Barry Long's teachings - some final notes.

 

Barry Long's teachings - some final notes. 

I'm going to write a few final words about Barry Long's teachings, after having courted them for the last month or so. There's a lot of good in his teachings, but there's some questionable areas as well, and certainly some grey areas that could be the source of confusion or frustration with seekers. Bear in mind that these are just my observations based on a few decades of spiritual experience, and should be regarded as just opinions (or ignored- if it bothers you, the reader).

What I like about Barry Long's teachings:

• I love how Barry Long keeps things real. In his talks, books and content, he's always trying to keep seekers thinking about self-honesty, and bringing things back to one's actual experience rather than getting lost in theories and philosophies that consume so many teachings out there and are a cause for endless debate and distraction
• I really like how Barry Long always brings in the primacy of the body, and a form of embodied awaking that makes use of the body, feelings, sensations and emotions. His starting point in his meditations and in his teachings with using the body is excellent, and there's no diversion into thought based conceptual models, which again makes intellectual bypass an impossibility here
• I like how Barry makes use of relationships and the roles of men and women with regards to spirituality. There's some inherent issues here as well, but he acknowledges this seldom used area
• I like how Barry Long's talks are generally spontaneous, unprepared and engaging for the audience. The pre-recorded teachings such as Myth of Life series are excellent in production, and he's a great story teller and narrative deliverer. 
• I like how Barry Long brings seekers back to the area of emotional maturity and the need to face emotions and work with challenging emotions and sensations via the body. Many have used this approach (and some directly from BL himself), such as Eckhart Tolle, who has pretty much lifted Barry's teaching in some parts word for word, apart from renaming some concepts such as 'personality'/'self'/'pygmy'/'thinker'/ into 'pain body' (ET's label). Likewise the body approach with regards to emotions and as a starting is pretty much Barry's focus that was lifted by a few teachers.

What I find questionable or doubtful about Barry Long's teachings:

• I find Barry Long's idea (e.g. in the tapes on Making Love) that making love equals a divine method by which actual love is produced, and that it is somehow 'god's design' that this is how spiritual development can and does occur -- to be a bit questionable. Similarly, his idea of celibacy as selfish needs some qualification. I don't find the sages of the past that preferred celibacy to be selfish or self-centred in eschewing sex- it was just their choice and aligned with what they were aiming to achieve. This is a highly personal area that will differ according to one's life situation, and isn't a one-size-fits-all teaching. This is probably why people like Eckhart Tolle removed this part of Barry's teaching completely while taking up the rest of BL's teachings.
• Much of Barry Long's stories and cosmology is exactly that.. stories and myth. It serves a purpose with the listener's subconscious and does really have an effect, however, it shouldn't be taken as literally true, any more than the Bible or other content that Barry often trashes in his talks. Admittedly, Barry's stories are helpful for spiritual insight, but they're still stories and creative content ultimately.
• Some of Barry's live audience talks give the impression that he's putting on a performance or being overly dramatic. This is probably Gurdjieff's approach coming through, and it's obvious Barry is acting in many instances, and isn't as authentic as say Eckhart during his talks. For some unknown reason, many of Barry's available talks are the one's he gave right before he died, and the delivery isn't the best or highest in form, which it totally understandable. Some of the responses to people's questions are downright silly or idiotic. Someone asks 'How can I love more?', and his response is something like "Just love more!!" or "Go out and find love and do it!" etc., which degrades the whole thing.
• A key issue I (personally) had with BL's teachings was the approach and treatment to the emotions and the body itself. He often states that the 'trickster', 'evil one', 'monster' etc. live in the belly/stomach as the emotional accumulation of the past (akin to Tolle's pain body), and this needs to be constantly watched, dissolved, dealt with and killed off. The approach often seems harsh, and ends up turning into a battle with the ego/pain body/self-- which of course ends up in a vicious circle with the ego trying to do away with the ego. There doesn't seem much compassion in this approach, and Barry's ideas of "love" rarely touch on self-love, or self-forgiveness, or even acceptance of the pain body. Instead it's something to deal with, corner and watch.. lest it enter one's brain and take them over with thoughts. While there's some merit to this idea, ultimately in the long run, this doesn't work, as anyone who's been on the spiritual path for years understands. Self-love and compassion are just one of those essentials that one needs to cultivate, understand and incorporate into any shadow work or emotional work. Barry seems undeveloped in this regard, and more intent on eliminating self-comfort, and having people 'on the cross' undergoing the pain of dissolving the emotional body, rather than using alternative approaches that may well suit some seekers in a much more effective and gentler way.
• Although there's a good number of teachers who have lifted Barry Long's material and incorporated it into their own teachings while not acknowledging Barry Long.. one can see that Barry himself did the same thing with lifting some teachings word for word, such as from Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Krishnamurti, Ramana Maharshi and others. Passing oneself off as a Western Master having little or no link with "Eastern teachings" isn't exactly true, and he often seems to give the appearance of having come up with all his content himself as some dramatic "God realized" Master appearing in the West (apart from some very early talks in 1969 where he openly directed others to outside sources). Barry Long developed his own glossary pretty much and students of his need to understand exactly what he means by terms such as 'self', 'me', 'I', 'intelligence', 'consciousness', 'sensation', 'god', etc.. which all have very different meanings to common parlance.

