Banafsheh Sayyad: I’m not interested in being in control of what I’m doing entirely, because I want to be danced. I want this other energy to move through me, and if I’m held and controlled, that can never happen. If I’m on the other side, that tension doesn’t exist between being here and being gone.
Tami Simon: Welcome, friends. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, my guest is Banafsheh Sayyad—master Iranian sacred dancer, choreographer, transformational teacher, and founder of Dance of Oneness. Banafsheh is a trailblazing innovator of Sufi dance forms previously performed only by men. She invokes the ancient roots of dance, devotion, prayer, and adoration. She’s taught Persian dance at UCLA, toured and performed internationally with her dance company NAMA, and created a film with Andrew Harvey on dancing Rumi’s journey of the soul titled In the Fire of Grace. She is also the author of a new Sounds True book, Dance of Oneness: Embody Love and Luminosity to Transform Your Life. Banafsheh, welcome.
Banafsheh Sayyad: Hello. Thank you so much, Tami. It’s so wonderful to have this opportunity to speak with you.
Tami Simon: In learning more about your personal story, I discovered it wasn’t easy—it was quite a journey for you to claim your life and career as a dancer. Tell us about that.
Banafsheh Sayyad: Yes. I’ve always loved to dance since I was very little. The earliest memories I have of myself are of dancing. Because I come from Iran, which has been dominated by Islam for such a long time, even though my parents are not religious people, it was in the psyche of everyone that dance is not a high art—because that’s how Islam sees it. Islam regards dance as sinful. So I didn’t receive any formal training as a little girl, but I trained myself. I knew this was my passion and that I had a burning desire to express through dance and movement.
Even when we immigrated to the United States—having been forced to leave because of the Islamic takeover of 1979—I still met with resistance when I announced that dance would be my career. People couldn’t really conceive of what I was talking about. There weren’t any role models in my culture, any women who had blazed a trail in dance. So I met with a lot of resistance, but I knew I didn’t come here to listen to what others think or how others think I should lead my life. I pursued dance anyway, and it became my life.
Tami Simon: One of the things I’m always interested in is how someone who has such a strong sense of calling actually claims it. How would you say you were confronted with this calling and knew it? How did that happen for you?
Banafsheh Sayyad: I always knew it. As a little girl, this was what I loved, and every opportunity I got, I would dance—make dances with friends and perform them for our families, for whoever was interested to watch. As I got older, I just knew this was what I was meant to do, even though I had no support except from my younger sister. Everyone else said, “Yes, you’re such a good dancer, but you didn’t start training when you were little.” And I thought, well, I’m ready now. I had the passion in my heart and I knew this was how spirit was guiding me, regardless of what others were saying.
Tami Simon: I want to ask you about your work in this moment in time. We’re recording this together in the beginning of March 2026, when there is a war happening in Iran, your home country. I wonder how you see your calling—this heart’s calling you’ve devoted your whole life to—as a gift and an offering, both to your biological lineage and to the Sufi heritage you pay tribute to through your dance. How do you see that at this time?
Banafsheh Sayyad: This is a very difficult time for me. As I speak to you, my heart is absolutely broken. Every bomb that hits my country, every bomb that is sent out of my country, breaks my heart anew. War is awful. But at the same time, I hold the possibility that what comes out of this will be for our benefit, because the war we are now witnessing was actually begun by the Islamic Republic against its own people, its own citizens. Upward of 40,000 people were massacred in just a few days in January, continuing into February, with so many more maimed and imprisoned unjustly and families pressured not to speak about the atrocities.
This war was started by them. People were calling for help, and this is what came. It’s terrible and heartbreaking to witness. I’m holding the possibility that this will lead to a good outcome, even though right now it’s so difficult. Through dance, I invite the people around me—I’m putting on sessions where I ask people to join and release the grief and anxiety they’re carrying through movement, to open themselves to finer energy, to fill our hearts and bodies so that we can contribute positively to the outcome. Really uplifting ourselves and not staying in the fear and worry that can only make things worse.
Tami Simon: Tell us about the origin of Dance of Oneness. Is it a dance form—could you call it a form that you founded?
Banafsheh Sayyad: Yes, I call it a modality. It is a bringing together of everything I trained in, along with a desire to guide people into an expression that applies to the whole human being, all the facets of who we are. I draw from the traditions I studied and form them into three streams—three interrelated streams that come together and inform this modality.
