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: Behram Phiroz Ghista
• Release date: May 20, 2019

Behram Phiroz Ghista

Behram Ghista, born in 1955, in Mumbai, India, has been studying and practicing the Buddhist way of life since 1980. To taste the true flavor of the teachings, he trained under various Masters in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Japan.​During his training in India, he spent several years in solitary retreats in isolated settings, living in small huts and even caves in the Himalayas. After years of dedicated practice, he experienced his deepest insight in May 1988, in the magnificent Himalayan landscape.In 1989, Behram was authorised to teach the Dharma by his teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Lama Zopa is the spiritual Director of The Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), which has over 156 centres in 37 countries around the world. Since his empowerment in 1989 to spread the teachings of the Buddha, Behram (fondly called Master B by his students), has been conducting talks, workshops and retreats in India and abroad, as an accomplished yoga and meditation teacher.Although qualified as a Graphic Designer with a Masters Degree from the USA, Master B has chosen to dedicate his life to inspire people globally to know their spiritual heritage, because of his passion to share with others the richness this awareness has created in his own life. With over 28 years of experience behind him, Master B continues to make a profound difference in many people’s lives, in India and abroad.

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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