• The Human Condition
    Sep 17 2024

    This full-length recording, recently restored, remastered, and made freely available, was originally recorded in July 1997 at Koningshof, Netherlands.

    This recording is the fifth in a series of seven recordings. The complete set will be released later in 2024 in the paid versions of the podcast on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-barry-long-podcast/id1709595005) and Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/34rcMFK6b4CcicY7JDxo9f).

    ~

    Summary:

    In this episode, Barry describes the human condition as one of suffering or attachment to suffering. He says, "I define the self—my self—as the accumulation of all the unhappy emotions I have experienced since birth. Each emotion, from infancy through childhood, and especially the disastrous sexual experiences, disappointments, bitterness, and heartbreak—all of it gathers in the subconscious as emotion."

    Barry continues, "The better things get, the more the self will try to destroy it—your own self, not someone else's—because it's made of pain. Whenever there is harmony or sweetness in a relationship or within your own body, the self emerges. Once the self, which is pain, enters a painless situation, that situation inevitably becomes painful." This, he says, is our fundamental human condition.

    ~

    Extract:

    My 'self,' this pain in my body, has been running my life as long as I can remember – it's been running my life in that body, listening to me. It makes my decision who I'm going to make a partnership with. It makes decisions on the looks of people. It makes decisions on how it feels at the moment – and all these feelings are not true. It makes decisions out of fear. It makes decisions out of the terrible lack of security inside – it's always insecure inside, so it goes for the money instead of the joy of the job. It goes for the sex instead of love. It goes for everything that causes problems and unhappiness.

    If you look at all the people around you – and you have to observe them pretty closely – you will see that everybody is unfulfilled, unhappy in some way, making excuses for the lack of love in their life. It's this self that makes the excuses, making excuses for what mum and dad demands on me, making excuses – 'well, that's all right –' while inside, something in me, in that body, knows that there's something wrong. 'I don't want this demand of people on me, I just don't I don't enjoy it, It's not right, –' and yet my self puts up with it, and my self makes excuses for it.

    God is in charge of everything. God the great creator behind all existence and my body and my life – your life – that I can realize within. That's the easy part, although it's terribly hard and terribly rare to realize God within, but to bring that God into existence, to eliminate unhappiness from this body, which is your that your body to eliminate the self's utter obsession with itself and being unhappy.

    To continue reading visit: http://barrylong.org/articles/294/the-human-condition

    ~

    We are excited to announce the creation of an extensive digital archive of Barry’s talks spanning 30 years. This repository contains an impressive 500 hours of video footage and 2,000 hours of audio recordings.

    Over three years, a dedicated team undertook the monumental task of digitizing and modernizing a vast collection of historical recordings, some of which were stored on outdated formats like cassettes and magnetic tapes. Driven by the goal to preserve and safeguard this invaluable material, the project involved meticulous planning, cutting-edge technology, and a deep expertise in both analog and digital audiovisual systems.

    In the coming weeks and months, we will share further updates about this digital archive.

    Support the show

    All content © The Barry Long Trust

    Show more Show less
    2 hrs and 2 mins
  • Master of the West
    Aug 9 2024

    This full-length recording, restored and re-mastered recently, and made available freely, was recorded in November, 1985. In this episode Barry proclaims that he is a Master of the West and he has had the experiences of the Western man or woman, and therefore he can talk to them as one of them.

    More episodes are available in the paid version of the podcast, available on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-barry-long-podcast/id1709595005) and Spotify Podcast (https://open.spotify.com/show/34rcMFK6b4CcicY7JDxo9f)

    ~
    Extracts from this episode:

    • I am a Western guru. I do not mystify. I am guru of the West. I do not need to use abstractions. I speak right down to earth where my fellow man and woman have to play and work in the muck of the West. Where it is hard because it is competitive, cruel, unjust, violent. I am of this violent and cruel culture. Just about everything that you have done has happened to me. So, I am with you. I am not in some robe. I am an ordinary man as you are an ordinary man or woman.

