Barry Long addresses the troubling question of who is really in charge of this world when our era is so full of suffering, violence, division, degradation and confusion.

“I’ve been asked, ‘Is God in charge? Surely God is in charge of everything – then God must be doing all this.’”

Barry distinguishes between God’s world – the living earth, the seasons, the body and the simple fact of being here – and man’s world of cities, money, institutions and technology, which is built entirely out of thought and desire. God, he says, gave man free will and does not interfere, because real love does not control, and man has decided to go his own way. The disastrous state of society is the accumulated result of human choices against life.

Barry talks about how progress, entertainment and even art are used to escape pain, while underneath humanity lives with continuous psychic pain. His answer is to withdraw support from man’s corrupt world and return to the purity of life now.

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This is recording six of six in the 1997 LEICESTER series, recorded in July of 1997. These and many other never-before-published recordings have been meticulously digitised only recently and are now available for listening in high quality. The complete 1997 LEICESTER series can be heard in two ways: through The Barry Long Podcast or The Barry Long Archive.

The podcast can be found here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-barry-long-podcast/id1709595005 and https://open.spotify.com/show/34rcMFK6b4CcicY7JDxo9f

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Related articles from the archive:

📃 The end of the world and afterwards – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/16/the-end-of-the-world-and-afterwards – There have been many prophecies about the coming end of time, or the end of the world. Barry Long also prophesied an end to the world as we know it. In 1985, when he was writing about prayer, he also referred to the inevitable end of our civilisation. He read and recorded these writings on a cassette tape called 'The End of the World'. The text was later published as 'The Way of Prayer' and included in a book, 'The Way In'. He said that one day he would have more to say about who and what would survive the end of the world. That day came in 2002, a year before he died. These late writings were included along with the original text in the book 'A Prayer For Life' ...

📃 Truth and Ignorance of Science Today – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/15/truth-and-ignorance-of-science-today – A scientific revolution is about to begin which will transform the world. But it will not take place in the laboratories; it will start in the minds of certain scientists in the new century. The Australian spiritual teacher Barry Long says this shift of perception marking the birth of real science is essential to the evolution of consciousness on earth.

📃 Is There Free Will? – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/50/is-there-free-will – Does mankind have free will? Where I come from, certainly not. Man loves being unhappy. If you were free, would you enjoy being unhappy? But that's man's free will: To go and be unhappy whenever he wants...

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About The Barry Long Archive:

The Barry Long Archive is a repository of over 20 years of Barry Long’s teachings. The archive currently features more than 350 videos, the full podcast, and over 1500 audio recordings on the way – these will be added over time as the archive continues to grow. The archive offers two subscription options: monthly and yearly, with the longer plan offering concessionary rates. The subscription includes unlimited streaming of all available content for the duration of your access.

Link: https://www.barrylong.org/archive
Subscription: https://www.barrylong.org/subscriptions

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All content © The Barry Long Trust

This is the 5th recording in a series of 11, originally captured on March 2nd, 1997, during a 5-day session in Sydney, Australia.

We’ve recently digitised and remastered these recordings from their original analog formats, and we’re pleased to share this one freely.

This and many other recordings will soon be available through a comprehensive archive offering over 30 years of Barry’s teachings, available by subscription. Additional materials are also accessible through subscription on Apple Podcasts (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 recording Barry Long urges each person to turn within, recognising themselves as the centre of their own universe, and to take responsibility for transforming the inherited ignorance of humanity. He explains karma as collective, not merely individual, and emphasises that one’s true task is to purify one’s inner light for the benefit of all mankind.

Barry talks about the inescapable inheritance of human karma, suggesting acceptance of life’s burdens and the surrender of futile resistance. Barry Long guides listeners toward releasing selfishness, accepting their circumstances, and discovering freedom through consciousness.

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Extracts:

"The point of the evolution of life on earth is for each of us to become cosmic enough as cells in the great body of mankind to enter the place of cosmic or universal love; to get rid of the sentimental love that ruins this earth, which makes everybody unhappy. That’s what your spiritual process is. You are actually getting rid of your self and your selfishness so that you can be with this universal love, this universal intelligence, this universal truth. That’s what draws you on. And that’s why you can’t give up the process. No matter what you try to do, you must have this love..."

