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.
Aad Guray Nameh
Jugaad Guray Nameh
Sat Guray Nameh
Siri Guru Devay Nameh
I bow to the Primal Guru
I bow to the Guru woven throughout time
I bow to the True Guru
I bow to the Great Guru hidden within
Meditation from ‘A Book of Self Re-Education’ by Raden Ayou Jodjana
Om Mani Peme Hung – To be the Jewel in the Lotus Flower unfolding in the Heart of All, To be the Jewel in the Lotus Flower unfolding is the highest call!
TEAR DOWN THIS HOUSE
Rumi as translated by Coleman Barks
A hundred thousand new houses can be built
from the transparent yellow carnelian* buried beneath
and the only way to get to that is to do the work of demolishing
and then digging under the foundation.
With that value in hand,
all the new construction will be done without effort.
And anyway, sooner or later this house will fall on its own.
The jewel treasure will be uncovered, but it won’t be yours then.
The buried wealth is your pay for doing the demolition,
the pick and the shovel work.
If you wait and just let it happen, you’ll bite your hand and say,
“I didn’t do as I knew I should have.”
This is a rented house. You don’t own the deed.
You have a lease, and you’ve set up a little shop,
where you barely make a living sewing patches on torn clothing.
Yet only a few feet underneath are two veins,
pure red and bright gold carnelian.
Take the pickaxe and pry the foundation.
You’ve got to quit this seamstress work.
What does the patch-sewing mean you ask?
Eating and drinking.
The heavy cloak of the body is always getting torn.
You patch it with food and other restless ego satisfactions.
Rip up one board from the shop floor
and look into the basement. You’ll see two glints in the dirt.
*carnelian- a pale to deep red or reddish brown variety of quartz with distinctive crystals arranged in slender fibers in parallel bands used in jewelry, a mystical stone.