Barry Long

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Barry Long (1926 - December 6, 2003) was an Australian spiritual teacher and writer.

Born and raised in Australia with little formal education, by his twenties Long, married with two children, was an editor of a Sunday newspaper and press secretary in the New South Wales Parliament. By his early thirties, he began to experience a disillusionment with his material life. In 1964 he abandoned everything and went to India. There he experienced a spiritual crisis culminating in a mystic death, which he called his "realisation of immortality," followed four years later by a "transcendental realisation"; a contact with a depth of consciousness from which his knowledge of universal reality ultimately derived. In The Origins of Man and the Universe he presents his cosmology. [1]

A proponent of tantric theories and practice, Long maintained that unhappiness arises because man and woman have forgotten how to love each other. In 1984 he recorded Making Love: Sexual Love the Divine Way, later published as a book.

Altogether he has sixteen books in print, of which there are translations in eleven languages. His autobiography is yet to be published.

[edit] Barry Long's teachings

Barry Long's teaching is focused on simplifying the individual and removing all the unnecessary aspects of behaviour and thought that make us unhappy. He defined "unhappiness" as happy today, unhappy tomorrow.

He believed that this fluctuating condition is set in motion and maintained by an addiction to thought and the emotions they create. These emotions encourage other thoughts and so a vicious cycle is initiated. We are trapped in this cycle, he felt, until we follow a way of getting out, which he called "the way of truth". It includes:

constant vigilance in observation of one's thoughts, emotions and actions;
meditation to slow the mind and connect with life within i.e. what "I" call "me";
being, without thought. The next step on from meditation;
sexual love between man and woman to purify them both and rid them of personal, human love.

[edit] Partial bibliography

The Origins of Man and the Universe Barry Long Books, revised edition 1998
Making Love: Sexual Love the Divine Way Barry Long Books, revised edition 1998
Stillness Is the Way (Barry Long Books, 1995)
Knowing Yourself: The True in the False (Barry Long Books, 1996)
Only Fear Dies (Barry Long Books, 1996)
The Way In: A Book of Self-Discovery Barry Long Books, 2000
A Prayer for Life: The Cause and Cure of Terrorism, War and Human Suffering, Barry Long Books, 2002
Meditation: A Foundation Course (The Barry Long Foundation, 1986, ISBN 0-9508050-3-3)