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Long's teaching focuses on freeing the individual from unhappiness which he defined as 'happy today, unhappy tomorrow'. 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 suggested, until we follow "the way of truth". It includes:

• constant vigilance in observation of one's thoughts, emotions and actions;
• meditation to still the mind and connect with life within i.e. what "I" call "me"; "feeling the well-being in the body";
• being, without thought; the next step on from meditation;
• getting your life right, taking action in those areas of your life which disturb you because something is wrong.

The sexual aspects of his teaching gained great notoriety, assuming a greater prominence in the public mind than Long wished. He maintained the relationship between man and woman caused the greatest unhappiness in the post-industrial West. He taught and wrote in detail about sexual love between man and woman and its use to purify them both, ridding them of what he called 'personal, human love.', He responded to controversy by pointing out that getting one's life right in all its aspects, and prolonged selfless giving were more important. He suggested that a person practicing this would naturally attract a loving sexual partner. In response to an article by Andrew Cohen he wrote "One notion I would like to correct is where you say that in my teaching "the primary spiritual practice is making love rightly." The primary spiritual practice... is self-denial, giving and honesty practiced over a long period out of an inner perception of rightness and goodness."

Long also wrote about many other aspects of "Love, Life, Truth, God and Death". In The Origins of Man and the Universe he presents his cosmology. Speaking of this book he stated, There's so much in this book ....it's like a base which my whole teaching goes back to, or extends from. My current teaching might be more refined, but is always consistent with it . He taught and spoke about family life and the importance of raising children from birth in justice and truth not just love. 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 as well as a new book 'A Prayer for Life: The Cause and Cure of Terrorism, War and Human Suffering'.

Barry Long acknowledged his respect for J Krishnamurti and his teachings. His teaching also owes a lot to the practicality of the Gurdjieff Work, nonetheless he considered himself to be an original teacher.

He recommended an abandonment of religious tradition in favour of direct experience and asked his audience not to believe anything he said, but to look for the 'ring of truth' in it.

He himself had an influence on a number of other teachers, writers and therapists. The most prominent of these is Eckhart Tolle, best-selling author of The Power of Now, who is on record as saying he loved Barry Long's teaching.

CosmologyBarry Long held a perspective on the Big Bang Theory of which the following quote is quintessential:

In his appendix to his 'Origins' book, Long said he had been making a new constellation by recording the truth, saying, 'I have actually been making or affirming stars.'

No details were given as to how this process works - Long asserted that he did not know. Questions such as whether there is a difference in origin between Barry Long's constellation and the other billions of stars are unaddressed.

Evolution of Language

In contrast with current understandings given by anthropology research, Long stated that originally man and woman communicated energetically with each other by means of love and their communication was so complete that there was no need for speech. Speaking only developed when men and women started to forget to love and began to lose themselves in time given to other things.

Violence of Ancient ManIn his Origins book Long wrote that ancient man lived in a state of oneness with the will or intelligence of life, even while being violent during competition for mates.During this period of history, Long writes, mankind did not have conscious sensory awareness and lived totally as the psychic reality within the body.

Ascended Masters

In a statement entitled, Ascended Masters, A Revelation of Ignorance written in 1988 and reproduced in his book The Way In, Barry Long described Ascended Masters as half masters who by virtue of the fact that they have come back (by possessing the living bodies of channelers) reveal their own ignorance. Barry did not entertain the idea that the ascended masters were figments of the imagination made up by the theosophists. In the final paragraph he gives a message to these masters including Kuthumi, Djwal Khul, Morya, Maitreya, Archangel Michael, Serapis, Master Hilarion, Ramtha, telling them 'to die for the truth' in the body they have possessed, withdraw and 'go on'.

Apocalypse

In his book 'Origins of Man and the Universe', Long asserted that the extinction of most of the human race by war or natural disaster was necessary for the cleansing of modern civilization from the Earth, as part of the spiritual evolution of the human being.

PossessionLong was of the view that bodies are subject to possession by disembodied psychic entities, which could induce negative emotional states and criminal behaviour.

Environmental Pollution

Without citing any scientific evidence, in his book 'Raising Children in Love, Justice and Truth' p182, Long says that everybody in the western world is acquiring a protective chemical body made from accumulated environmental pollutants. Exposure to these chemicals might cause a bit of sickness initially but as they are gradually absorbed they become the body's protection, acting like a filter against other pollutants.

Long's abandonment of his family in 1964 left his 12 year-old daughter "devastated". He said he was going to India for 2 years and would then return, but never came back. His wife did not find out for a long time that he had met his secretary, Ann Lane, in India. His daughter did not see him again until she was 19. During those years she wrote to him for help and advice but he refused to be involved with her, telling her that she was her mother's responsibility.

Long married or lived monogamously with five women; Betty, his first wife; Julie, whom he married in England and lived with for 13 years until her death from cancer; Kathy with whom he moved to Australia with his stepson Simon; Jade who was his partner when he was travelling the world and then Sara, who was with him when he died.

For about 3 years in the 1990s he openly had a relationship with five women which he spoke about in connection with his tantric teachings.

His marital and relationship history was described by Clive Tempest in his foreword to "Making Love: Sexual Love The Divine Way" as such: "All this time Barry Long's love of woman has remained constant. She is always by his side. Through deep and lasting partnerships he has made his realizations of love real in the midst of everyday living."