for satisfaction has little to do with visible experience; this deep-rooted hunger is really our heart’s longing to discover our spiritual heritage and the immense fulfillment it holds for us. We can never be satisfied with anything less.

Seeking clear guidelines as to how to flow through life in the best possible manner is what brought me to this book and others like it in the first place.
Witty, funny, and beautifully written this is a spiritual guidebook for those seeking to upgrade the quality of their lives. It certainly has been for me.

[Khushru Mistry · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have read this book several times and for me it is an excellent guide for those who seek personal excellence.

Born with Wings has taught me to accept life’s inevitable changes gracefully, for only then can I dance in tune with the blessings every situation holds for me. Master B highlights the non-negotiable spiritual principles throughout the book in his characteristic humorous manner, along with a splattering of deeply inspiring stories and examples that I could easily relate to.

Almost every paragraph is deeply insightful and a meditation in itself for discovering how to “unfurl my wings,” in order to achieve optimal levels of flow in every area of my life.

Most of all, I found the central theme in this book immensely inspiring, as page after page I was reminded that by utilizing the tremendous power of my mind skilfully, I can create a brilliant destiny that is practically inevitable. This is where an exceptional life is not just an outcome I hope for, but an outcome that is virtually guaranteed.

Last but not least, I love the way Master B recaps every chapter with a summary of its contents, along with an entire page dedicated to what I ought to “Start, Stop and Continue” to consolidate the principles outlined in the book so that I can reap the benefits of a life well-lived.

Khushru Mistry

[Brendan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What I love about this book is that it shows that hallmark of real mastery - profound wisdom is presented in surprisingly simple terms. On the surface it is a light and insightful read, but I've found that repeatedly - many, many small gems of wisdom from its pages come back to me and I see them in a new, deeper and more powerful way.

It has shone a light on many aspects of my life and my spiritual practice has become noticeably deeper as a result. It's real value is that it is fun, easy to read, and deceptively practical. Almost accidentally, each day I find myself applying the insights that are revealed in its pages.

It's a real find. A gem.