AC: I'd like to speak just a little bit longer about the actual tantric practice of making love. You were saying that ideally one would be experiencing this kind of profound intimacy with one's partner three times a day. Now in that intimacy, where ideally there's no wanting and there's no not wanting—there's simply being—would it always be a nonorgasmic experience for the man, and would it also be nonorgasmic for the woman?

BL: No, it would not always be nonorgasmic. Because this is God making love to God, and that stands whether there's orgasm or not. But the thing is, the wanting and the not wanting to make love disappears altogether. So after you have done this, after you have made love, there's no wanting or not wanting; it just becomes a state where you don't have to worry about wanting or not wanting because that's disappeared from you. Just as the self disappears from you, that disappears too.

AC: I can appreciate that this kind of practice, if one engaged in it very sincerely, would create an experience of profound intimacy with the other that would be sustained and, on the interpersonal level, there would then have to be perfect honesty. No doubt or resentment could ever be accumulated because if it was, it would instantly destroy this perfect trust.

BL: Yes, absolutely. But we've also got to be practical about these things. I'm not trying to present something in this existence that is perfect in the sense that there are no reactions. The man's got to start with an individual woman after all. Although he's seeing what he loves as the principle of woman, when he approaches this individual woman he's going to come up against her emotions, which is her past—her past sexual experiences and all the rest of it. And that's going to be in her body. And if she hasn't started to discard her identification with those things, he's not going to be able to adore her. He can love her and endeavor to reach her, but he won't be able to adore her because of the impediments of self which are between him and that which she really is. And what applies to the woman applies equally to the man, and that's what the purpose of spiritual life is: to get rid of these damned selfish, emotional impediments that are between us. It won't work until both of us have agreed to help each other get rid of this thing and not give it mastery over us at any time. Although we may fail, at least the intention is there to get rid of it.

Now for the man, he eventually has to give up his itinerant going to woman after woman. That has to stop. Okay, it's all right; it's part of experience, part of life. But eventually, if he's going to realize God in existence, which is the woman principle, he's going to have to take woman on. Now in my case, I've had five women whom I have taken on. I taught them and loved them for almost three years. We spoke of love and God and life and truth every time we were together, and we spoke together because all the women were together and of course no jealousy could possibly exist.

AC: Were you living together?

BL: No, but we would come together, and of course the idea is to remove the jealousy from woman, the competitiveness, because unless that's done this can't be lived. And so these women overcame their jealousies, overcame their competitiveness, because when God is being spoken about and taught and realized, there's this wonderful power that is there which is focused on and which helps women to do that. Most men, when they make love to other women, do so in secret—they go behind a woman's back and she discovers maybe five years later that he's been having affairs, and she's shocked, absolutely shocked—but mine was an exercise in honesty and rightness and God. It's terribly important for a man to be able to talk to his woman about love, life, God, truth and death.

Now, not every man can take on five women and talk about love, life, God, truth and death and keep everything in order. An ordinary man can't do that. He becomes sexual; his mind goes and the woman's mind goes and they get competitive. Only a tantric master can do that. Otherwise it's just too demanding. But the tantric master is provided with that power. And so now today, when I am only with Sara, these women are out there and they are spiritual sisters. They love one another and they are beyond jealousy, beyond possessiveness, and because they have lived this they will never be fooled by man again. They know what man's sexuality is and they also know what it is to be loved without sex, without excitement. And as I say, these women are in the world now, and they are doing what they were meant to do, and that is to be honest with men as much as that's possible and to bring more love to men.

AC: Are they teaching?

BL: No, they don't teach. Woman's job is not to teach; a woman's job is to love, for God's sake! She can do anything with her love. She can impart, communicate, transmit everything through her love because that's the power of her. Her love is the power of God in her. She doesn't get up and declare herself to be enlightened and make speeches. She doesn't do that. She's the receptive one. She's the one behind the scenes. But she is restless in making man be honest to love. She is man's missing piece, and that's why he thinks about her all the time.

AC: Could you speak a little bit about the attitude that man must embrace in order to be able to truly adore woman, and also the attitude that woman must embrace in order to truly be able to love man? Because from what I've understood, it is this attitude that a man or a woman has to embrace if they are going to utterly transcend the kind of neurotic self-fixations that you were describing earlier.

BL: Yes, well, as I said, I always like to deal with the practical because if I don't make it practical it's not going to work. And the practical reality for every man is that every five minutes or so, when he's not doing anything else, he will think about woman. And woman will think about man. That's the fundamental reality of our existence as men and women. But it doesn't seem to have occurred to many people in recent times that this fact must contain the very means of our reaching reality—that this fundamental attraction must contain something that is holy and that is a real beginning, because when you come into existence you can only come in as a man and she can only come in as a woman. That's the first appearance of God in existence: God in a male or female form. And that's how God separates so that love might be known, so that God might be known, because a woman is God in form, and a man is God in form.