The first stream is dance and movement technique, drawing from flamenco, Persian dance, Tai Chi, and Sufi whirling, bringing those together as representatives of different sides and faces of the human. The second stream is wisdom teachings, drawing from the Sufi, Taoist, and divine feminine traditions. The third stream is healing. In this stream, I draw from my background in Chinese medicine—I’m also an acupuncturist and herbalist—along with the chakra system and other forms of energy medicine. All three streams come together to guide us into embodying ourselves more fully, bringing body and soul into harmony rather than keeping them separate.
Tami Simon: And if my understanding is correct, the name Dance of Oneness came to you while you were whirling. Is that true?
Banafsheh Sayyad: It is true. I was asking what my form could be called, what would be the proper way to refer to it—and this is the name that came to me. I feel that because I have lived in different cultures, and as someone who had to leave her homeland and draw from different ways of being, it made sense that this would be called Dance of Oneness. Bringing all of my experiences into oneness, into a unity—but also inviting people to unify themselves through intentional movement.
Tami Simon: The modality brings together these different streams, as you’ve mentioned. Yet I have to say personally, as I was reading Dance of Oneness, I lit up especially when you were writing about the whirling form and the whirling experience—maybe because, as you were talking about how you naturally loved to dance as a kid, I naturally loved to just spin around in circles as a kid too. So I’m naturally drawn to it. And then I read that you went on a 40-day whirling experience. I was like, what? I’ve heard of people going on dark retreats, I’ve heard of fasts—I’ve never heard of 40 days of whirling. Tell me about that.
Banafsheh Sayyad: It is said that Rumi himself did a few sessions of extended whirling where he would whirl for day and night, and I totally believe that he was able to whirl without stopping for hours and hours. So this person I met decided he wanted to extend this tradition that Rumi had started and create a situation where people could come together and dedicate themselves to whirling for an extended period. He began with three-day retreats and then moved on to 40 days and even longer.
To be involved in that was incredible for me. A group of people coming together to dedicate themselves to turning, with live music as well—because that’s just a great synergy. It was incredible to be able to spend as long as you could whirling, and to come together with like-hearted people creating a field of harmony and peace.
Tami Simon: There’s a natural trance state that emerges from whirling that you write about. What kind of natural trance state do you get into when you’re whirling?
Banafsheh Sayyad: It’s so fascinating—you are just turning around yourself, it’s a repetitive style of movement, but every time is different. Every time the experience is somehow unique. What I can say for sure is that the mind grows still. You go beyond the thinking mind, and as the aim of the whirling is to open yourself as a channel for blessings into the world, your body begins to open as a channel and you receive guidance. The name Dance of Oneness coming to me while whirling—that was a form of guidance.
The trance state I’ve experienced through whirling is a stepping into the unknown, into a place I haven’t been before. As your listeners probably know, Rumi’s poetry flowered and fountained through him as he whirled, and his friends and followers wrote it down. So you experience a trance state that then becomes very orderly—it has an incredible sense of new order, if I can call it that. First it might feel chaotic, and then it becomes very orderly. A kind of order that you are not directing; it just happens to you.
Tami Simon: I want to talk more about this. I’m going to read a quote from Dance of Oneness about this combination of surrendering within the form while also having a form—what you refer to as a sturdy chalice. Here’s what you wrote: “What matters most to me is not how I can impress or how great I can appear, but how open I can be to what seeks to move through me. I’m drawn to this because it brings me into communion with the unknown, which is what I dance for, yet I remain equally rooted in the known structure and form. The more disciplined your body, the more you can surrender to the unknowable and serve as its instrument.” I wanted to have you share more about that, because I think whether it’s dancing, a meditation practice, a spiritual practice, writing, or just how we live our lives, people are often looking for that balance between discipline and surrender.
Banafsheh Sayyad: I’m interested in how they come together. I would describe my dance as 100 percent discipline and 100 percent surrendered—both are so important. The more discipline you have, the more you’ve dedicated yourself to cultivating your vessel, your chalice, the more you can receive and the more you are able to surrender. They go together.
Sometimes I’ve come across people who say, “Just surrender, just let go.” But the more technique you have—in the case of dance—the more you’re able to surrender without injuring yourself. The more you’re able to persevere, the longer the surrender lasts. And the more you can then experience yourself as a messenger of the invisible, the unknown, in physicality. What whirling puts us in touch with—in a very tangible way—is that there is a unified field, a field of love, like the quantum field that scientists refer to, that you can access. It can move through you, and you can sense how your individual unit of consciousness dissolves into that field and becomes its messenger.
