Announcements – Page 11 – JilaniCordelia.com

Love is the Essence of All Religion, Mysticism and Philosophy | Songs of One Breath | 3 Feb 2023

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.

Buried Treasure | Songs of One Breath 27 January 2023 | Jilani Cordelia

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.

20 January 2023 | Songs of One Breath | Jilani Cordelia

Thought draws the line of fate.– Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

Commentary by Murshid Samuel L. Lewis (Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti):

This is true not only in prayer but in all things. Every exhalation sends something out, and every inhalation draws something in. That which is expelled carries a message, as a flying dove going upward. As soon as another thought is received into the mind, it impedes the upward journey of that breath-message. When any act, thought, speech, or desire strikes the mind-mesh, it is propelled downward toward the earth plane and brings with it the results of a movement which is at the same time personal and individual, and also cosmic, in the sense that the whole sphere endeavors to keep its balance and sends back the compensatory vibrations to those sent out by us.

To overcome this action, Fikr is practiced in some form. In daily Fikr or Darood, when a thought is accompanied by a Divine Breath it can automatically arise through the meshes of the mental net and pass through Djabrut to the Arsh, the throne of God. That is to say, the automatic wish of the average person can rise no higher than the thought or will behind it, but for the spiritual person, the initiate, whose thought and desire are accompanied by Darood, these automatically rise above the mental world into the empyrean unless another thought deliberately interferes. Practice of concentration with Fikr perfects this process.

Remembering Sufi Sam with Gratitude

Online Sufi Class Tuesday 16th January

7.30-9 pm UTC (UK time)

Jilani and Salik will explore the legacy of Sufi Sam, his Teachings, Dances, Walking Practices, Meditation and Breath Practices, at this time when we remember his passing 53 years ago. You are most welcome to join us live on Zoom or to find the recording later on YouTube.

Here are the Zoom details to join us live on Tuesday 16th January at 7.30 pm UTC (UK time):

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/311735038?pwd=Rk01YS9weDJkbXBsQjRFSDc0MVk2Zz09

Meeting ID: 311 735 038

Passcode: 943198

30 December 2022 | Songs of One Breath | Mary | Jilani Cordelia

Shlama l’ki Mariam Shlama, melit taibuta maren amki, barikta b’nasha

Ave Maria Grazia Plena

O Madre de Dios

14 October 2022 | Songs of One Breath | Towards the One | Jilani Cordelia | Murshid SAM

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.

21 October 2022 | Songs of One Breath | Murshid SAM | On Breath | Jilani Cordelia

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

30 September 2022 | Songs of One Breath | Jilani Cordelia |

Teytey Malkutakh Nehwey tsebyannach. Malkutakh, Ameyn.
Let Your ideals and counsel rule, let the will of the Cosmos come to pass, through us.

Focus on Fire rising through your form from the toes up until the body burns to ashes but not you. (Zen Flesh Zen Bones No. 28)

Live for a few days in the meditation,
“I am immersed in the flame –
The flame of time,
The flame of love,
The flame of life.
The universal fire flows through me.”

Step into that fire wholeheartedly, Starting with the big toe,
Then surrendering everywhere.
Only the not-self,
Which doesn’t exist anyway,
Burns away.

Attend to this continually,
And awaken into Tranquility.
Your essence is renewed in the flame, For it is flame and knows itself as flame Since the first heartbeat of creation.
(from The Radiance Sutras by Lorin Roche, No. 29)

Sat Narayan Wahe Guru Hare Narayan SatNam
True Sustainer, Indescribable Wisdom, Creative Source, this is my true identity

‘Imagine the entire world consumed by flame.
Stay steady, do not waver,
As fire transmutes form into light.
The soul reveals itself
To itself as Radiance.’
(from The Radiance Sutras by Lorin Roche, No. 30)

‘Meditate on the make-believe world as burning to ashes, and become being above human.’ (Zen Flesh Zen Bones No. 29)

‘I wish I could show you,
When you are lonely or in darkness,
The Astonishing Light
Of your own Being!’
(Daniel Ladinsky)

Ayam Atma Satyam,
Ayam Atma Bhakti,
Ayam Atma Shanti
Shanti Om Siddhi
Tat Tvam Asi
Tat Tvam Asi
Tat Tvam Asi
Shanti Om Siddhi

Autumn Equinox | 23 September 2022 | Songs of One Breath |

The Mother Womb Creates the Human
(Babylonian-Assyrian – approximately 2nd millennium BCE)
(From Neil Douglas-Klotz – Desert Wisdom)

“From what is small and fragile
let abundance and power come:
let humanity take on the consciousness
of the whole creation
and be absorbed by this task.”

So spoke the Great Ones.
shining centers of awareness,
the original archetypes of existence,
in the primordial beginning.
From the energising dark waves
they summoned the Great One (Inanna)
in the form of
the Mother, Wise Mami—
she whose name means
the one who responds to cries:

“You are the Mother-Womb,
radiant source of warmth and life,
the one from whose depths
humanity may arise.
Create this unique form
as a spiral of life into matter—
one force of its being always leaving,
the other always returning home,
the tension balanced
by the awareness of the void.

“Create humanity as a thin veil
that shrouds the Universal Reality.
Let its purpose spread open and fertile
like a fresh field to be plowed.
Let it embrace the empty core of Being
covered in layers of activity
like an onion’s skin.”

Then the Great One in the form of Nintu—
she who bears all new generations,
preserver of the chain of being—
told the other shining archetypes:

“From my essence comes everything
that helps the cosmos unfold.
So let lullu — this new spiral being — appear!
Let the universe develop through its efforts!
Let this new human being be
formed form the earth
and enlivened with blood!”

Then Enki,
The “I Am” compressed into form,
the archetype of being made manifest,
suggested to the others:

“In the month when the land is cleansed,
when it returns to healing emptiness,
when the earth’s beings
see the fruits of their labor
and feel the mother’s support underneath,
let them kill one of us holy ones,
shining centres of awareness,
mythic shells of life energy,
and let us all be cleansed thereby.

“With the flesh and blood of the divine
let the Great One, also called Ninhursag —
she who expands the circle of illuminated being —
mix and mingle the clay of the earth.
Let both the worlds—
shining-waved and particle-formed—
be forever changed by
this new mixture—
the human being.
And we shall hear its tale unfold
from ages to ages.”

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
(From ‘To Autumn’ by John Keats)