Barry Long: I Am A Tantric Master

introduction

"It can be said that I have been taught by the divine principle of woman, I have been led by her, I have been crucified by her and most certainly I have been loved by her. I am a product of that love, as is my teaching."

I am well and I would be pleased for us to spend some time together in September, if you let me know closer to the date. Could we leave the Absolute where it always is and talk about the love between man and woman, which seems so absolutely problematical?" Barry Long wrote to me last summer. . . .

This was to be my second meeting with Barry Long, spiritual teacher and self-proclaimed tantric master, who lives on the north coast of New South Wales, Australia, with Sara, "the only woman he now makes love with."

I had heard about Barry Long on and off over the last ten years, but met him for the first time one year ago at his country home north of Byron Bay, where I had been teaching. Our first meeting had been warm and respectful, initiated by myself as I had been curious to meet this enigmatic teacher for a very long time. Whenever two teachers meet as peers there is always an atmosphere of heightened attention as both individuals scrutinize each other in order to find out if the other is for real. In this meeting there had never been a discourteous moment or even a hint of competition. From this man who obviously had a very different teaching from my own, I had felt only respect and a deeply moving tenderness that was the mark of a man whose heart had been irrevocably touched by something infinitely greater than himself. In our first meeting we'd spent most of our time getting to know each other and had spoken only in generalities about our different approaches to that most delicate task: daring to teach others about the mystery of liberation. I was familiar with the fact that in Barry's teaching, the primary spiritual practice was "making love rightly," which was Barry's unique and very original approach to the ancient "left-hand" path of tantra. At the time I knew very little about what it was that he was actually teaching with regard to tantra; I only knew that he put great emphasis on it. When I returned to Australia last September, one year later, we had already decided to devote the upcoming issue of What Is Enlightenment? entirely to the investigation of spirituality and sexuality, and it therefore became obvious that we had to speak to the man who confidently refers to himself as "the only Western tantric master."

In preparation for my meeting with Barry, one evening I got together with our editorial staff to read excerpts from one of his books about the tantric path that he teaches. To my surprise, something unexpected happened. Simply through "listening" I received transmission, which means that I experienced a direct recognition of what it is that Barry is endeavoring to share with those who come to him. This was an important event for me personally, for it was the first time in my life that I was able to understand what spiritual sexuality could be all about.

Since my interview with Barry, I have studied more about his teaching on "making love rightly," and no matter what one thinks about the ultimate potential of spiritual sexuality in any form to truly liberate a human being, there is no doubt that what Barry Long is teaching is a serious spiritual path that demands sincerity and profound commitment from anyone who endeavors to pursue it. While Barry is often outrageous, regularly audacious and unapologetically romantic for a teacher of enlightenment, his calm abidance in absolute singularity always shines through—especially when you're sure that he's gone one step too far.

interview

Andrew Cohen: Some time ago I was sent a copy of your book Stillness Is the Way, and as I was reading it out loud with our editorial team I actually got transmission from the piece and then, in an instant, I felt that I understood what it was that you were trying to communicate to people. I really began to appreciate it in such a way that I was actually very touched by it. What you were describing, I think, was a modern tantric perspective. I'd like to tell you what it was that I understood, and since I'm sure I haven't understood it completely, please do correct me as we go along. Your main point, I think, was that the inner experience of revelation, of oneness, does not mean anything until it's brought into this world, into this very real, actual and material world.

Barry Long: Yes, that is so.

AC: And that the only way, or the most significant way, to bring that revelation into this world is through the perfect union of man and woman.

BL: That is so.

AC: And that through man and woman coming together in romantic or sexual union, an experience of this perfect nonseparation, perfect oneness, will be experienced by both.

BL: Yes.

AC: And in that, both will experience, shall we say, the embodied fulfillment of the inner spiritual revelation.

BL: Well, yes, although that might be giving to people too much as an expectation of something for themselves—because there's nothing in it for themselves. But what this experience does bring into the woman is utter and complete love of the man, and when a woman utterly and completely loves a man—a man who loves her, of course—she sees the God in him. And that's all woman can do, and all that she needs to do. Because when she sees the God in her man and she is being perfectly loved, she is in the state of woman.