Tami Simon: When it comes to being a sturdy chalice, what training do Dance of Oneness practitioners need to have?
Banafsheh Sayyad: The training of being grounded, centered, opening the heart, and really in touch with how your body is a channel—and that the more you’re able to unblock this channel, the more the whirling brings you gifts and the more you can surrender. I take people through the chakras, the energy centers, and we spend time opening and embodying them, while also strengthening ourselves. A strong center is essential, as is a rooted energy—really sensing the ground with your feet—and from that foundation, opening and being able to receive. Once you are letting your movement emanate from your center out through your upper body, your arms, your limbs, your head, the more you cultivate that sturdy channel, the more you can persevere. Just like any form of meditation, in whirling we need to persevere—we need to be able to last in order to truly experience the gifts of this practice.
Tami Simon: You mentioned that Dance of Oneness combines everything you learned, including your study of Tai Chi and Chinese medicine. At one point in describing the whirling practice, you wrote about how the movement starts from the lower belly. When you’re describing moving from our center, is that what you mean—moving from the lower belly?
Banafsheh Sayyad: Exactly. The human home is the dantian—and in women, the dantian is the uterus, the womb. Even for women who have had their uterus removed, the energy is still there. It’s the dantian that can be cultivated, like a sun rising, emanating through and out the whole body.
Tami Simon: Part of the organizing structure of the Dance of Oneness book is your writing about the upward-moving current, the ascent of energy in the body, and the downward current, and their marriage at the heart. I wonder if you could describe that—are you ready for this?—in your own experience, even right now as we’re sitting here talking. If you were to tune in, how do you experience the upward and descending currents and their meeting place at the heart?
Banafsheh Sayyad: I love that question. I do experience it now that you’ve brought it up and I’m reminded of it, though it is much more readily experienced when you are dancing or standing and moving with the intention of coming in touch with the rising and descending energies and how they marry in the heart.
Many traditions of movement focus only on the rising energy, only on the ascent. I feel some of that has to do with the desire to transcend the body that we’ve inherited from so many of the patriarchal mystical systems—the idea that the body is something to transcend, a burden to the soul. So this wanting to raise up and let the energy go up is only one side of the picture. We need the descending energy as well. The ascending energy feels to me like the feminine rising up to the masculine, and the descending energy is the masculine coming toward the feminine. Then their marriage in the heart is where the two energies combine and fuse. As I’m speaking to you right now, I’m coming in touch with both of these energies moving down and moving up, and I’m expressing through my heart, holding both.
Tami Simon: Just to understand clearly—the whirling form, traditionally, women were not allowed to be dervishes. Is that correct? At the time of Rumi, were there no female dervishes?
Banafsheh Sayyad: There were absolutely female dervishes—and we say “darvish” in Persian. “Dervish” is the Turkish pronunciation and is more prevalent. There were absolutely women darvishes. But because the whole practice of whirling was something Islam did not regard favorably—after all, it is a dance—the presence of women dervishes was underplayed. They were not spoken about, because already a ceremony of music and dance would not sit well with the Islamic clergy. To say beyond that that women were also present would make them even more suspicious and likely to shut the ceremony down. But there were women darvishes.
Tami Simon: I’m interested in you, Banafsheh, as well as in Dance of Oneness. When I learned that the first dance form you formally studied was flamenco, I thought, huh, that’s interesting. I don’t really know very much about flamenco dance. I wondered why you started with flamenco, and then I read more about how it was a journey for you—a type, in my language, of power as a sensual woman with a lot of containment, strength, and sovereignty in the form. And that flamenco was originally as much a solo dance form as a partner dance form. I realized I need to understand more about flamenco.
Banafsheh Sayyad: When I found flamenco, we had just immigrated from Iran. We were political asylees in the United States, and I carried so much grief and so much anger. I never wanted to leave Iran, but I didn’t have a choice—I was a young teenager. The grief and anger I had within me had no outlet. I didn’t know how to express it. When I found flamenco, it was like, yes—this is the form that speaks to me, because I could see that the dancers were able to hold these very difficult emotions of grief, anger, and sorrow and transmute them through dance. I was a dancer, I identified as a dancer, but I had never really seen a form I could relate to, one that could express what was happening inside me. And this was it.
