Podcast

Songs of One Breath | 18 March 2022 | Planting Peace with Every Step

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.

4/3/22 | Songs of One Breath | The Peace of Wild Things | Jilani Cordelia

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry, from New Collected Poems

‘I believe the very fact that we see what’s happening, that we bear witness together even though we can’t do anything to affect the situation outwardly, is a radical form of activism. We are connecting with and deepening the evolving soul of the world. We are sensitizing the conscience of humanity. Though it may seem insignificant, our dismay with bombs dropping on Ukrainian cities is a powerful action. Without it, without our caring, the human spirit would be diminished.
Even though it hurts to bear witness like this, even though we want to turn away, our anonymous solidarity with those who are suffering, wherever they are and whoever they may be, ennobles the vast soul of the world and makes possible the coming of peace.’
Pir Elias Amidon

‘The renowned Czech humanist Vaclav Havel once said that morality means taking responsibility, not only of your life, but for the life of the world. From a Buddhist perspective, it means seeing the roots of violence in our country and in ourselves, and finally understanding that we are not separate from all beings and things and must act accordingly or further violence will spread as the Coronavirus has spread.
Buddhism has since its very beginning guided its practitioners to realize the most radical form of inclusivity, the realization that all beings in all realms, no matter how depraved and deluded, can be free of suffering and delusion, and to also see that we are not separate from any other being, whether Putin or Hitler, or His Holiness the Dalai Lama or Malala.
It is not necessarily so easy to realize this. Many of us have not allowed ourselves to look deeper than our personality and our opinions to see and touch who we really are. Yet, Buddhists and contemplatives of many traditions have long been guided to go within to discover not only the interconnectedness of all things, including the natural world, but also the peace that surpasses understanding, knowing, ideas, conceptions, and opinions, the peace that is basic to all beings when they have come home to a state of non-alienation, and also the peace that nourishes courageous and liberating action in the world, knowing that this peace is not complacent, nor is it restless.’
By Roshi Joan Halifax (read the rest of her article here: https://www.upaya.org/2022/02/ukraine-in-the-heart/)

14 January 2022 | Songs of One Breath | Honouring Murshid SAM at his 51st Urs

‘Those who love, and loving, pour forth radiance;
These are the Sons and Daughters of God-‘
(Murshid Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti)

Excerpts from Githas on Dhyana: Meditation by Murshid Samuel L. Lewis
One going to one’s meditation feeling, “God is my Teacher, I have something to learn, I will listen attentively,” will be rewarded with the greatest blessing, receiving in the Silence and Meditation that which they are capable of understanding, and by this gradually their purpose of life will be unfolded. [Series I, Number 4 (A)]

One can never meditate too much. This does not mean going into one’s closet, but it means keeping the heart fixed on God, to keep the mind fixed on the invocation, every moment day and night, so the very breath will keep on calling, “Towards the One.” Then the hour will arrive some time when the Talib will realize their true being. And what is that true being? It is God, the Only Being. [Series I, Number 5 (A)]

Spiritual practices that purify the breath make it possible for the breath also to be used as a vehicle of the soul…. the more the breath is purified, the easier it is for the heart to illuminate the mind.
One physical aspect of this is that the whole being is in rhythm in meditation. The body is at rest, the flow of the breath and blood is rhythmical, the mind vibrations become quiet, and gradually through long practice, all the functions of the mind such as thought, reason, memory, I- ness, become dormant. Sitting at ease or in posture, holding a divine thought, the heart gradually controls the mind and the inner light becomes visible, so to speak, before the naked eye. [Series III, number 1]

Allah is beyond all Attributes and Qualities, being All Essence. Understanding this, every breath can become a meditation wherein one puts full dependence upon Allah and there will be no moment which will not be a meditation, no moment of separateness from God. [Series II, number 3(A)]

Yet there is always need to enter into the silence above sound, and find the peace which is all-inclusive….As a person enters the silence, so does the silence enter into him or her. As one unites with the universe, so does the universe manifest in them. This is true, no matter what be one’s path or training. Ultimately one arrives at this destination. [Series II, number 7]

7/7/22 | Songs of One Breath | Bismillah

Bismillah!
‘…Take a moment to breathe, and begin what you are about to do wholeheartedly.’

Let’s begin the New Year together in the conscious awareness of the web of Life, in Unity, in the One Love, the breathing Life of All. Breath and Heartbeat creating a clear and spacious place inside – connecting our heart to the Heart of the Cosmos. ‘God is your lover, not your jailer!’

‘We begin by remembering
the sound and feeling of the One Being,
the wellspring of love.
We affirm that the next thing we experience
shimmers with the light of the whole universe.’
(Quotations from ‘The Sufi Book of Life’ by Neil Douglas-Klotz)

Radiance Sutras 1
Beloved, your questions require the answers that come
Through direct living experience.

The way of experience begins with a breath,
Such as the breath you are breathing now.
Awakening into luminous reality
May dawn in the momentary throb
Between any two breaths.

Exhaling, breath is released and flows out.
There is a pulse as it turns to flow in.
In that turn you are empty.
Enter that emptiness as the source of all life.

Inhaling, breath flows in, filling, nourishing.
Just as it turns to flow out,
There is a flash of pure joy –
Life is renewed.

Bismillah of the Dome
Breathing Bismillah
Bismillah Ya Shakur
Angelic Bismillah

Beyond right or wrong

Freedom in the streets

Recorded in the wake of COP26, this reflection from Songs of One Breath shares an experience of singing, praying, and bearing witness outside the official halls of power in Glasgow. Without access or authority, a gathering of strangers moved through the city with banners and songs, making visible both hope and heartbreak. This episode explores the surprising freedom, lightness, and joy that can arise through creative, prayerful presence in the face of collective failure, and the radical happiness found when we refuse silence and take to the streets together.