You see, a woman doesn't have enlightenment; she only thinks she does. A woman is already enlightened when she is in a state of love such that, for instance, even if I died, Sara here would not suffer because I am already in her, and she knows what I am. And so she is protected from suffering anymore at the hands of man because she has realized or seen God in man, and she has that consciousness that is just woman—which is to say, pure love. There's no great blinding consciousness. That's only a parlor trick of spiritual commentators. I don't have any blinding light now. I mean, I used to have what we call realization and great wonderful insights when I was ignorant because insights occur in darkness; and therefore you get lovely lights. But eventually when the ignorance disappears there's just a constant state, whatever it is. There's neither light nor dark, and so what have you got?

So this is where woman—a woman—becomes or is the love of God. That's what she does. Now she can't know anything in that state, and that's the extraordinary thing. Because in the love of God, the true love or union with God, you know nothing. Isn't that right, Andrew?

AC: Yes, absolutely true.

BL: And she is brought into that state because woman's nature is utter and complete love. She is God in female form in existence. And if she can reach that place through the love of man, who is God in masculine form, then you have God making love to God in the two forms that God has created so that God may know love, because unless you have two forms, you don't have any distinction. If there were only one form, you would have no distinction and therefore, in this existence, no possibility of realization.

AC: No self-recognition.

BL: Yes, that's right.

AC: Now, what I also understood from the piece I read was that in this practice of making love, or of man loving woman or woman loving man, there is an absolute imperative that the ego completely surrender in the face of the demand on the man to utterly, totally and completely adore woman, and on the woman to unconditionally and absolutely embrace man.

BL: Yes.

AC: And I understood that in truly making love, in man's truly embracing woman and woman's truly embracing man—for this ultimate union to actually be able to take place—the ego has to completely subside. And that is really what makes this particular practice so powerful. In order for it to work, an absolute surrender has to occur; otherwise the fulfillment inherent in it could never be realized.

BL: Yes, otherwise you would have only what we call human love, which is the love of all couples on earth. And that's why there has to be a preparation, which my teaching also includes: How do I get there? How do I do this? Well, for one thing you've got to be honest, or you'll have a dishonest love and a dishonest connection. And therefore, for the sake of honesty, the woman cannot allow her man to get away with anything. She's not allowed to say, "Oh well, I don't want to tell you what to do," or anything like that which she might be tempted to do. She's got to say, "Wait, I may not want to tell you anything, but we agreed when we first started this relationship that we were going to be honest to God, honest to truth. And what's the good of a relationship if that's not what it's about?" As they've agreed to that, she must say, for example, "You have just spoken to me in a way that endeavors to pull woman down. You might not be aware of it, but you have. Now I'll tell you what you said. You were pulling me down"—which is fundamentally man's human nature, to pull woman down—"You were trying to undermine me. Now, is that true or false?" And the man, if he's already said, "I want to be honest with you," will look at what he said and then he'll say, "Yes, I see. I laughed when I said, 'Well, you often make mistakes, don't you?' I laughed, didn't I?" Now, that's a form of pulling woman down under the guise of some sort of humorous aside. And she has to put a stop to all that stuff because that's what man does. He uses everything to undermine her. That's just one example of how woman has to watch man.

And then it goes on, of course, into sex, where he gets excited. And she's got to say, "Well, I can't have an excited man inside my body because what you do then, you see, you transfer your excitement to my body. And if you continue to make love with me like that, which is what happened to me in the past when I was an ordinary woman and with sexual men—I was dragged down; I got self-doubtful and I got depressed every now and again. I didn't have self-confidence, and so I lost my way. And I know that's because sexual men with sexy desires—'sexman'—was in me. And now I don't have any sexman in me. I have a man who is not excited, who just wants to love me and does that with his body and not with his mind." Because the mind has never made love in its life and never will. It's only made sex.

AC: So what you're speaking about when you use the term "making love" is the renunciation of aggressively pursuing an experience and using the other person—man using woman, in this case—just to have some kind of sensual experience for himself.

BL: Well, that is utter selfishness, isn't it? It's not honest, not honest to God, not honest to anything. Certainly it's not honest to the woman. Now that's all finished where I'm concerned. And the way to do that is what I'm endeavoring to impart as much as I can.

AC:Is it true that in approaching lovemaking as a spiritual path, the personality—for example, the personal identity of the man—has to be transcended in order to embrace what it actually means to be man?

BL: Yes.

AC: And the same for the woman? By personal identity I mean neurotic self-fixation and everything that would include. Would that have to be transcended in order to embrace what it really means to be a woman? So that a man could allow himself to experience who he really is when there is no neurotic self-fixation, and the woman could experience who she really is, and in that they would each experience the ultimately impersonal Self?