Also, having grown up in Iran and faced how becoming a woman was such a challenge—you had to hide yourself, there were just so many burdens on becoming a woman—here was a strong woman who could hold her dignity and her sexuality with nobility. That really appealed to me. And flamenco is the expression of gypsies, or Roma—people who have had to move around and adapt to new environments as outsiders. This was exactly what I was: an outsider. We were referred to as aliens. So that’s why it spoke to me so beautifully. It is also a hybrid form—a form that draws from Indian, Middle Eastern, Eastern European, and African dance, and then lands in Spain with all of that influence.
Tami Simon: You spoke about how Dance of Oneness has these three different rivers that flow into it: the dance forms, the wisdom teachings, and the healing component. I wonder if you can say more about the healing component. You’ve talked about the grief and anger you felt and how dance gave you a way to be with that, experience it, and express it. What other kinds of healing have you found—and that you offer people—through Dance of Oneness?
Banafsheh Sayyad: One great avenue that’s central to the work is becoming aware of the pathway of energy in the meridians. Much of the movement I’ve created and teach is about the movement of energy in the meridians so that we can create an even circulation of energy and balance the yin and yang. That’s very central.
Another is working with the chakras—coming in touch with the seven chakras in the body and the eighth one above the head, and being aware of their teachings, embodying those teachings, as well as coming in touch with where we are blocked and why. So many of us have issues with the first and second chakras, so I bring attention to these places and teach movement focused on releasing them, releasing tension, and embodying ourselves more fully in these areas so that energy can flow up and down unobstructed.
Tami Simon: You mentioned the eighth chakra above the head, and one of the things I read in your description of the dervish practice is that when you’re doing the practice—if I understand correctly, please correct me if I’m wrong—you’re both fully inside the body and its experience, but you’re also above it, witnessing yourself in the dance. I thought that was really interesting. Does that relate to some kind of opening to receive divine grace?
Banafsheh Sayyad: Yes, absolutely. Both the seventh chakra and the eighth chakra—the eighth being the Soul Star Chakra—put us in touch with the invitation to also be a witness. This I also learned from the art of choreography, because when you are choreographing for a group, you are always putting the movement together but also seeing it from the outside. It taught me how to split my attention that way. I feel it is very useful and beneficial for us to be able to do that.
Tami Simon: You mentioned blocks that people might find, particularly in the first and second centers in the body. Could you give me an example and describe how someone might work through a type of block using the Dance of Oneness approach?
Banafsheh Sayyad: Let’s take a block in the second chakra, which generally stems from not being entirely comfortable with our sexuality. As you know, sexuality has been associated with shame for centuries. To come in touch with that and be able to release that shame in a lasting way is very important. So much of this releasing—aside from the focused attention we need to bring to it—can happen through movement. For example, the infinity pattern, the figure eight, moving that pattern through our hips. Not only does this balance the yin and yang sides of ourselves, the masculine and feminine, but it also gradually sends a message to the body that this part of us is actually sacred. Bringing this sacred pattern, this infinity symbol, communicates something to the body and the being—it doesn’t even have to be a thought. Doing that consistently helps us get comfortable with our sexuality and sensuality and be able to express our sensuality with ease.
Tami Simon: Now, I know that you dance as a personal spiritual practice and train people in how to do this, but you’re also a performer on stage. When you write that what matters most to you is not how you can impress or how great you can appear, but what seeks to move through you—what is it like when you’re performing? Do you have an awareness of how people are seeing you? Maybe you’re not trying to impress them, but you’re certainly aware that they’re observing you. How do you stay in a place of deep inner authenticity and connection in the midst of a performance?
Banafsheh Sayyad: I see performance as the opportunity to stay present, to stay open to the energy that wants to move through me, and to observe to what degree I’m interested in how I’m being perceived. It’s possible that when I start out I’m somewhat interested in how I’m going to be perceived, but that just falls away, because my main interest is exactly what can move through me—and can I actually, in front of all these people, let go of my own thinking and go into a state? That has happened for me almost every time I perform.
I think it’s also this strong feeling from having observed so many dancers aiming to please, and always thinking, no—I don’t think I’m interested in that. I think that’s too small. And I feel it is partly the influence of flamenco as well—the dancer is so sovereign in herself that she appears to say, I don’t care how you are seeing me, this is what I’m doing. All of these influences play a part, but I am definitely far less interested in how I’m perceived than in what can move through me.
Tami Simon: You have this use of language that I really loved: 100 percent present and grounded, and 100 percent surrendered—fully present and fully gone. That was the phrase I really liked. Tell me more about that combination.
