Submissions

We accept submissions that would be considered for our quarterly print journal, TARKA. We are especially interested in innovative, interdisciplinary work that straddles realms of scholarship and practice. Our primary areas of content are Yoga Philosophy, MindBody Studies, Dharma and Contemplative studies. In addition to more accessible yet scholarly work, we also are seeking journalistic pieces addressing current events through a contemplative lens.

Article Criteria

  • Longer articles (3,000-4,000 words)

  • Short articles that address key topics/terms by responding to the question, “What is…..?” or “Who is….?” (900-1200 words)

  • Articles that detail a practice or a key element of practice (500-2,000 words +/-)

  • Book reviews

  • Submissions of artwork and/or poetry are also welcome

Compensation

We compensate $100 for short original articles and $250 for longer articles. If you have a previously published longer article that you would like to draft into a shorter article to be published on our website, we compensate a flat $50 per article.

Submission Guidelines

Please submit according to the following guidelines:

  • Provide a short summary or abstract (100-200 words) outlining the basic idea of your original article.

  • Provide a link to a writing sample, so that we can get a sense of whether your style fits our platform.

  • If your article is accepted for publication, please follow our style guide carefully (find it here) to ensure a smooth editing process.

  • Please follow our style guide for all article submissions.

See Calls for Papers below for submission contact.

Call for Papers

Issue #10 | “On Philosophy”

In this issue of Tarka, we invite contributors to reflect on the meaning and role of philosophy — not as an abstract or purely academic exercise, but as an essential dimension of contemplative life and practice. Far from being the mere intellectualization of contemplative traditions, philosophy has, from the beginning, served as a vital and living current within them. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Indian traditions, where philosophy has long been understood as a way of seeing, a method of inquiry, and a means of transformation. Yet, due in large part to the dominance of European intellectual paradigms and the modern academy’s framing of the term “philosophy,” these traditions have often been misinterpreted, marginalized, or reduced to their dogmatic or doctrinal expressions.

In this issue, we seek to open a space for philosophy to be reconsidered: historically, cross-culturally, and as an applied practice integral to sādhanā. We aim to explore philosophy as a living mode of inquiry — one that bridges rigorous critical thought with the creative and transformative work of contemplative traditions. Our intention is not to reinforce narrow definitions or monopolies on what counts as philosophy, but to recover and reimagine its place within contemplative studies and practice.

Summary of the Project:

What is philosophy?

What happens when we free this word from the confines of any one cultural or intellectual tradition?

Too often, philosophy is imagined as a domain belonging exclusively to the Western canon, or as a discipline severed from lived experience and embodied practice. This issue of Tarka takes as its starting point the recognition that philosophy — as love of wisdom, as inquiry, as reflective practice — has been at the heart of contemplative traditions across cultures.

Indian darśana traditions exemplify a philosophy that is not simply speculation about reality, but an integrated approach to seeing, knowing, and experiencing the world. Similarly, in Buddhist, Jain, and Sikh thought, philosophy serves as both map and method. And yet, these contributions are too frequently seen as ethnophilosophy or spiritual belief, rather than as philosophy proper.

By challenging these inherited distinctions, this issue seeks to:

  • Define philosophy from within contemplative studies and dharma traditions, showing how these traditions offer robust models of reasoning, reflection, and transformative inquiry.

  • Encourage cross-cultural philosophy, exploring how contemplative traditions can dialogue with, critique, or complement Western philosophical frameworks.

  • Illuminate philosophy as sādhanā, demonstrating how philosophical reflection can itself be a practice of self-cultivation, liberation, and creative renewal.

  • Showcase applied philosophy, exploring how philosophical inquiry informs and is informed by yogic and meditative practices today.

Our hope is that contributors will reflect on how philosophy can be reimagined as a vital tool for both scholar-practitioners and practitioner-scholars: a way of thinking that does not float above practice, but arises from it and returns to it.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

  • What is philosophy? Definitions of philosophy from the perspective of contemplative traditions.

  • The place of philosophical reasoning within sādhanā and contemplative practice.

  • Cross-cultural dialogues between Indian philosophy and other global traditions (Western, East Asian, African, Indigenous, etc).

  • Applied philosophy: how contemplative reasoning informs ethical, social, or political engagement.

  • Intellectual biographies of historical scholar-practitioners from various traditions.

  • Reconsidering the boundaries of philosophy: critiques of the Eurocentric framing of the discipline.

  • Comparative studies: how different traditions conceptualize the relationship between philosophy, practice, and liberation.

  • Philosophical commentaries on key texts, concepts, or practices from contemplative traditions.

  • Creative expressions of philosophy through poetry, storytelling, visual art, or other non-traditional forms.

  • Reflections on how philosophy can serve as a bridge between academic study and lived contemplative experience.

We welcome contributions from philosophers, scholar-practitioners, contemplatives, artists, and anyone engaged in the thoughtful integration of philosophy and practice.

Publication date TBD. Please send your abstracts or a short statement of your intention to write to stephanie@embodiedphilosophy.com.

Issue #11 | “On Collective Grief”

Grief is a universal experience that arises in response to loss. Research indicates it is so universal that it even transcends boundaries within the animal kingdom. Like humans, other creatures inhabiting the Earth have also exhibited behaviors that demonstrate the capacity to feel emotions, enter emotional bonds, and mourn when such bonds are shattered. Perhaps it can be said that not only is the experience of grief universal across species but that metaphorically speaking, anything that lives grieves, including the Earth itself. 

From the onslaught of large-scale events such as natural disasters and animal extinction to terrorists’s attacks, police violence, mass shootings, pandemics, and war nearly every corner and creature of the Earth has experienced insurmountable losses. As human beings, we have also experienced the losses that come with disillusionment, disappointment, and disenfranchisement. While grief is indeed a deeply universal experience, the ways in which we grieve or in many cases are allowed to grieve varies across cultural beliefs, practices, politics, and norms. 

Cultures embedded in ideologies of individualism, oppression, and rooted in capitalism create conditions in which grief often goes unprocessed, unattended, or outright denied. In many cases where the experience of grief in such a culture is acceptable, it is viewed as something that should occur in privacy. Furthermore, it should be temporal. Under such conditions individuals and entire communities are denied the opportunity to make real meaning of the weight of losses and unprocessed grief over time. We are denied the space to examine things like the cultural and institutional root causes of our losses or the impact of present and past trauma that undergirds the chronicity of losses and suffering. Without time and space to fully awaken to and experience grief in witness and support of others, we move on as individuals who are disembodied, disconnected, and devoid of the ability to make meaning of our losses rather than as a collective that can be mobilized to change and transform the conditions and institutions under which our losses occur.

In this issue of Tarka, On Collective Grief, we will explore harnessing the power of collective grief as a pathway to healing and justice. We are interested in articles that contribute to a conversation about the complexities of grief, the role of collective grief in community healing and reconciliation, the intersection of collective grief experiences and social justice movements, the importance of collective grief rituals in activism, the cultural expressions of collective grief in art, literature, and media, and the use of contemplative and somatic practices for collective healing, transformative action, and justice.

Publication date TBD. Please send your abstracts or a short statement of your intention to write to stephanie@embodiedphilosophy.com.