    • I know everything that is going on in you. I have had the experience so that I would be able to speak to you at every level. I've raised children. I've had to leave a wife and two children. I'd done that. Watch the woman that I love die of cancer and serve her. I've done that. Worked 9 to 5. 12 in the night to six o'clock in the morning. Started at 6 o'clock in the morning. I've done that. Had a rotten boss on top. Paid the rates and been completely ignorant in my body and my mind – but I am not ignorant any longer. I am here. I have enlightened this brain of its dependence on the past, of its dependence on promises. On its dependence on expectations, its dependence on tomorrow.

    • There is no tomorrow. But tomorrow always comes there is no tomorrow because there is only now to be free. I can only be free and now. I can't be free tomorrow. I can only be free now. Are you free now? It just means to give up the past now. Give up all yearning for the past. When we want the repetition of yesterday we're always looking forward to tomorrow.

    • Are you free now? Do not worry about tomorrow because if you worry about tomorrow you created tomorrow. Be free now. And tomorrow will come. And it'll be alright.

    • If you worry about tomorrow, you create tomorrow's worry. You are anxious about tomorrow. You create the anxiety of tomorrow. And so tomorrow will be filled with anxiety. It will be filled with problems.

    ~
    We are pleased to announce our work on an extensive digital archive of Barry's talks over 30 years – this expansive repository houses an impressive collection comprising approximately 500 hours of video footage and a staggering 2000 hours of audio recordings, spanning a rich tapestry of content accumulated over the course of three decades.

    Over the course of three painstaking years, a dedicated team embarked on an ambitious journey to digitize and modernize a vast collection of historical audio and video materials stored sometimes on obsolete formats like cassettes and magnetic tapes. The project, born out of a commitment to preserving and preventing the loss of invaluable content, required meticulous planning, state-of-the-art technology, and a deep understanding of both analog and digital audiovisual systems.

    In the coming weeks and months we will make further announcements about this digital archive.

    ~
    Barry Long was a spiritual teacher who taught internationally from the 1980's up until his death in 2003. His spiritual teaching is grounded in practicality and addresses all aspects of modern day life.

    http://www.barrylong.org
    https://www.facebook.com/BarryLongQuotes
    https://www.facebook.com/barrylongnews/
    https://twitter.com/BarryLongWisdom

    Support the show

    All content © The Barry Long Trust

    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 33 mins
  • Can you handle the truth?
    Jun 28 2024

    This full-length recording, restored and re-mastered recently, and made available freely, was recorded in June, 1987. Barry is particularly commanding and authoritative in this talk. In this talk Barry demonstrates what it takes to live the truth.

    More episodes are available in the paid version of the podcast, available on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-barry-long-podcast/id1709595005) and Spotify Podcast (https://open.spotify.com/show/34rcMFK6b4CcicY7JDxo9f)

    ~

    We are pleased to announce our work on an extensive digital archive of Barry's talks over 30 years – this expansive repository houses an impressive collection comprising approximately 1000 hours of video footage and a staggering 2000 hours of audio recordings, spanning a rich tapestry of content accumulated over the course of three decades.

    Over the course of three painstaking years, a dedicated team embarked on an ambitious journey to digitize and modernize a vast collection of historical audio and video materials stored sometimes on obsolete formats like cassettes and magnetic tapes. The project, born out of a commitment to preserving cultural heritage and preventing the loss of invaluable content, required meticulous planning, state-of-the-art technology, and a deep understanding of both analog and digital audiovisual systems.

    In the coming weeks and months we will make further announcements about this digital archive.

    ~

    Extracts from this episode:

    Why are we here? We're here to discover the truth together, the most remarkable thing that man and woman can do, there is nothing else to do but discover the truth together, obviously...

    Why I am here is to show it to you to demonstrate it in your own experience, so that you can do it when you are not with me. Many teachers tell you the truth, and they are beautiful to be with. But the point is that YOU have to do it...

    The truth is not here to entertain you. The truth is here purely to free you. The thing that wants to discuss it, understand it, be interested in it, or interpreted is the only burden that you have...

