Asha ~ Love is the only prayer

Asha (aka Asha Elijah & Asher Quinn) plays & sings 'Love is the only prayer' from his album of the same name. CD/download: http://www.ashaquinn.com/litop.htm

I wrote this in 1997, and it has been very well-received ever since. I was signed to New World Music at the time, and it was my 12th out of 13 albums for them, from 1987-1999.

I recorded this at the London studio of fellow New Age/World Music colleague James Asher. His other claim to fame was that his sister, Jane Asher, went out with Paul McCartney!

Not only that, but there was a whole lot of 'Asher' going on, because my previous sound engineer and producer, Phil Thornton, had a son called Asher! Not a common name, though.

But it has meaning in various traditions. 'Asher' is referred to as 'the tree of life' in Hebrew sacred texts ('O thou holy Asher, art the tree of life'). And Asher is one of the 12 tribes of Israel.

'Asha' means 'hope' in Sanskrit, and in the Zoroastrian tradition of ancient Persia it means 'best truth'. This is different than the absolute truth. The 'best truth' is the right thing, at the right time, in the right way. This became the Christ truth, as distinguished from the absolute truth of the 10 commandments.

Actually, there were 632 commandments, of which we most commonly know only the 'Top Ten!' Christ brought a new perspective, and reduced the 632 to 1; "Love one another."

My name 'Asha' came in a dream in 1988. In it, a Zoroastrian sun-angel called Asha bestowed the name upon me as a gift because I told her how lovely the name was. When I awoke, it felt like 'me,' and I changed my name legally. So Asha is on my passport.

For a while I felt the need to protect the name 'Asha' with the more 'out there' 'Asher.' In Persia, Asha is more often a male name, but in India it tends to be female. I felt like protecting the feminine aspect of the name with the masculine.

So when I became musically independent in 2007, I used the name Asher Quinn.

Confused? You will be!

Because in 2017, after a kind of revelation within, I was invited to step into the name 'Asha Elijah,' on the understanding that Elijah as a name could not become a possession. It was an atmosphere emanating from a being.

As I could be of the English folk, I could be of the Elijah ray.

Confused? You will be!

I now live in Hungary, which is where the revelation took place!

Essentially, 'Love is the only prayer' is a dervish dance, and at over 16 minutes it is my longest song.

The gates of spiritual perception were opened for me by a Sufi master from Baghdad, whom I encountered at a Jewish boy's camp in New York's Catskill Mountains. I was an English boy in America barely in my 20's searching for spirit.

The Sufi thing went deep, and as a spiritual path it brought me to the Christ. There is a meeting point and a melting pot where the dervish way pours out of the Sun God Zoroastrian tradition, which in itself recognised the Christ being as 'The Hero of the Sun' (before the name Christ was established).

Now I find in Hungary that the ancient Hun/magyar alliance of 24 higher- virtue tribes, stretched across Eurasia, and through Persia to India. Mary (Maryam) the mother of the child Jesus, was Parthian (Persian), and the Parthians were one of the Hun/magyar tribes.

I have migrated to Hungary intuitively, guided from without and within. It goes very deep, and this feels like home, like Asha feels like 'me.'

Confused? You will be!

I was Jewish-born; the Sufi path also drawing from mystical Islam, initiated me into spiritual perception as an adult, and has led me to the mystery of the Christ in my search for spirit.

The phrase 'Love is the only prayer' was coined by the mystical poet Kathleen Raine, and it is essentially was Jesus told his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the eve of his crucifixion.

I have also included a quote by the English poet William Southey in the song:

Love is indestructible
As Holy flame forever burneth
From heaven it came
And to heaven it returneth...

Musically the song is a dervish dance, and lyrically it is a Christian mystic invocation.

It's taken me 26 years to work out how to film for this song, but I'm pleased with what I came up with just now. I picture researched for several days, filmed myself singing & playing, and blended it all together. The time felt right... I had the feeling and enough of the knowledge to manifest something.

I'm hoping it's the right thing, at the right time, in the right way!

It's just me doing it, I have no management, company or art department. It's not even my day-job... that work is as a spiritual psychotherapist. So it's just what comes from within and what is guided on my path.

There is no budget for it, I do it for God, love & art.

As I got into it, I found many cute library dance sequences that fitted the song, amazingly even drum solos that exactly fitted the precise rhythm of the track.

It's as if the film & the song were waiting for each other... like lovers do!