Songs of One Breath is a weekly online space with Jilani Cordelia Prescott to explore the direct, joyful experience of mysticism through practice. Each Friday she shares chants, mantra, breath practices and body prayer drawn from a range of traditions, offered as grounding, comfort, and a pathway of the heart toward deeper connection and spiritual freedom. You are warmly invited to join live on Zoom (or via Facebook Live) at 2.30pm London time, and it is free. If you enjoy the class or the podcast, and would like to support Jilani’s work, donations are welcome via PayPal.
Towards the One, the perfection of Love, Harmony and Beauty, the only Being, United with all the Illuminated Souls who form the embodiment of the Master/Message/Messenger/ Mystery/Miracle/Mother, the Spirit of Guidance.
Sheikh Muiz Brinkerhoff writes:
Many of the world religions indicate a particular direction toward which the body should be oriented during prayer, and some even align the altar and the building in which worship occurs.
Traditionally Christian Churches were constructed so that the long axis of the building aligned east/west, with the altar placed at the east end, so that worshippers faced east during services. Muslims the world over orient their bodies during prayers, so they face the shortest distance to the Ka`aba, in the center of the Mosque in Mecca, and this direction is indicated, in all Mosques, by the Qibla or niche. Other traditions place the altar in the center of a circle whose circumference is anchored at the four directions.
Orienting oneself, knowing specifically where one is at the moment, is crucial for any journey, physical or spiritual, for how can one begin, with any hope of success, without knowing where one is, and in which direction one is setting off.
Rather than suggesting that the body be oriented in one particular outer direction, or towards a physical altar or niche (qibla) during prayer or worship, Hazrat Inayat Khan gave his students this Invocation. The Sufi approach is that God/Goddess/Source is truly All That Is, and further, that all Creation and all experience are but Veils over that Absolute Reality. Once one realizes that this Radical Unity is beneath and behind every experience, then every direction, every orientation becomes Holy and Sacred, and the most important orientation is inward, towards that Unity, to penetrate the Veils that conceal the Face of the Beloved.
Thus we begin by orienting ourselves, our entire being, internal and external, toward The One.
When in ourselves there is inharmony, how can we spread harmony?– Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Commentary by Murshid Samuel L. Lewis (Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti):
The best way to develop strength is to achieve unity. This comes out of the practice of concentration. Concentration need not be limited to a few minutes a day or week when one performs some exercise given in the teachings. Concentration may be practiced every hour, every minute, every breath—especially through Darood. Then one does not have to seek unity, unity will seek one.