Archive

The science and spirit of awareness

“At the very outset of the journey inwards, there is a crossroads. Signs point in both directions, and I am pulled both ways. I find that I am double. I want something and at the same time I don’t want it; I love and hate the same person. I am light and dark; I aspire…

The summer after I graduated from college, days before I moved to New York City to launch a real adult life, I saw a ghost—an apparition, a spirit, an angel.

Like a phoenix among sparrows, Chinese civilization is resplendent in its longevity, myth and tradition. For much of its long history, Chinese emperors incorporated myth, folklore, and ideological concepts to legitimate their dynasties, to sanction their rule.

Of might and right, and the future of the world’s art

A Sufi master looks at—and beyond—the approaching flames

The first issue of Stopinder: A Gurdjieff Journal for Our Time appeared in the year 2000. […]

Newton’s inward search for hidden truth

Beautiful, mysterious, deadly: mermaids of Russian folklore

When most of us think of determination, we think first of imposing our will on the world, insisting on a particular outcome, our vision. Yet real determination appears when we keep going, surrendering what the ego wants, which is always to look good, to sound good, to win. Real perseverance is willingness, not will. […]

Searching for symbol in a world of number

A life-changing encounter with spiritual authority

Awakening to ourselves and the world

This story is so old we don’t know who told it or who it’s about, except that it speaks to all of us. We no longer know if it was a “he” or “she” at the center of the story. […]

Opening ceremonies, Cherokee pow-wow, North Carolina, 2011 Reading about Black Elk, Sitting Bull, Geronimo and countless other Indian tribal elders and chiefs made me regret that I would never know them. They had vanished and with them a way of relating to others we can call emotional intelligence. Not the intelligence…

Yeshua said: Whoever lives the interpretation of these words shall no longer taste death.

Hammarskjöld, Havel, Mandela, Thunberg

When I was young the silk
of my mind
hard as a peony head […]

Four statements to transform your life

Seeking the divine.

A conversation with Kabbalah expert Rabbi Dr. Raphael Shuchat

A guided meditation on being gentle with yourself when things are hard, with Parabola’s editorial director Tracy Cochran. To support Parabola’s mission, please consider donating. 

From slavery to the priesthood

In the autumn of 1971, John G. Bennett inaugurated the International Academy for Continuous Education at Sherborne House, Gloucestershire, England. …

A conversation with African healer and guide Baba Mandaza Augustine Kademwa

With a gaze of majestic power, the master electrified me with a glimpse of his cosmic consciousness.

Sound, scientific advice on attaining happiness

The special power of classic films

Life lessons from William Segal

This episode of Parabola’s free monthly podcast includes an excerpt from David Ulrich’s Zen Camera on the joys of mindful photography and drawing, as well as Alexandra Haven’s essay on the wonders of ancient Egypt […]

Making the world her own

I have a suitcase
Packed with many things. …

The trouble with goats

A lively report from the 2023 Parliament of the World’s Religions

Anonymous / Haida
Retold by Leslie Hebert

Odilon Redon, Buddha Walking Among the Flowers, 1905. “Most of us are like a fish caught in a hook. The Buddha is trying to reel us in; the hook holding us is our deep spiritual longing. We spend most of the time struggling, not wanting to be reeled in, not wanting…

Despite acclaim, even adulation, garnered from his theater and film work, including such classic films as The Holy Mountain and El Topo, the author found himself in a state of doubt—of spiritual questioning. …

Joshua Boettiger, “Alone, with Others”

The dance of wealth among the Yurok tribe

In the Middle Ages people were well aware of the inexhaustible power that arises simply from sitting still. After that time, knowledge of the purifying power of stillness and its practice was, in the West, largely lost.

Protecting the places where the magic folk roam

A conversation with wildlife photographer, author, and conservationist Staffan Widstrand

Long, long ago the Bodhisatta was born as a swan…

Previously unpublished commentary from Alan Watts, a pioneer of East-West spirituality.

To learn is to be vulnerable. It is to have the courage to say, “I don’t know” and the wisdom to know the difference between knowing and not knowing.

How do you get people to trust life? You have to trick them. They won’t jump into the water, so you have to throw them in.Alan Watts, “How to Reach Where You Already Are” Story editor Betsy Cornwell shares excerpts from Parabola Magazine’s “The Search for Meaning” issue, which is available as a free PDF…

A stormy voyage into mystery and revelation

Advice and exercises from a Qigong master

Being “old” in Bali

The simplest and hardest thing to do each day is to be here–fully, completely, without turning away.

