A friend and I were talking about parabolas; those strange curves which take a wide section of incoming light (or other electromagnetic transmissions) and reflect it back to a single point, concentrated.

The radio telescope is a good example. The tiny radio waves from distant objects in space are bounced back off the parabolic dish to a ‘collector’.

The two of us (on different continents and connected by Messenger) were discussing how the human soul sits at a seeming centre of its own universe. It came to me that the analogy between our consciousness and the collector in parabolic devices was a good one to use as a metaphor of consciousness viewed in this way.

My photo has the happy ‘accident’ of a lens distortion which looks just like a parabolic surface, seen from the side. In the picture, the collector would be the Sun, frequently spoke of as the symbolic soul.

The human soul has been well-mapped by spiritual teachers over the centuries; and now by developmental psychology. It follows the outer and inner growth of the child after separation from the all-important mother who has carried it to term and bequeathed it life: its own life, with its own consciousness.

From then on, wherever it turns its ‘dish’, which we can examine as ‘attention’, a vast range of signals – which are already present – will be concentrated via the senses, into the arisings within its soul – the human organ of experience.

It’s a rich metaphor, and one worthy of a thought or two…

There is more detail, here, if you’d like to follow the trail of recents posts on the subject.

©Stephen Tanham 2023

Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye School of Consciousness, a not-for-profit teaching school of modern mysticism that helps people find a personal path to a deeper place within their internal and external lives.

The Silent Eye provides home-based, practical courses which are low-cost and personally supervised. The course materials and corresponding supervision are provided month by month without further commitment.

Steve’s personal blog, Sun in Gemini, is at stevetanham.wordpress.com.