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.

The world is a grand display of the Divine Lila. In fact, each one of you, playing an individual part in it, is the Only Being in their self-expression. In the light of this knowledge and vision, you are all eternally one; the appearance of diversity belongs only to the surface.

The whole universe is indeed a blissful manifestation of Sri Ram. Every form in it is a wave and movement of That infinite love. Diversity and discord are unreal – offsprings of a mind deluded by ignorance. Unity and harmony are the true attributes of that Truth, in whom God, universe and humanity are one. There is no existence but the Divine. The Divine is eternal truth, love, power, light and bliss. What words can describe the One, who transcends all speech and thought!
(Papa Ram Das ‘Glimpses of Divine Vision’ p. 29)

Universal Love

Truth within you is the Truth
That dwells in all beings.
Power that works in you
Is the Power that activates all beings.
Light that shines in you
Is the Light that enlightens all beings.
You realise this state supreme
When your ego melts
In Universal Love,
And your life flows
In Universal Service.

(Papa Ram Das Poems p. 249)

Prayer for World Peace

Adorable Presence!
Thou art within and without,
Above and below and all around.
Thou who art interpenetrating the very cells of our beings.
Thou who art the Eye of our eyes,
The Ear of our ears,
The Heart of our hearts;
The Mind of our minds; The Breath of our breath;
The Life of our lives
and the Soul of our souls.
Bless us dear God
to be aware of Thy presence now and here.
This is all that we ask of Thee.
May all of us be aware of Thy presence
in the East and the West, in the North and the South
May Peace and Goodwill
abide among individuals
as well as communities and nations.
This is our Earnest Prayer.
May peace be unto all.
Om Tat Sat Om
Om Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram

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.

Loka Samasta Sukhino Bhavantu
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti

Nada te turbe, nada te espante
Quien a Dios tiene, nada le falta
Nada te turbe, nada te espante
Solo Dios Basta

Nothing need ever trouble or haunt you:
One who has God is never left wanting.
Nothing need ever trouble or haunt you;
God is all one needs.

Sila Ersinarsinivdluge – ‘Be not afraid of the Universe!’

Papa Ram Das:
Life, in every condition, can be lived in freedom and joy, provided the soul within remains unattached to external forms of life.

The one who does not behold the finger of God working in all events and happenings experiences needless suffering. Therefore, peace and contentment belong only to those who have submitted, in all the vicissitudes of life, to the supreme will of God.

Surely life has a beautiful meaning and purpose when it is understood to be of a universal nature and significance. The utmost grandeur of it is revealed when it breaks through every sense of division and diversity and sheds all around soothing light of pure, spontaneous love – the rapture of an inexplicable joy and peace.

Whatever circumstances you may find yourself in, do not forget the great and merciful Lord of the universe. Life bereft of the thought of God is verily not worth living. God is our mother, guide and protector. To be in constant awareness of God means purity, strength, courage and peace; because God is all power, knowledge and bliss.

Change is the law of nature. Change signifies rise and fall, the twin aspects of the same movement, each aspect carrying with it the same sense of greatness or littleness. So there is nothing to be surprised at or grieved at, in the changing affairs of the world. Worlds are built and brought into being; worlds are broken and destroyed. This is the Divine Play.

The ideal of God is a bridge connecting the limited life with the unlimited; whoever travels over this bridge passes safely from the limited to the unlimited life.– Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

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.

The WALK of CHRIST – Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan
A crown of thorns on His head
And a bed of thorns beneath His feet
And thorns pricking wherever He resteth
The palm of His helping hand
Still with unshaking faith
And unbroken hope
With closed eyes yet with open heart
His head in heaven
And His feet on earth
He walketh gently with all His trust
In Him who hath sent Him.
REFLECTIONS on the WALK of CHRIST

Pir Moineddin Jablonski

These words of Hazrat Inayat Khan present living signs of the Crucifixion of Christ, a Crucifixion which took place not only on the Last Day, but every moment of His life. Every thought, every feeling, every word, every deed was born through the fiery gamut of the Stations of the Cross. Every step of the day was trodden in the knowledge that the way led to Golgotha, the Place of the Skull.
Unshaken faith? Unbroken hope? What man or woman can say these things? These are divine words uttered by the God within.

With our heads raised to Heaven, and our feet firmly on the earth, we shall learn to walk the Heavens and to perceive the inner condition of earth. Complainers are crushed beneath the weight of life’s crosses. But with all trust placed in the Father who hath known us even before we became known, we shall walk gently from cross and thorn to Crown and Bloom, from divine limitation to divine perfection.

Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
The real meaning of crucifixion is to crucify the false self, that the true self may rise. As long as the false self is not crucified, the true self is not realized.

Through that crucifixion resurrection comes. There is not the slightest doubt that when one has had enough pain in life, one rises to this great consciousness. But it is not necessary that only pain should be the means. It is the readiness on the part of a person to efface part of consciousness and to efface personality, which lifts the veil that hides the spirit of God from view.

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.

Some young people once encountered a very wise old being. When they asked for help making their spiritual ideals into reality, he replied:

“The first line of defence is the moral teaching of kindliness, tolerance and compassion.

These belong to all religions and to atheism and to philosophy and to science. They can be advocated at all times and before all peoples. If they do not stand as ideals, conflict will necessarily follow.

Christ came to teach not theology but love. Mohammed came only with the Message of Unity, and Buddha taught that it was an attitude, not a form, which raised one into the peace of Nirvana. The religious will accept the ideas of love, harmony and beauty and the irreligious will accept the ideals of love, harmony and beauty.

So you can find a common standard whereby all may join. In this way the Sufi Message in time will help greatly to spread the spirit of human brother and sisterhood and so establish peace upon Earth.”

Murshid Samuel Lewis

In the real samadhi, one has not only union-with-God but with all humanity; when one is helping others, one is helping oneself, and when one is really helping oneself, one is helping others. (Oct 7, 1967)

At one point in my life, I became totally and absolutely pessimistic to the point that I was a sort of left-handed masochist – I began expecting pain. My life readings have all been consistent. During one of them I finally began to see my whole karma, the justices in the injustice. If you take a single life there’s always injustice, but if you take a whole series, it all balances out. This has given me a much greater capacity for pain than almost anybody I meet. If I have a sort of composure, it isn’t a real composure, it’s a composure of having gone through such a tremendous quantity of pain that other things don’t, by comparison, bother me. Perhaps, in the end, that’s wisdom. (October 2, 1968)

Every inhalation is God’s gift to humanity and every exhalation is humanity’s sacrifice to God…

Given a problem, meditate on the problem. Then meditate on “Toward the One”, or fikr (Breathe out La illaha, breathe in El il Allah) 20, 33 or 101 times. Now re-concentrate on the problem. There should be an influx of Kashf or insight that will help throw light on the problem.

Breathe identifying yourself with breath. Breathe holding Darood, ie “Toward the One”, with each inhalation and exhalation. Identify yourself with the breath; identify with the Darood. This helps to free you from identification with the body.

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.

Om Tare Tutare Ture Soha
Kyrie Eleison
Palestinian Lullaby Zikr
Metta Karuna Mudita Upekha