Story editor Betsy Cornwell shares excerpts from the Fall 2021 issue of Parabola Magazine, Fire, including the lead essay by Sufi master Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, “Fire Season.” Read the full issue by subscribing to Parabola. Parabola Magazine · Parabola Podcast Episode 50: Fire

In the beautiful woods of Newtown, Connecticut, a new elementary school is about to open. Pleasing to the eye and soul, this new school replaces the Sandy Hook Elementary School in which, on December 14, 2012, twenty young children and six adults were shot and killed […]

The calligraphy and paintings of the martial arts masters

The miracle is that the practice of presence not only enlivens ourselves, but allows us to share that new life with others and also to receive the presence of the Divine. It is the foundation for truth, and it is the genesis of hope. With practice, presence can, in the words of John G. Bennett,…

The structure of traditional art

Tsunemasa, Attributed to Zeami Motokiyo / Japanese Noh. Retold by Kenneth E. Lawrence, translated by Edward Kai Lawrence. Art by Kumiko Lawrence

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me. Speaking words of wisdom, let it be. And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me. Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Tracy Cochran, “A Shared World”

The Nobel winner with his muses

There is a middle ground, a basic Reality embracing self and Self. It may be called my true nature. To discover what
prevents me from the experience of it, I have only to look at myself, just as I am. […]

Story Editor Betsy Cornwell shares Jim White’s moving essay “The Esoteric Shakespeare” and Scottish and Chinese fairy tales, as well as wise advice from Rainer Maria Rilke, in this episode of Parabola magazine’s free monthly podcast.

Story editor Betsy Cornwell shares excerpts from the current issue of Parabola, BALANCE.

A visit to Havana, a priceless discovery

Impressions from the land of Rumi

A review of Ellen Dooling Reynard’s “No Batteries Required”

How deeply we fear being nobody. One way to think of the ego is as a defense against pain, particularly the pain of being no one.

A miraculous visit to Machu Picchu

What is the weight of wealth? Is it the weight of the money itself or is it the weight of responsibility of having that money?

Silas Hagerty was a young filmmaker in his twenties when I met him at a Servicespace retreat. […]

A young woman finds her way.

Today we have gathered and we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. […]

A Trappist monk’s sojourn at Thomas Merton’s hermitage

TIMELESS IN TIME: Sri Ramana Maharshi. Reviewed by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos.

Shamanic memories from an Indian visionary

Reflections from a Death Row inmate; inspired thoughts from a Sikh guide

A poem by Walt Whitman in our issue, Happiness.

Part of an Ancient Story: A Conversation with Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

King David, Leonard Cohen and the Search for Meaning

America’s children are being robbed of their childhood. It’s as simple as that.

A conversation with visionary philanthropist Nipun Mehta

David Steindl-Rast (2004) Wikipedia The only point where one can start to talk about anything, including death, is where one finds oneself. And for me this is as a Benedictine monk. In the rule of St. Benedict, the momenta mori has always been important, because one of what St. Benedict calls…

A conversation with Sufi master Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

A classic quest seen anew

The acclaimed actor, now Zen teacher, remembers

Hamada, Leach and Yanagi in the United States, probably Hawaii, in 1952 “The institution of Living National Treasures was started in the fifties–when Japan’s machine culture was preparing to overtake ours–barely a hundred years after the West had forced the opening up of its insular, agricultural society. The title “Living National…

A fresh look at “the mad monk”

All movies are an illusion. We think we are seeing motion but in fact we are seeing twenty-four still pictures every second. Half the time the screen is actually black. Yet movies seem so real, and some have the potential to reveal great truth. […]

A haunted inn inspires deeper questions

A conversation with deep psychologist Michael Penn

On Adin Steinsaltz and the power of hope

For the last five or so years, as readers may know, I’ve been the poetry Editor at Parabola magazine, while also fulfilling various other duties as a Senior Editor. […]

In Vesali, in ancient India, at the time of the Buddha, a baby girl was born spontaneously at the foot of a mango tree in the royal garden. She was given the name Ambapali.

Finding life between sand and sea

Story Editor Betsy Cornwell shares excerpts from PARABOLA’s forty-three year archive on the theme of remembering.

Story editor Betsy Cornwell shares essays from Parabola’s extensive archives on the theme of “Renewal” in this episode of Parabola magazine’s free podcast.

Fertility, birth and death, ferocity, protection, sexuality: all of these are surely aspects of the goddess, and not mutually exclusive of each other.

One of some seven-hundred current members of Ready Willing & Able, the Doe Fund’s flagship training and sustaining organization, Joe will spend the next few months …

How can religious tradition be literally true when language is symbolic, intrinsically?

How the goddess of creation became the goddess of death

Forgiveness in the work of Martin Scorsese