Barry Long (teacher)

Barry Long (born August 1, 1926 in Australia - † December 6, 2003 ) was an Australian spiritual teacher and author.

Life

Long worked as a journalist until 1964. He was married and had two children. His spiritual development began at the age of 31 . During a stay in the Himalayan Mountains he had a spiritual crisis and experienced what he called “ mystical death ”. He left India and went to England. There he had 1968 a "transcendental realization" ( transcendental knowledge / insight ). He had his first students in the 1970s. From 1983 he gave his first public courses on meditation and self-awareness. In 1985 he founded "The Barry Long Foundation". Between 1985 and 1998 he traveled the world and led seminars in Europe, Australia and America. His last public appearance was in October 2002. Parts of his extensive work of books, tapes and videos have been translated into eleven languages.

Barry Long's teaching

Barry Long described himself as a “teacher of the West” who insisted that his teaching only made sense when practiced. He urged each of his students to simply believe nothing of what he said, but to check on the basis of their own experience whether it had the "sound of the truth". He said he only spoke of love, life, truth, death and God and that he lived what he taught. All his life he refused to turn his teaching into a system with an organization based on it. There were and are no groups of supporters. Nor did he allow anyone to speak on his behalf.

Barry Long has expressed his respect for J. Krishnamurti and his teaching on various occasions . There are also references to Gurdjieff's work. Nevertheless, he saw himself as a teacher who was not committed to any tradition. He himself influenced a number of other teachers and therapists, including Eckhart Tolle , author of The Power of Now .

His teaching focuses on freeing the individual from his “unhappiness”, which he defines as the ups and downs of “happy today, unhappy tomorrow”. He says that this state is sustained by our dependence on thoughts and consequent feelings. These feelings lead to further thoughts and into a vicious circle in which we are so long caught up until we set out on the "path of truth". This includes:

• being vigilant about one's own thoughts, emotions, actions and habits;
• the liberation of the “inner prisoners”, that is, those inner representatives of people towards whom I hold grudges;
• to put my own life in order, ie to identify and resolve disturbances in my various areas of life (partnership, work etc.);
• Meditation to calm the mind and to connect with the wellbeing in my body, with life; this leads to the inner state of 'being';
• Focus on the good in my life and not the "not-so-good"; Practicing gratitude to “the Most High” for the abundance of everything that life gives me every moment.
• the way of love between man and woman. He strictly distinguishes sex from love and sees the main reason for the misery in the world in the fact that man and woman have forgotten how to love each other.

The sexual aspect of his teaching became more popular in the public eye than Long would have liked. He insisted that while love between men and women was a central aspect of his teaching, it was nonetheless a matter of putting all your life in order and practicing selflessness and righteousness.

In The Origins of Man and the Universe he presents his cosmology and his radical critique of the natural sciences . As a response to the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 in the United States, he published in 2002 the book A prayer for life (Prayer for Life).

Works

Books translated into German

• Sexual love in a divine way , MB-Verlag, 2001, distribution: Neue Erde Saarbrücken, ISBN 978-3-9807509-1-2
• Only fear dies , Bielefeld J. Kamphausen, 1997, ISBN 978-3-933496-28-7
• Meditation - Basic Course, Bielefeld J. Kamphausen, 1997, ISBN 978-3-933496-29-4
• Self-knowledge , ISBN 978-3933496-37-9 (Knowing Yourself)
• Seeing through death , MB-Verlag, 2004, distribution: Saarbrücken Neue Erde, ISBN 978-3-9807509-0-5
• The way inside , ISBN 978-3-9807509-3-6 (The Way In)
• A prayer for life , Saarbrücken Neue Erde, 2003, ISBN 978-3-9807509-2-9
• Letters in Love , Ahlerstedt param-Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-88755-346-2 (To Woman in Love)
• What children need! , Cologne Innenwelt-Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-936360-21-9
• What parents can give! , Cologne Innenwelt-Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-936360-22-6
• Silence is the way - meditation and beyond , Saarbrücken Neue Erde, 2008 ISBN 978-3-9807509-6-7
• Living your love: About love, sex and relationships , Neue Erde GmbH, 2009 ISBN 978-3-9807509-7-4

English title

• The Origins of Man and the Universe (first edition Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984; ISBN 0-7102-0337-3 ) (Barry Long Books, revised edition 1998) ISBN 1-899324-12-7 , ( excerpts )
• To Man in Truth: Enlightening Letters (Barry Long Books, 1996; ISBN 0-9508050-8-4 )
• Knowing Yourself: The True in the False (Barry Long Books, 1996); ISBN 1-899324-03-8
• Where the Spirit Speaks to its Own: The Passion of Spiritual Awakening (Barry Long Books, 2003; ISBN 1-899324-16-X ) ( excerpts ( Memento of October 28, 2012 in the Internet Archive ))
• Behind life and death; The Boundless Reality (The Barry Long Foundation, 2008; ISBN 978-1-899324-18-7 ) ( excerpts )
• My Life Of Love & Truth: A Spiritual Autobiography (The Barry Long Foundation, 2013) ISBN 978-1-899324-19-4
• From Here to Reality: My Spiritual Teaching (Barry Long Books 2015) ISBN 978-1-899324-31-6

CDs

• Be together
• Love and emptiness

literature

• Christian Salvesen: Eckhart Tolle: inner awakening and a life in the now . Aquamarin, Grafing 2017, ISBN 978-3-89427-781-9 (Chapter 10: Only fear dies - a tribute to Barry Long)

Web links

• Website of the "Barry Long Foundation" (English)
• Barry Long's website