Overall, there's a lot of good things in Barry's approach, and a lot of original and interesting and useful material, however, some areas need to be taken with a grain of salt and used wisely according to one's individual situation.

Peace to Barry.

Progressive paths, preparations and nonduality meetings - nonduality speak.

 

Progressive paths, preparations and meetings - nonduality speak

I sometimes get asked-- 'why do you focus on preparatory actions, or topics and practices that aren't directly related to nonduality, awareness approaches, or nondual enquiry etc.?'

The reason that I bang on so much about preparations, inner work, emotional mastery, embodiment, and progressive pathways.. nowawadays, as opposed to in previous years where I seemed to aim only at approaches directly related to Nonduality, is because all these preps and progressive steps are necessary for 99% of spiritual seekers!

It's all well and good to pick up any number of common nondual teaching approaches or talks or pointers or enquiries etc. .. of which there's so many around these days, Youtube, Zoom sessions, one-to-one, meetings, teachers, etc., and then run with these in the hope of getting a glimpse. The issue is that these small glimpses are experiences only. Temporary changes in perception, or belief, or the unlocking of some new understanding. These experiences come and go, and aren't permanent or abiding. The temptation then is to latch on to some belief system that maintains that underlying our current experience (of suffering) there's some absolute, eternal, peaceful state etc.. after all, 'didn't we just experience that?' This then leads to the common flip-flop syndrome where seekers are in and out of 'the experience'.. or even worse, some pick up the teacher role (along with their ego) and then start proclaiming they're done and jump into the 'blind-leading-the-blind' game of nonduality teaching.

 ALL traditional approaches, from traditional Dzogchen, to traditional Advaita Vedanta, or traditional Buddhist schools, or traditional Kashmir Shaivism, or devotional yoga, or contemporary or pragmatic dharma teachers, etc. aways advise of a rather length preparatory or gradual approach that combines a number of different 'modules', usually including some development in ethics, bodywork, philosophical framework (even minimally), ritual, emotional maturity, and other practices or work areas that are normally under the 'progressive paths' framework. These gradual steps ensure that there's no rock left unturned when the penny finally drops, and things are seen just as they are.

So in summary, these prep practices are really important in the long for success in this 'nondual understanding' endeavour. Without them, the road is dangerous, and it becomes just too easy to veer off into distractions, false awakenings, calling off the search too early, burn out, or allowing the ego to take control of the journey.

This needs to be said sometimes, as a reminder (antidote to all the contemporary misinformation out there) that the path is a gradual one, although the paradox is that recognition is instantaneous and only happens now, with things being always as they have been, including the story.

Thanks for reading this and your patience. My blessings to you on the path that is no path, and which is well worth the effort (or non-effort) so to speak.

Dean.