Barry Long

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Barry Long (August, 1926 - December 6, 2003[1]) 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[2]. In The Origins of Man and the Universe he presents his cosmology [3].

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 a double audio cassette Making Love: Sexual Love the Divine Way, later published as a book[4].

Altogether he has fourteen books in print in English with translations in ten other languages. His autobiography is yet to be published. His works are published and disseminated by the Barry Long Foundation International, based in NSW, Australia which exists solely for that purpose [5].

Contents

[edit] Barry Long's teaching

Barry Long's teaching focuses on freeing the individual from unhappiness which he defined as 'happy today, unhappy tomorrow'[6].

He stated that this fluctuating condition is set in motion and maintained by an addiction to thoughts 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[7];
  • meditation to still the mind and connect with life within i.e. what "I" call "me"[8];
  • being, without thought. The next step on from meditation[9];
  • sexual love between man and woman to purify them both and rid them of personal, human love[10][11].

[edit] Terrorism

In response to the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the USA, an extract on terrorism from his 'Origins' book written in 1983 was published separately [12]and he also brought out his book 'A Prayer for Life: The Cause and Cure of Terrorism, War and Human Suffering'.

[edit] Controversy

In some quarters there is controversy about his teachings, particularly his separation of feelings from sensation [13]; his teachings on sex and love[14] [15]; the degree to which he lived what he taught, his attitude towards women and children and his understanding of science[16].

[edit] Partial bibliography

  • Meditation: A Foundation Course, (The Barry Long Foundation, 1986)
  • Stillness Is the Way (Barry Long Books, 1995)(excerpt)
  • Knowing Yourself: The True in the False (Barry Long Books, 1996)
  • Only Fear Dies (Barry Long Books, 1996)(excerpt)
  • To Woman in Love: A Book of Letters (Barry Long Books, 1996)
  • The Origins of Man and the Universe (Barry Long Books, revised edition 1998)(excerpt),(1st edition Routledge Kegan & Paul 1984)
  • Making Love: Sexual Love the Divine Way (Barry Long Books, revised edition 1998)(excerpt)
  • Raising Children in Love, Justice and Truth (Barry Long Books, 1998)
  • To Man in Truth: Enlightening Letters (Barry Long Books, 1999) (excerpt)
  • The Way In: A Book of Self-Discovery (Barry Long Books, 2000)(excerpt)
  • A Prayer for Life: The Cause and Cure of Terrorism, War and Human Suffering, (Barry Long Books, 2002)
  • Where the Spirit Speaks to its Own: - The Passion of Spiritual Awakening, (Barry Long Books, 2003)(excerpts)

[edit] External links

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