Barry Long

Barry Long, the Australian spiritual guru known as the "Tantric Master of the West," died on Dec. 6 from prostate cancer. He was 77. Although he worked as a journalist and editor in Sydney, Long abandoned his media career in his 30s to find spiritual enlightenment. He traveled to India where he experienced a "mystic death." He moved to London where his spiritual quest culminated in a "transcendental realization."

Long started teaching in 1968, and for 35 years, gave seminars and recorded videos and tapes offering his own brand of meditation and cosmic consciousness. He was particularly noted for his tantric teachings, and offered lessons on how to distinguish love from sex.

The spiritual guide moved back to Australia in 1986 and published a series of books advocating the search for God through self-discovery. Several topped the best-seller list, including "Origins of Man and the Universe," which described the Big Bang in spiritual terms and contained Long's description of consciousness -- the basis of his teaching.

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Tributes

Barry Long's teaching is the most radical, all encompassing and practical one I have encountered during my own enquiry into the Truth. Being as transmitten by his presence and the truth of the living word still to be found in his books tapes and videos is a gift of the rarest value. I remain in gratitude.
Posted by Lauri Siirala on December 22, 2003 7:25 AM

Barry Long was not what he said he was. He was obsessed with sex and with his own self-aggrandisement.
At his seminars, nearly every interaction with a “student” would eventually get round to the question “how’s your love life?”. The subsequent discussion made it clear that by “love life” he actually meant only “sex life”. The idea that love was involved in other areas of family life and friendship didn’t seem to occur to him. He was asked for his definition of love. His answer was “penis in vagina”. After a whole lifetime he still didn’t seem to realise that it takes a lot more than great sex to love someone.

He would talk about the “fiendess” in women. This anger against men was supposed to be a result of modern men’s inability to love women properly physically (by which he simply meant the inability to f**k them properly – again, love was restricted to sex). He ignored the fact that women have a lot more than a few bad bed experiences to be angry about, like thousands of years of oppression! The “fiendess” idea ended up just being a licence for bad behaviour on the part of many of the female students. This ranged from, on the one hand, simple constant ill manners and discourtesy to men to, on the other hand, major tantrums and deeply dishonest and manipulative behaviour. And this was blamed on the man in question. At no point were these women called on to take responsibility for their own behaviour like grown-up human beings.

Barry portrayed himself as the only man who could love (i.e. f**k) women properly and “take on” the “fiendess”. At one point he was “taking on” (i.e. f**king) five women simultaneously. It would have been more but several of his female “students” turned him down. Far from enjoying the experience and becoming happier, these women were fairly constantly angry and moody and used to get together to bitch with others behind his back about Barry. Complaints were on the level of how he would force them to listen to his boring poetry recitations, or how he would make them sit and watch boring old black-and-white TV Westerns. He used to boast about how love was the most important thing to him and he would make love with his partner(s) “morning, noon and night”. What he actually used to do was send them shopping together while he stayed in and watched violent movies. “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” was one of his favourites. Little evidence of even a happy family, far less a loving or spiritual one.

One of the worst pieces of Barry’s behaviour was to do with a boy called Simon. Barry wrote a book called “Raising Children in Love, Truth and Consciousness”. Much of the content was about his life his partner at the time and with her young son (by another man) called Simon. Barry would tell stories about interactions with Simon to illustrate some point about how to bring up children. After some time Barry left Simon’s mother (as he did with most of his women it seems – no long-term or faithful relationships for Barry) and mother and son moved to another part of Australia. After some time, when Barry was now with the five women, Simon tried to get back in touch with Barry to tell him about his life and ask for some advice, because he loved and respected Barry. Barry refused to communicate with Simon because “that was now all in the past”. This deeply upset Simon and, to do them credit, the five women.