Now to me, every man should realize what he loves most in existence. What he loves most, of course, is God—and God in existence is love and God out of existence is truth. There is no love without existence; all love is in existence, okay? But we get it all mixed up. The spiritual commentators and teachers don't get it right. There's God out of existence, which everybody can realize in their own body without the assistance of any other body. To realize God in this way is a most rare, wonderful and glorious thing, no doubt, but that's God out of existence, which you realize within yourself.

But when it comes to God in existence, then it can only be done through men facing what they most love in this existence. Well, man's got his boats, his golf, his hunting and this and that to do, but these are distractions his mind has invented to keep him away from the fundamental thing that his life keeps proving to him, which is: "I love woman." Now, his mind will try to make that some personal, some individual woman. But in truth, he has to get beyond that to face the simple fact: "I love woman." When he does that and really sees that, he is loving the principle of woman, the unknown in woman, the essence of woman, the God that is nothing to speak of in woman. Then he can come down to the personal, where he has an individual woman's body that he's related to or in some way or other associated with. He then has to endeavor to see this God, this thing he loves most, in this woman. And then when he makes love to her, he's got to make love to her not for himself, for orgasm or for his own self-satisfaction, but for the pure pleasure of making love with her. But if he personalizes it in any way, if he's got himself in it, if he's looking to get something back, then it turns into sex and he's lost it; he's lost that impersonal beauty.

So first you must face the fact, What do I love most in existence? No good saying, "God" because God's not in existence. Where is God in existence? Aha! It's in the thing that I think about most in my life—it's in woman! Now it can't be this woman or that woman because there are so many. So what is it, then? It's the principle of woman that I love. Of course! It's that essence, that thing that's behind every woman. And once man knows that, you see, it's a different state of consciousness.

AC: But why is it that man loves woman? Why is it, beyond the biological imperative, that man loves woman in the way you're describing?

BL: The biological imperative is in everybody, Andrew, and that, in the first instance, is to ensure the reproduction of the race. And to reproduce existence is a terrible thing, really. It's an ignorance that brings about great unhappiness because everyone born is going to experience unhappiness, while everybody who's dead or in deep dreamless sleep experiences nothing of it—nothing. And that's beautiful.

You see, we are animals, and we forget that we're animals. But we're also what we'll call "spirit," and this spirit has entered into this animal and is now enmeshed with the very flesh of it, enmeshed with our animalistic propensities. It's just as if you were to bring self-consciousness into an animal, like a cow, for example—you would suddenly get a mind going on and on with all sorts of sexual thoughts. But animals don't have a mind, only their instincts, so they don't have any sexual thoughts—thank God! But when you put self-consciousness into a human animal you get precisely the troubles we've been speaking about.

So we've got to separate the animal from the spirit because the animal instincts are what we call the ego or the self, the small self. And that's done through the spiritual life, through giving up myself, isn't it?—giving up my self-indulgence, giving up my distractions and facing the truth of what I love most. Because what I love most is always God, and God is love and God is truth and God is the unknown—that's what every man and every woman loves most, but it's been covered up by teachers and words and opinions instead of getting down to the nitty-gritty of it. If you want to realize God out of existence—which is only inside yourself, inside your body—then you certainly will have to go through renunciation, self-denial and self-dissolution. It's yourself who is stopping the natural realization of God which is the great truth out of existence. But nobody seems to worry or be concerned about how to realize God in existence. And I say that to love a woman is the way to realize God in existence because that is God. It's very simple.

AC: You're saying that beyond the biological urge, the reason that man loves woman most is—

BL: Because woman is God.

AC: But is woman God? Or does man recognize woman as God because he still recognizes himself fundamentally as being man?

BL: That is so. But this is because she really is his missing part. He recognizes, "There is my missing love."

AC: By "missing love" do you mean that unless he's united with woman in the world, or in existence, a man would still experience himself as being only half, or not whole?

BL: Yes, he would not be whole; despite all his realizations of God out of existence, he's not going to be really whole. Because the whole thing is to be able to bring God out of existence into existence. Then you have the whole totality.

AC: And that, in your teaching, is the fulfillment of God-realization.

BL: Yes.

AC: It's very powerful. And as I was telling you when we began, when we sat down to read your book I was in an expanded state, so when we started reading it, it went right in. I suddenly got it, and I said to everybody, "I think I really get it." And as I began explaining my understanding, the others were all drawn into this same experience and they began to understand it too.

BL: Well, you definitely did get it because your questions show that you're right there. And then, as with any teaching, all one has to do is live it, as you know. But one must also bear in mind that this is a hard and difficult thing, first of all even to grasp, and then to actually live.

AC: In your view, Barry, is it true that a God-realized man or woman who did not practice adoring man or adoring woman in the world would be—

BL: Incomplete?

AC: Yes, incomplete, or in some sense denying their duty to fulfill their realization in existence. Is that what you believe?

BL: Well, I trust that in our talking together it has become quite obvious that this is so. It's not something that I invented.