Banafsheh Sayyad: That’s the combination I’m interested in. I’m not interested in only one side or the other, but in how they can meet—which is not so easy, really. Because you can completely let go, and then you fall, or whatever happens to you. That’s not so hard in a way, if you’re doing freestyle dance and you just let go and you fall. And the other side—complete groundedness, presence, discipline—many dance forms teach us that, and many dancers perform that way, completely in control of what they’re doing.
I’m not interested in being entirely in control of what I’m doing, because I want to be danced. I want this other energy to move through me, and if I’m held and controlled, that can never happen. And if I’m on the other side, that tension doesn’t exist between being here and being gone. I love that polarity. It’s a very exciting place to be in. Just to make that more vivid for your listeners: imagine turning really fast with a lot of passion, going and going and going, and then being able to stop and be very grounded—no faltering, just boom, fully present. There’s an excitement in that.
Tami Simon: Do you think that dance experience can be applied in everyday life?
Banafsheh Sayyad: I think it absolutely can be. A lot of times in spiritual circles you hear, “Just let go and let God,” or you have people who don’t believe in anything beyond ourselves and who emphasize only human volition, choice, and will. But letting these two come together—understanding that we do have free will, that there is a greater divine energy, and that this greater divine energy loves us so much that it gives us free will—means that every single one of us, our choices, what we think, what we say, what we do, all of it matters. Marrying these two, not putting too much emphasis on one side or the other, but asking how they can come together.
Tami Simon: Could you give me an example in your own life where you’ve had to bring these two together?
Banafsheh Sayyad: One example is speaking out very vocally about what is happening in Iran right now. I know that some people say don’t be political—politics is complicated, we don’t really know what’s happening, don’t turn on the news, just pray, send good energy, send the positive and uplifting energy. And I believe in that absolutely. But I also believe in looking at the news and being aware of what is happening, so that we’re not turning away from reality, but really building our capacity to meet it in a way that can affect change. I go to protests, I am vocal, and I believe those things can work. At the same time, I pray and meditate and hold the vision of a great outcome for my country and for the world—as little bloodshed as possible for the innocent people. I hold both. That is an example of 100 percent present and 100 percent gone. Not putting all our energy in one area, but holding both.
Tami Simon: That’s a beautiful example. Thank you. You mentioned that during this period you feel a lot of heartbreak, and one of the healing aspects of Dance of Oneness that you write about is the healing of the heart—including discovering whether we have parts of our heart that are armored in some way and how to work with that armor. I wonder if you can share more about that, specifically for someone who is experiencing some version of heartbreak or heart armoring at this time.
Banafsheh Sayyad: Heartbreak can always lead to the opening of the heart. Instead of the heart shattering into pieces, it can be shattered open. My hope is that all of us who are feeling this heartbreak right now experience it as an opening—opening to more compassion, opening to more light coming through us.
On the question of armoring: we wear armor. I’ve discovered that we wear armor in different parts of our body, and I became aware of this by observing myself—realizing that I wear armor around my hips. But one of the toughest armors I’ve noticed people wear is around the heart. It comes from experiencing heartache, whether from a romantic situation or simply from living life. What happens is we start to protect ourselves, the chest starts to contract, the upper back starts to round, and there’s no movement there. So much of the movement I teach focuses on moving the chest and opening the energy of the heart center. Many people are so rigid in this area that they can’t move at all—they’re actually quite shocked, because they’ve never thought to ask themselves to isolate movement in the chest, in the heart center. Then they realize they’re completely rigid, and it’s from that protection, from the guarding we do after being heartbroken.
So the invitation is: can you stay open and experience the heartbreak? There is a reason this is happening, and it’s only bringing you into greater wholeness, into a greater version of yourself. But it’s important that this opening be grounded and centered, so that we’re rooted in the earth and centered in our dantian, in our core—and from there, allowing the pain in our heart to be felt. That’s the only way we can heal: to acknowledge it and move through it.
Tami Simon: Banafsheh, I’d love to bring alive some of the experiential teachings you offer in Dance of Oneness, and I wonder if you could take us into something here. I’m going to let you choose an exercise you think is appropriate for this moment and a broad listenership.
Banafsheh Sayyad: A practice that people can do right now.
Tami Simon: We’re going to do it right here with you.
Banafsheh Sayyad: What comes to me—and this is always where I start—is to sense the ground with your feet. Really place both feet on the ground and let yourself come into a sensation of the earth in the soles of your feet. Feel love for the earth as your feet are touching it, and from there release your weight onto the chair, onto whatever you’re sitting on.
