The Listening Breath. On Prophetic Listening and the Healing of the Heart

Ammonite Fossil, an ancient spiral formed through time, a symbol of inward listening, layered memory, and the quiet movement of the soul.

There is a moment on the spiral when longing softens into listening. Not listening with urgency, not with the mind that analyses, but with the heart that receives.

This is the Breath of Listening.

It is the breath that turns us inward, not downward or upward, but along the curve of the spiral, where every silence holds a direction.

Between sound and silence, between ache and calm, between question and answer,

the Beloved is Present.

Where Listening Begins

Farid al-Din Attar writes:

“The first step is to say ‘Allah’ and nothing else. The second is intimacy. The third is combustion.”

Listening is the doorway to intimacy, not with others first, but with the Self, the Beloved shaped in light.

Breathe with me…

Before we rush to fix the cracks, let us sit quietly and listen to what the brokenness is whispering:

Sometimes it speaks in words...

Sometimes in sensations...

Sometimes in emotion or tension that makes no sense.

Quietly witness them all.... Let them speak.

Lend them an inner ear.

And sometimes, what we hear inside us does not belong only to us. It may be the echo of those who came before:

a mother’s unspoken grief,

a father’s swallowed fear,

a grandmother’s silence that once had no place to land...

Listening inwardly can also mean listening to the lineage within, giving space to voices that were never heard in their time.

Attentive listening could show you that what seems shattered is in reality the place where Light is trying to enter.

Rumi reminds us:

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

An Invitation to Deep Listening

Close your eyes gently, and feel the breath inside your body:

Where does it land?

Where does the chest soften?

Where does it hold?

Is there warmth?

A subtle trembling?

A heaviness?

A small release?

Listening is not only emotional, but also physical, energetic, subtle.

It is learning to recognise the difference between fear speaking and the deeper heartbeat beneath it.

When you listen inwardly, you begin to know yourself gently, the same way a beloved learns another’s breathing in the dark.

Listening Through the Veils

We have been created with Divine care, perfected in form, breathed into with the Spirit of Allah (Qur’an 95:4, 64:3).

True healing is not becoming someone new. It is returning to the one we always were beneath the veils:

pure, luminous, whole.

Our fitrah, our original nature, is never destroyed by pain or trauma. It may be buried by survival, fear, or forgetting, but at the core it remains untouched.

Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq (as) said:

“God created the heart for Himself. Do not allow anything else to dwell in it.”

Thus, the heart’s natural state is sacred.

Sama‘: Sacred Listening

Healing of the heart does not mean constructing a stronger self or layering new identities.

The invitation is the opposite:

to remove the veils

to polish the mirror

to let the heart reflect the Light already within it

This happens through listening, not ordinary listening, but Sama‘:

the listening of the subtle body, the listening of vibration, resonance, and rhythm.

All existence is engaged in dhikr, the ongoing remembrance of the Divine. To listen sacredly is to hear that remembrance in ourselves, in another person, in sound, and in silence.

Often what feels “broken” is the voice of the child inside who was not heard, seen, or understood.

Listening to this forgotten child is not regression; it is the integration of fitrah, the tender purity not honoured in its time.

Listen with curiosity…with attentiveness, with tenderness, with acceptance.

As St. John of the Cross said:

“In the dark night of the soul, bright flows the river of God.”

What feels like darkness may be a sacred passage toward union.

A Gentle Practice — The Listening Breath

Wherever you are, bring your attention softly inward.

1. Place one hand on the chest,

one on the belly.

2. Inhale for 4 counts:

Whisper inwardly, “I open.”

3. Hold for 2:

Let silence speak.

4. Exhale for 6:

Say gently, “I listen.”

5. Repeat three times.

Then ask inwardly:

“What wants to be heard in me today?”

Do not force an answer. Just listen.

This is the Listening Breath, the breath that reveals what the heart already knows.