Again – Barry was a deeply self and sex obsessed man. He had little consideration for those around him and was not a spiritual master.
Posted by Anthony Conway on September 28, 2006 4:44 PM

Thank you Anthony. Sadly, I agree with you. Although the time and the manner of his death (from prostate cancer) gives us sorrow, he was not a master. Apart from his chequered personal history, his work is contains plenty of statements suggesting he had delusions of grandeur, and was quite a disturbed individual. A true spiritual teacher does not boast he is a master: witness the work, say, of J. Krishnamurti (from which he appears to have borrowed a great deal) or even Eckhart Tolle, for example. Their work is not full of self aggrandisement.
Posted by Raymond Drew on October 18, 2006 5:37 AM

I have ask Anthony how many meetings he actually went to? He has clearly not understood Barry Long's teaching on love and sex, as the fundamental message was to learn the difference and give oneself only to love. As a woman I heard that I was absolutely responsible for everything in my life. It is an error to base your judgement of Barry on the behaviour of whatever individual women you seem to have associated with.
I'm also rather dubious about any statement says "a true master should behave like this or that"....when have masters ever been stereotypical! This only shows your ignorance. Barry did display alot of self aggrandisement, but that's not relevent to the truth he spoke regarding life, love, death and God. I am greatly indebted to him for freeing me of much suffering and I don't give a toss about his personal life. I don't need a teacher to be perfect to be able to hear the truth if it is spoken.
Posted by Lyanne Compton on October 25, 2006 2:04 AM

I am interested in Anthony Conway's appraisal above. Anthony has taken a particular slant on what Barry Long said and did, presenting facts and reporting opinion in his own way. However what Anthony doesn't seem to have understood from Barry Long, or any spiritual discipline, is that bitterness or resentment about another is a waste of time. If Andrew wants to dispute what Barry Long said and did, he would be better off doing it at the highest level - by displaying his own unique nobility – rather than at the lowest level – trying to climb up the heap by judgement and slander, which can be argued bitterly and pointlessly from one point of view to another till time is worn dry. For myself, I leave judgement of Barry Long the man to God. The need to make a God or a devil of another is nothing more than an abdication of my own responsibility for life. I am nothing other than grateful for all the ways in which he showed me a deeper truth about myself.
Posted by Neal Bowhay on October 25, 2006 2:30 AM

Lyanne –I went to many meetings over a number of years, right through Barry’s teaching and out the other side. You don’t know me so you don’t know what I have or have not “clearly … understood”. The distinction between love and sex, which Barry said he was the first to teach, was taught me by my mother and by many other adults when I was a child, and is obvious to any experienced adult human being. I don’t know how a “true master should behave”. I only know that Barry made great play of living everything that he taught, whereas he in fact said one thing and did another. I also am grateful for what I learned from him. But I was interested in his dishonesty when I discovered it, and I think that it is worth pointing out to give a balanced view of his life.
Neal – you can’t present facts “in your own way”. Facts are facts, they are either so, or they are not. Opinions are different, of course. Don’t mix the two. Again, like Lyanne, you don’t know me and you don’t know what I have or have not understood. In particular, I am not bitter, and I am not resentful. Why would I be? It would indeed be a waste of time. Any bitterness or resentment that you perceive is your projection, your opinion presented as fact. I am, as you imply, indeed judging Barry, but I am not slandering, if that is what you wish to imply. Slander consists of lies, and I have not lied. I have no idea of what you mean by “trying to climb up the heap”. Which heap is that? I have no interest in arguments: certainly not bitter ones; certainly not pointless ones; and certainly not even for a moment, much less “till time is worn dry”. Do you? As I said above, I am also grateful for what I learned from Barry – partly from what truth and original perception there was in his teaching, and partly from seeing his dishonesty and mistreatment of others and deciding not to do the same. I have no interest in making a God or a devil of Barry. Do you? And my name’s not Andrew!
Posted by Anthony Conway on October 25, 2006 1:51 PM

I work in education and would like to say that if any teacher, in a position of authority with students, ever had sexual relations with them, it would be considered an abuse of a privileged position and result in instant dismissal, even if the student was above the age of consent.
All teachers have to recognise that their students are emotionally open and vulnerable to them in that setting. (All the moreso in the subject of spirituality, which is obviously intensely personal and psychological). So to have such relations in educational settings is generally considered as taking advantage of that and highly unethical.
Doubtless Barry would say such ethics do not apply to him, a "tantric master of the West". What an easy claim and justification to make. Anyone can say that. The justfication for having sex with students as one of being love for them would not wash for a moment in any educational setting, even in an adult one such as University, from a lecturer. Besides, even on this site, people disagree about how much he was love to his cohort of women.
At any rate, spiritual teachers should not put themselves above everyone else, no matter how much they think of themselves. Where would that lead us? There has to be an independent standard and code of conduct, not simply the word and justifications of any one teacher, which is bound to be biased.
Posted by Su on November 15, 2006 9:50 AM

Barry Long Blog of Death