Then come in touch with your breath. Take a deep breath in through your nose and exhale through your nose, releasing your weight even further down. Sense the ground with your feet, and you can now close your eyes.
Continue breathing in this way. Take a deep breath in.
Bring your hands onto your belly. As you inhale, expand your belly into your hands.
As you slowly exhale, release your weight down even more onto what you’re sitting on, and pause before your next inhale. Just rest in this moment—be between breaths—and then take your next breath. Inhale: expand from your lower belly into your greater abdomen, into your heart center, letting your breath move into your shoulders.
As you exhale, relax the area between your shoulders, your middle back, your low back, releasing your weight onto your chair even more.
Stillness. Pause before the next breath.
Take that next breath, inhaling, expanding from your lower belly into your whole torso, into your neck, and breathe into your face.
As you exhale, relax the top of your head, your forehead, your eyes, your temples, your jaw. Flow with your breath and relax your shoulders. Fill up the volume of your arms, your hands. Relax your upper back, middle back, low back as you flow with your breath, and fill up the volume of your hips. Come alive in your legs. Sense your feet and your roots in the earth. Let your roots descend into the depths of the earth.
Take one more deep breath. Let’s take that deep breath together. Sense that you are breathing with your whole body now, bringing in the precious life force.
And as you exhale slowly, relaxing, releasing—feel gratitude for being here in this glorious temple of your body, in this moment in time.
Continue flowing with your breath.
One more deep breath in.
With your exhalation, slowly open your eyes. Being present. Being here now.
Tami Simon: Thank you, Banafsheh. Your voice is a terrific conduit.
Banafsheh Sayyad: Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for receiving.
Tami Simon: You write, “Perfection isn’t in flawless execution, but in presence, devotion, and courage.” Tell me more about the devotion and courage part and what that means to you personally in your life right now.
Banafsheh Sayyad: Devotion to what I truly love—which is creating a world where all beings can live in harmony: people, animals, all of the earth, community. Contributing to that is devotion to me. Letting our awareness expand to realizing that this is heaven, that we are in heaven. The courage to stand for that. The courage to not be pulled in one direction or the other. We have so many polarizing, divisive voices, and each side is quite convincing. But how can I keep that as my devotion and let it be my guiding force, the guiding power? Harmony and peace between all beings, and how to achieve that. And I feel one important way is to become embodied—to really be present in this temple that is a gift from the divine.
Tami Simon: The subtitle of the book, Dance of Oneness: Embody Love and Luminosity to Transform Your Life—tell me more about luminosity.
Banafsheh Sayyad: Luminosity is very key for me. What we aim for in Dance of Oneness is to open our channel so we can be conduits of light, rays of the sun of love. Luminosity—coming in touch with your body as light-filled, as a being of light—is very central to this work and central to what I’ve been guided to create.
Tami Simon: It’s interesting that you said conduits for the ray of the heart, the ray of the sun. What do you feel internally in your own subtle anatomy about the connection between the heart and the sun?
Banafsheh Sayyad: I love this question. One clear guiding light here comes from the Persian language and also from the ancient Iranian mythic tradition. In that tradition, “mehr”—which means the sun—also means love. So it’s that direct connection: the sun of love can emanate from your own heart, and the true sun also lives within your heart.
Tami Simon: If we could end with some kind of prayer—a Dance of Oneness prayer, if I dare call it that—for this moment in time.
Banafsheh Sayyad: Yes. What I pray for is that inside our glorious, glowing, luminous heart, each one of us can expand this luminosity and connect it with one another—connect the luminosity of our hearts—and wrap this glowing circle of light around our beautiful planet. And send this light to wherever it is needed, wherever the light of love is needed, so that all may remember their essence, their true essence as love, as messengers of love. And especially, especially, that the power of this light of love can melt the hearts of aggressors, so that finally we realize: there is only one flesh we can wound, for we are all one.
Tami Simon: Thank you, Banafsheh Sayyad—master Iranian sacred dancer and author of the new Sounds True book Dance of Oneness: Embody Love and Luminosity to Transform Your Life. Thank you so much.
Banafsheh Sayyad: Thank you, Tami. Blessings to you.
Tami Simon: Thank you for listening. I’d also like to invite you to Sounds True One, where you can enjoy early ad-free access to episodes of Insights at the Edge. Sounds True One is our premium membership platform. It’s built around live classes and online events, award-winning specials, intimate learning experiences, and Q&A sessions with the world’s leading wisdom teachers. You can get your first month free at join.soundstrue.com