'You are the most important thing on earth, as long as you are going down into your own being.'

'Everything every day is the past repeating itself in different clothing, in different circumstances, but it repeats itself… The ignorance of the past repeats itself in the present.'

'You are a cell in the great body of mankind, and our karma is not just what your life, your past, has made for it… The karma that is to repeat itself in existence is the karma of the human race.'

'The purpose of life is for me to purify myself, my cell, so there’s this renewal every second...'

'Love is of the earth. To lie with my beloved on the earth, to make love on the earth… Making love is of the earth; making sex is of the mind.'

'Consciousness has the immediate knowledge of everything, everything that I need to know, if I live in consciousness… But if I live in my human mind, I worry about this and I want to know that.'

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Further reading:

📄 Aphorisms - Earth/World – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/283/aphorisms-earthworld –

📄 Facing life as it is – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/4/facing-life-as-it-is

📄 The Can of Worms – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/72/the-can-of-worms

📄 The Objective Truth of the Psyche – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/93/the-objective-truth-of-the-psyche

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All content © The Barry Long Trust

This is recording 3 of 6 from a three-day meeting recorded on the 14th of May, 2000 in Coolangatta, Gold Coast, Australia. These materials were recently digitized and modernized from older formats after an extensive restoration process, and we are happy to offer them freely. The complete audio recordings from this meeting set will be made available later in the year in the subscriber-only podcast through Apple Podcast – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-barry-long-podcast/id1709595005 and Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/show/34rcMFK6b4CcicY7JDxo9f

In this episode, Barry describes the journey from attachment to detachment. He explains that while the beauty of existence — in flowers, the sea, and human love — is real and wondrous, it is attachment to form that causes suffering. Living the spiritual life leads to living the life divine — a state that occurs when one ceases to live from the self, and a greater intelligence begins to live through one. As this unfolds, true union — free of possession — becomes possible, and one draws to oneself one’s perfect mate. Barry says – "...your whole life is about bringing her or him into existence. Not someone outside you. Not a dream. But the true woman, the true man, the divine principle behind the body. And no one else can do it for you. You must live, love, and surrender enough for your true mate to be made real in your life."

Barry goes on to describe the nature of the self: a band within the psyche where emotions and attachments dwell. He says that human suffering arises from being possessed by negative emotions rooted in the psychic realm, accumulated over generations. By acknowledging the good in life, loving purely without attachment, and surrendering the selfish will, individuals gradually illuminate their perfect body — a deeper, divine something within the psyche. The true purpose of life, Barry says, is to light up this perfect body through love and detachment, by undergoing the circumstances of one’s life rightly — by suffering rightly. In time, a moment comes when suffering is no longer needed, when the self falls away and the psyche stands purified — and what is is the life divine.

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Extracts:

"The first sign of the true love coming into existence is that you never, ever want to be apart. You never want to go anywhere alone, unless you have to, of course. Always together. Always. But if you want to go and be alone — if you want to go down to the football club or have a night out with the girls — well, you’ve got some time to keep going until you bring this extraordinary principle of woman or man into existence in a body."

"When you're next angry, do you see that you're being manipulated? This is what we are talking about — starting to live the spiritual life — when you can see that your anger, your resentment, your negativity is not love but possession. Until you desist from being identified with these emotions, until you are purified of them, you cannot truly love or bring the perfect love into existence."

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Further reading:

📄 "Shakti" – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/259/shakti – "Shakti is the power of divine love waiting to enter woman and come through her to man..."

📄 "Original Tantra" – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/257/original-tantra

📄 "Love Is Not A Feeling" – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/253/love-is-not-a-feeling-%E2%80%93-article

📄 "Love Burns" – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/223/love-burns – "You must not lose yourself in love or you’ll suffer for nothing, like most do, when the object of love departs in time, as it must..."

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All content © The Barry Long Trust