    ~

    Barry Long was a spiritual teacher who taught internationally from the 1980's up until his death in 2003. His spiritual teaching is grounded in practicality and addresses all aspects of modern day life.

    http://www.barrylong.org
    https://www.facebook.com/BarryLongQuotes
    https://www.facebook.com/barrylongnews/
    https://twitter.com/BarryLongWisdom

    Support the show

    All content © The Barry Long Trust

    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 38 mins
  • Taking charge of your own life OR Being responsible for your own life
    Jun 3 2024

    This full-length recording, made available freely, was recorded on the 29th of July 1999. This recording is one of twelve in this series. The series is available in the paid version of the podcast, available on The Barry Long Podcast on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-barry-long-podcast/id1709595005) and Spotify Podcast (https://open.spotify.com/show/34rcMFK6b4CcicY7JDxo9f)

    ~
    Extracts from this episode:

    Taking charge of your own life. Being responsible for your own life. This is a rare thing in existence because people act from their feelings. And they think that's being responsible for their life. But then it is the feelings being responsible for the life because the feelings make the decision, instead of the intelligence that you are. And feelings are emotions. There is no good feeling. If you have a good feeling, then you are going to have a bad feeling. Because in this existence, this existence exists on opposites. For every good feeling, there's a bad feeling. For every up, there's a down and everyone's struggling to get ups all the time...

    The human condition is based on endeavouring to be happy. And as soon as you endeavour to be happy, there is a reflex action that's going on in your psyche that is going to bring the endeavour to be unhappy. Is it true in your experience? What is very difficult for people to see it because we live attached to everything that we do, acting out of our emotions, and our feelings – we have a momentum going on all the time. We're so busy trying to be happy that we forget that our bad times came from something that pleased us two years ago...

    Once when you and your lover first came together, it was so beautiful, it was so lovely. And then it started to slip. Because what was beautiful was taken for granted. Well, true love is beautiful. But not imagined love, not love without intelligence – it's only beautiful for a while. And then you have to pay the price of a downer depression, uncertainty about your lover or your own life.

    When you get down here in depression – what do you do? What can human nature do when you go into depression? You can get drunk, as we see on the movies. You can do that. But then that's no good, because that gives you an upper. And the next day you got a downer. So then you got to have another upper and a downer. So then you get into the drug situation where you take an upper. So you get a downer. And this is how humanity lives...

    So what's the enlightened truth of this? The truth is – the only fulfilment is – never to be excited, which means never to be depressed. That's the only way of living in this existence without being torn up and pulled down, torn up, pulled up, torn down...

    ~
    Barry Long was a spiritual teacher who taught internationally from the 1980's up until his death in 2003. His spiritual teaching is grounded in practicality and addresses all aspects of modern day life.

    http://www.barrylong.org
    https://www.facebook.com/BarryLongQuotes
    https://www.facebook.com/barrylongnews/
    https://twitter.com/BarryLongWisdom

    Support the show

    All content © The Barry Long Trust

    Show more Show less
    54 mins
  • To be the truth is to be free of unhappiness
    Apr 19 2024

    This full-length recording, made available freely, was recorded on the 14th of August 1994 in Colorado. This recording is one of eight in the Colorado Talks 1994 series. The series is available in the paid version of the podcast, available on Apple Podcast and Spotify Podcast.

    Extracts from this episode:

    I am master of the West – and you are all Westerners, you are not easterners. Unless you are addressed in the Western way, you won't be able to live the teaching of truth, you won't be able to be the truth, no matter who you are...

    To be the truth is to be free of unhappiness – I am the only one that has ever said that... You have no right to be unhappy – I have no right to be unhappy – ever, ever, ever. You don't have a right because your son died to be unhappy. Get it? You don't have a right to be unhappy because you got cancer. Get it? You know, I'm talking ever, ever, ever...

    The spiritual path is a path of ignorance. When you reach the truth, there is no path, there is what is.

    Support the show

    All content © The Barry Long Trust

    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 51 mins
  • Radio Oxford Interview
    Apr 19 2024

    Barry Long demonstrates his one pointed love of truth in this most engaging interview with David Freeman from 1984.

    Barry Long rarely gave interviews to the media and the purpose of this one was to promote his newly published book 'The Origins of Man and the Universe'.

    More details about the book can be found here – https://www.barrylong.org/products/book/the-origins-of-man-and-the-universe

    Support the show

    All content © The Barry Long Trust

    Show more Show less
    42 mins
  • Metamorphosis
    Jan 17 2024

    Support the show

    All content © The Barry Long Trust

    Show more Show less
    34 mins
  • What it is to be new
    Dec 22 2023

    Support the show

    All content © The Barry Long Trust

    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 27 mins