The parable of the prodigal son is not about a young man who squanders his fortune.

The Parable of the Prodigal Son:

“There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father,” `Father, give me the share of the property that comes to me.’ “So he divided his wealth between them. 

No long time afterwards the younger son got all together and travelled to a distant country, where he wasted his money in debauchery and excess. At last, when he had spent everything, there came a terrible famine throughout that country, and he began to feel the pinch of want. So he went and hired himself to one of the inhabitants of that country, who sent him on to his farm to tend swine; and he longed to make a hearty meal of the pods the swine were eating, but no one gave him any. 

“But on coming to himself he said,” `How many of my father’s hired men have more bread than they want, while I here am dying of hunger! I will rise and go to my father, and will say to him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before you: I no longer deserve to be called a son of yours: treat me as one of your hired men.’ “So he rose and came to his father. 

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and pitied him, and ran and threw his arms round his neck and kissed him tenderly.

“`Father,’ cried the son, `I have sinned against Heaven and before you: no longer do I deserve to be called a son of yours.’ 

”But the father said to his servants,” `Fetch a good coat quickly–the best one–and put it on him; and bring a ring for his finger and shoes for his feet. Fetch the fat calf and kill it, and let us feast and enjoy ourselves; for my son here was dead and has come to life again: he was lost and has been found.’ “And they began to be merry.

“Now his elder son was out on the farm; and when he returned and came near home, he heard music and dancing. Then he called one of the lads to him and asked what all this meant.” `Your brother has come,’ he replied; `and your father has had the fat calf killed, because he has got him home safe and sound.’

“Then he was angry and would not go in. But his father came out and entreated him.

“`All these years,’ replied the son, `I have been slaving for you, and I have never at any time disobeyed any of your orders, and yet you have never given me so much as a kid, for me to enjoy myself with my friends; but now that this son of yours is come who has eaten up your property among his bad women, you have killed the fat calf for him.’

“`You my dear son,’ said the father, `are always with me, and all that is mine is also yours. We are bound to make merry and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has come back to life, he was lost and has been found.’” 

Luke 15 11-32, Weymouth NT

“You will notice that the word ‘Prodigal’ does not occur in the parable. It is really a parable about a man who, however successful, finds that life does not give him what he expected and who, realizing that he must have some other origin than life, which does not make sense taken by itself, and something else to do apart from the business of living, sets out to unlearn all the falsity that life and its fashions have filled him with, and to strip off all the attitudes that his vanity and self-illusions have formed in him. It is really a parable about the return to one’s origin—not to one’s mother, but to something beyond and different. The man has discovered his true origin. He has discovered Essence. His whole emotional life begins to change. He has caught the rope overhead—not by being merely told about it, but by jumping for it himself, by an effort of his very own, by an inner act of his inner man.” Maurice Nicoll, Psycological Commentaries, p1616.

“Something which has been lost is found. In this case, what is lost is called the younger son. In the first parable, it is one sheep out of a hundred, in the second, one piece of silver out of ten, and in this parable it is one out of two brothers. It is clear that if something gets lost in a man, there was a state of him when it was not lost; and that if a man can become alive again, there was a state when he was alive.There is something in us, eternally young, that can understand beyond this visible world, beyond phenomenal reality. But this one thing in us, eternally young, is lost by us in the world of objects and the external things of the senses, and, using the logic of the senses, wastes itself in useless speculations which are without meaning for it, because it is capable of understanding a higher logic and a new world, utterly different from this dark world of sense and temporal logic into which it passes and in which it becomes lost. This magical side of ourselves which in childhood we feel, is destroyed by life, and remains only as a memory, dimly felt at moments, recalling for a fleeting instant something that we knew once and possessed and which has gone out of our lives.It is this, this one in us, that must find itself again, for it is about this absent part of ourselves, which is lost, that all these parables are speaking.” Maurice Nicoll, The Mark, p147-48.

“The parable of the prodigal son is not about a young man who squanders his fortune. It is about everyone born on this earth. But the last part does not by any means refer to everyone because only a few realize their situation and ‘come to themselves’. This is the moment of metanoia. And it must be noticed here that the prodigal son does not ‘repent’ but ‘comes to himself and realizing his situation seeks to begin to escape from the power of external things over him. There is no mention of repentance, but only of a certain change of mind, called here ‘coming to oneself and referred to, just before the parable is given, as metanoia – that is, as a transformation in thinking, as an entirely new way of taking life.” Maurice Nicoll, The Mark, p111

“It is apparent that the development of Essence is a return-journey or ascent (like that of the Prodigal Son) since it came down from a high level. I have sometimes wondered if the two sons became one—the one who remained with his father and the one who came down to the world and its life and through remembering his origin ascended again. I think it must be, as I cannot find any explanation of the second son who remained. By remembering his origin, the son who descended into life realized he was eating husks and began the ascent.” Commentaries, p1647.

“This is one meaning of the parable of the Prodigal Son: Man can return to the Father.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p129

“Faith is something more than mere belief. Christ defines it as a seed and a seed is something that is organized and has its own life in itself, and can grow by itself. If a man has a seed of faith in him that man is alive exactly in the sense in which it is said in the Parable of the Prodigal Son: For this my son was dead and is alive again.” Maurice Nicoll, The New Man, p159

 “The point of this parable is exactly the same point Jesus was making in the laborers in the vineyard story. The egoic operating system will always get stuck in judgement and self-meritoriousness. The older brother with his indignant ‘this isn’t fair!’ is a textbook example of the egoic operating system at work. Through him, Jesus is asking us to look closely at that part in each one of us that insists on keeping score, that can’t let go into the generosity and the blessedness. Mercy is in full swing all around us. If we’re stuck in the ego, we can’t hear the music.” Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus, p49

“The story of the prodigal son is a real drama of real love and real freedom, and that the joy and celebration of the father are genuine, just as the suffering of the father and also that of the son, which preceded their reunion, was genuine. Moreover, they understand that the story of the prodigal son is the history of the whole human race, and that the history of the human race is a real drama of real divine love and real human freedom.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p182.

[My short commentary on this parable is that when a person turns and stands, as Yeshua says, when the person seeks to reconnect with Origin, the person is met. They are met with an abundance of grace and mercy and love from the higher realm. WB]

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Logion 49 
Yeshua says...
Blessed are those chosen and unified.
The Realm of the Kingdom is theirs.
For out of her you have come,
and back to her you are returning.

Logion 70
Yeshua says...
When you give birth
to that which is within yourself,
what you bring forth will save you.
If you possess nothing within,
that absence will destroy you.

Logion 107
Yeshua says...
The divine Realm can be compared
to a shepherd who had one hundred sheep.
One of the finest went astray,
so he left the ninety-nine
 and went out searching for it until he found it.
Troubled, he said,
"I longed for you more than the ninety-nine."

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Read more Impressions on the Parables of Jesus.

Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll refer to Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Eureka Editions:2020) unless stated otherwise. 

Quotations from the Gospel of Thomas are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)

Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll’s The New Man refer to Martino Fine Books, Eastford CT, 2019

Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll’s The Mark refer to Thomas Nelson & Sons, New York, 1954

Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus,  Shambhala Publications, 2008

Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, Jeremy Tarcher, 1985

Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.

On our sister website, Sweet Dreams Bedtime Stories, I’ve written a few stories based loosely on the Parable of the Prodigal Son:
The Meadowlark’s Song of Soil and Sky
Hints of Who I Might Become
A Brush with Good: The Inspiring Tale of Simon’s Return