AC: Then what do you feel the reason would be that a realized man or woman wouldn't do that? Because obviously many realized men and women have not done that.

BL: The one thing we've got to remember is that any God-realized person could say, "It doesn't matter—this existence doesn't matter." Or he could say that while it certainly matters, it's not ultimately important. Matter is what we are, so this existence certainly matters all the time. But a God-realized man could say, "Well, look, it doesn't matter. I've realized God. Existence is just a passing thing, and that's the end of it." Now that would be fair enough, but then I am in the world, I am in existence, and because of my discrimination, which is the discrimination of every spiritual man, I see that most of the unhappiness in existence is between man and woman. And I am moved, as every spiritual man is, to remove the ignorance of the people, which is the cause of their unhappiness. That which I see, I address.

But otherwise it doesn't matter; it's not important, really, in terms of the immortal, of the eternal. But I am here for some reason by the look of it—each of us is—and we know the value of harmony, goodness or rightness, which is God. So I presume that we will all endeavor to find that. So to me it's pretty self-evident that this is the right way for us even though we don't know that much here.

AC: Still, in some of the Western traditions and many of the Eastern traditions, there has always been a great emphasis on absolute renunciation and/or transcendence of the sexual function as a means or a vehicle to become absolutely focused and one-pointed on the pursuit of God-realization.

BL: That might be so. And you might realize God out of existence. But then what are you going to do in existence? Once you've realized God out of existence, and you're all pure and holy, what are you going to do with the unhappiness that's all around you?

AC: But, for example, Catholic priests sometimes say that their vow of celibacy makes them available to love all beings equally and to love nobody specially; their chastity allows them to be fully available to give themselves completely to redressing the suffering of all of God's children.

BL: Well, they're priests, and I only speak to masters. I only listen to the master—the original one. Otherwise, you get priests who invent things, spiritual commentators. You know, they write books, they give lectures, they do everything, but you can't believe a word they say because they're not inspired by God-realization, and you can hear it.

AC: I recall having heard something about chivalry in your teaching. What are some of your ideas about what it really means to be a man and what it really means to be a woman? What do you see, for example, as the correct way for men to behave toward women?

BL: The correct way is, as much as possible, not to swear in her company because that is a denigration of what's between them, and this should not happen. Of course it will happen in our modern society, something that will be an expletive will come out, but generally it is as simple a thing as not to swear in each other's company. Now, a couple of nights ago, we saw a video of a woman and a man who really loved each other, but every second word she was saying was, "Well, what the fuck's going on?" That's going to our children, you know, who are going to have to love people, and you can't love people when you're saying things like that habitually because it's an expletive. It's an action of force that comes between us and I will perpetuate my natural animal, forceful ego as a man by doing that. So that's one of the things we must not do. I must endeavor to do all I can to help you to be not only civil but to be loving in the way that you speak, as I am in speaking to you. Since we've got to speak to each other we might as well speak lovingly—by which I don't mean lovey-dovey. It's the spirit of God that comes out in the form of harmony between us, in our actions and behavior. God is harmony. And so it's little things like that, I would say.

You see, when two people are truly in love, when they make love as we've been talking about in this divine way, all they've really got to say is, "I love you. You are beautiful." She says it to him. He says it to her. They embrace. They kiss. They hold hands. No discussions about anything to do with the spiritual life—except Sara will say to me sometimes, "Are you sure I'm spiritual enough? Are you really sure I'm spiritual enough?" I myself don't seem to have any questions. Only, "I love you." Now this—having no questions—is, I think, the hardest thing for anyone to grasp, to just be empty, to have nothing arising, simply to be able to live every moment in a state of—not even a state of love because love's not a feeling; love is a moment—in a state of absence of anything! This also happens to ordinary people; they get into a state where they don't know anything, but they get terrified. But that's the holy state! Ordinary people haven't been informed and are therefore unable to grasp that this is right, this is the holy state that the masters talk about, in which nothing is known. That's why they get all shaky when they feel they've lost the plot.

So woman doesn't know anything when she loves. She is the lover; she is God in woman's form, which is pure love, and she does what she does but she doesn't have force in her. We men have the physical projective thing, and our natural propensity is to deliver, while hers is to receive and to be. People say that men and women are equal, but I say they're not equal at all. They're utterly different, thank God! I know that she's God, and I love her because she's God; she loves me because I'm God, and that's down to basics. And I don't know whether I've answered your questions or not.

Barry Long was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1926. At the age of thirty-one an intense spiritual longing led him to abandon his career as a journalist to pursue spiritual realization. Soon after, his passionate love for a woman catalyzed a powerful spiritual transformation. Eventually he moved to London where he began his teaching. In 1986 he returned to Australia and established the Barry Long Foundation International. He has taught seminars around the world and published numerous books and audio teaching tapes, including The Origins of Man and Universe, Stillness Is the Way, The Myth of Life audio series, and the Making Love tapes.