This is the fifth recording in a series of thirteen from the Gold Coast Talks, originally recorded in Australia in 1998—over 25 years ago. Recently, this recording was digitally remastered to enhance its clarity and quality. The complete series is available for purchase through the online store: https://www.barrylong.org/series/gold-coast-talks

The paid version of The Barry Long Podcast offers an expanding library of Barry’s teachings. Available on both Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-barry-long-podcast/id1709595005) and Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/34rcMFK6b4CcicY7JDxo9f), the subscriber-only edition features over 100 episodes, with more than 200 hours of listening. This collection includes a mix of talks from the online store and exclusive, previously unreleased recordings.

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Summary:

In this talk Barry explores the profound question of why humans suffer, delving into the intricacies of human emotions and the illusions that perpetuate suffering. He challenges narratives that trap individuals in cycles of pain and suffering, pointing to the deep-seated human propensity for attachment – our tendency to cling to what causes us pain. Barry says that by moving beyond emotional suffering and embracing the stillness of being individuals can uncover a life of profound liberation and peace – this is the sacrifice of the self – and the next step in our evolution.

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Extracts:

'So I ask you, will you make the great sacrifice – the great self sacrifice? ... let me tell you what self sacrifice is. I give up my moodiness. I don't have to display it to anyone and get knighted or something for it. I have to do it in this body, in this space without any positive demonstration of what I'm doing, because if I give up my moodiness, I give up the positive demonstration of moodiness, and then what am I? Well, I'm not moody. And who's going to notice that? Well, some people might notice that he or she is never moody. Isn't that en-lightening?'

'Do you want this life to go on, up and down, up and down? You meet a new man or a woman. You're all up here. You make beautiful love, isn't it wonderful? Then a month later, bang, what's happened to our love? What have we done? Why are we growing apart? Why? – Because of ignorance. Simply, ignorance. Why does the love that you first have – why does it have to go stale? You know how beautiful is when you first meet, when your bodies are first together, making love, it's wonderful, it's glorious, you want it to go on forever – well, that's true, because that's the body's making love. As soon as the human comes into making love, love goes out the window, all those thoughts, all those judgments of the other, all those self doubts, moodiness comes up, opinions come up, and an emotion comes between us that we cannot see except that we can feel, and we despair of that drives us apart, and we say to each other, 'what's happened to us?,' 'where is all the love we had?''

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We are happy to announce our work on an extensive digital archive of Barry’s talks, spanning an extraordinary 30 years. This comprehensive repository features over 600 hours of video and 2,000 hours of audio recordings, offering unparalleled access to Barry’s teachings.

This project, many years in the making, was brought to life by a dedicated team who worked tirelessly to digitize and modernize a vast collection of archived recordings. From meticulously restoring fragile tapes to ensuring the highest quality playback in the digital formats, every step of the process was undertaken with precision and care to safeguard this invaluable archive.

We look forward to sharing more updates in the coming weeks and months, including how this digital archive will be made accessible to the community.

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All content © The Barry Long Trust

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).

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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.

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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

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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

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)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Support the show

All content © The Barry Long Trust