Podcast – Page 6 – JilaniCordelia.com

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

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.

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)

RFZ – Sheikh Muiz Brinkerhoff – Breath, Heart, and the God Ideal – 2022-AUG-21

17 June 2022 | Songs of One Breath | The Light of our Being

Follow the path of the life force
As she flashes upward like lightning
Through your body.

Attend simultaneously
To the perineum, that bright place
Between the legs,
To the crown of the skull,
And to that shining star place
Above the head.

Notice this living current
Becoming ever more subtle as she rises,
Radiant as the morning sun,
Until she streams outward from the top of the head
Into all embracing gratitude.

Thus become intimate with the life of all beings.
(Radiance Sutras No.5, Lorin Roche)

Consider your essence as light rays rising from centre to centre up the vertebrae, and so rises livingness in you. (Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: Paul Reps)

Trace the river of life that flows through you,
The luxuriously rising energies,
Gradually touching each of the centres
Along the spine.
Savour every shimmer of colour along the way.

Enter each area tenderly,
Loving as you go,
Finally, gently,
Dissolving in the crown of the head.

Then above,
In the space above the head,
The great dawn.

(Radiance Sutras No.6, Lorin Roche)

10 June 2022 | Songs of One Breath

There is a current of love-energy that flows
Between Earth below and Sun above.

The central channel of your spine is the riverbed.
The streaming is as delicate and powerful
As the tingling touch of lovers.

Entering here,
Radiance arches between above and below.

Your whole attention resting in the subtle,
Vibrating in the centre of the spinal column,
Tracing this current between Earth and Sun,
Become magnetism relating all the worlds.
(Radiance Sutras 12 p. 47, Lorin Roche)

Place your whole attention in the nerve, delicate as the Lotus thread, in the centre of your spinal column. In such be transformed. (Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, No.11)

15 April 2022 | Songs of One Breath | Ramadan/Passover/Easter | Jilani Cordelia

In 2022 Passover, Ramadan, and Easter all fall in April, a coincidence that happens only about every 33 years. Often we hear about the conflicts and differences between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And yet at their heart, these traditions have so much in common. As humans we are very good at focussing on complexity and difference. Yet peace and unity are more present when we concentrate instead on similarity and connection, on finding the commonalities: what we share, and where we can meet.

In Songs of One Breath this week we will pray for peace and unity using chants and phrases drawn from Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Welcome to the Prophet
La illaha il’llah Hu
La illaha il’llah
La illaha il’llah Hu
Mohammed Rasulillah

Oh the white moon rose over us,
From the valley of Wada,
And we owe it to show gratefulness
Where the call is to Allah.

Oh you who were raised among us,
Coming with the call to be obeyed,
You have brought to the city nobleness:
Welcome best caller to God’s way.

Shema Yisrael Adonai Elohenu Adonai Ehad

Abwoon d’bashmaya
Alaha Allah Elohim Elat

Shalom Aleichem

Asalaam Aleikum, La illaha il’llah

Shalama Bayta

8/4/2022 | Songs of One Breath | Jilani Cordelia | Sacred Water, Carry our Prayers for all of Life

Only Love is Flowing Here – Leila Be

The Algonquin Water Song expresses loving gratitude for the water and raises the consciousness and connection of women with Mother Nature’s greatest gift. The song is easy to learn, and our hope is that millions of women will sing it, raising their own connection and awareness of the water they interact with daily even in the shower or at the sink. Sing it 4 times, facing each of the 4 Directions. We believe this is a powerful step to change, leading to both a spiritual as well as environmental shift on our planet.
This song was written by Irene Wawatie Jerome for Grandfather William Commanda’s 2002 Circle of All Nations gathering. It is recorded with permission from the Wawatie and Commanda families and the Circle of All Nations Foundation and the Elders in Canada.

Ganga ki Jai Jai, Jumna ki Jai Jai, Sarasvati Trivani ki Jai

“We can learn a lot from water on how to become one human family. We just need to gather like the drops. We need to come together and move and flow as one.” ~ Grandmother Carole

“The water of life, the first medicine of the world, is so precious to every living thing that grows, breathes and lives. The water is the female blood of Mother Earth that brings life. A woman brings children in this world through water of the womb, she then cleans her children with water, cooks and feeds them with water. She plants and waters her gardens. The trees that grow and provide air need water. Water is life and as we say Mni Wiconi — Water of Life! We will continue to stand for the water so that we may live.” — Ta Mak’a Wast’e Win, Her Good Earth Woman, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard

Water is the most life sustaining gift on Mother Earth and is the interconnection among all living beings. Water sustains us, flows between us, within us, and replenishes us. Water is the blood of Mother Earth and, as such, cleanses not only herself, but all living things. Water comes in many forms and all are needed for the health of Mother Earth and for our health. The sacred water element teaches us that we can have great strength to transform even the tallest mountain while being soft, pliable, and flexible. Water gives us the spiritual teaching that we too flow into the Great Ocean at the end of our life journey. Water shapes the land and gives us the great gifts of the rivers, lakes, ice, and oceans. Water is the home of many living things that contribute to the health and well-being of everything not in the water. (Assembly of First Nations)

Songs of One Breath | 25 March 2022 | ‘Let me tell you of the luminous path’ | Jilani Cordelia

Let me tell you of the luminous path.

I am beyond measure. I cannot be calculated.
I am beyond space and time.
I am beyond ancient and beyond the future.
There are no directions to me.

I am always here.
I am the embrace
Of your most intimate experience.

Though I am beyond the intellect,
I am not beyond your daring.

I am the nourishing state of fullness
That is the essence of soul.
You belong to me, and I am yours.
(Lorin Roche: The Radiance Sutras)

There is a sun-star rising outside form.
I am lost in that other. It’s sweet not

to look at two worlds, to melt in meaning
as Honey melts in milk. No one tires of

following the soul. I don’t recall now what
happens on the manifest plane. I stroll

with those I have always wanted to know,
fresh and graceful as the waterlily, or a rose.
(Rumi: Coleman Barks)

The clear bead at the centre
changes everything. There are

no edges to my loving now.
You’ve heard it said there’s

a window that opens from one
mind to another, but if there’s

no wall, there’s no need for
fitting the window, or the latch.
(Rumi: Coleman Barks)