BL: Well, I don't use the word "Self." I use "Being."

AC: In that impersonal Being then, would there be the living, conscious knowing of who they really were before there was ever a thought of being the separate personality?

BL: Well, I wouldn't say it that way. What I'd say is that they are completely and utterly in the knowledge of love. And the knowledge of love is the knowledge of nothing. So there is no self experience. There's no description at all except to say, "This is beauty. This is beautiful. I love you. You are beautiful." There's simply nothing more to say.

AC: Would there be, in that, an experience of fullness?

BL: Yes, but it's not a fullness that you can get. It's a fullness of Being, and you would understand it and realize that the fullness of Being is nothing to speak of. That's the thing: Nothing to speak of. Because people get terrified when you say, "God is nothing." So I add after that, as best I can, that it's "nothing to speak of" because they will get frightened when they find it out for themselves. "Oh, my God," they will say, "am I going to be nothing?"

AC: So in this path, in lovemaking and relationship as a spiritual path, what it is that puts such enormous pressure on the ego is the demand to surrender all the separate and false notions of self in order to be able to be man or be woman. Is that how it works?

BL: Yes.

AC: That's very powerful—and very beautiful. And as I said, I feel that I have only really begun to understand for the first time how and why it could be a genuine practice of liberation and how it really could work.

BL: Yes, well, it does work because I am living that. And you see, what I've lived is what enables me to teach. If I didn't live it, I'd only be a commentator.

AC: Of course.

BL: I am a tantric master. And I live the tantric life and have lived the tantric life and am still living the tantric life, but I only do that with my one woman now. But I have brought several women to consciousness—sufficient consciousness. And they are now in the world and doing what I want them to do, which is to help man come to a greater knowledge of God, which is love. I am now living, with Sara, the impossible, which is a divinely given thing: how two bodies, which will die, can have eternal union. That's what I am living with Sara because if I live this, then I can pass it down, or it will be passed down, to those who are in my teaching and are practicing this love, this honest love. But I have to live it first because I am the master. And if the master doesn't live it, the people haven't got any chance to. They're getting it because there's a transmission through the psyche that goes on in us: If I live it, then that's transmitted down the line for those who are also trying to live it to the best of their ability. That's what is being done here. It is my way to have made love to women in my teaching, women in whom I have seen the light or in whom there is sufficient love to bring them to a greater realization of God. When a tantric master makes love to a woman, it's different from anyone else making love to her because he gives her a greater knowledge of the love of God.

AC: Could I ask how he does that?

BL: He does that not with his mind but with his physical body and his innocence. How else could he do it? He's got to be innocent.

AC: Through his purity.

BL: His body's got to be pure. That's all that every man is endeavoring to do on the spiritual path—to purify his body. First he starts with his mind, which is always impure; he's got to get rid of his mind. Then he's got to get rid of the ground of his mind, which is his emotions and all these wrong things that he says he loves: He loves this, he loves that, he doesn't like this, he likes that—all emotions. So there are those two things he's got to get rid of in order to start to be innocent. And then he's got to be in his body, which still remains after he has purified himself of those things. We're always where our body is, aren't we? You can't be anywhere else unless you're a magician. You've got to be where the truth is, and the truth is where your body is. So when I'm making love, it's absolutely paramount that I be in my body because only my body can make love. If I'm fantasizing, I'm in my mind, and that leads to emotions; I've left my body and I cannot make love because I am no longer innocent.

AC: No, of course not, because you're not even with the person you're with. You're not loving them.

BL: No, you're probably with some phantom woman in your mind. And it is this phantom woman you're thinking about that gives you an erection. Now you don't need that. But my goodness, as men come over to this, and men do live this in my teaching to the best of their ability, they find that if they don't have the excitement that is sex, they lose their erections and they lose their confidence and they lose everything because they've always been dependent on a false excitement called "sex."

AC: Yes.

BL: Well, when you give that up, there's always a trap; there's always an intermission period, isn't there? Just as when somebody comes into your teachings and they're filled with great enthusiasm and they say, "Andrew, you're wonderful. I've never had such a revelation," and then they go away for a few weeks or a few months and when they come back they say, "I've lost it! I've lost it!" It's all gone because they've started to enter a different part of their ground, and there's a confusion as the confluence between the old ignorance and the new change begins to form. They've got to start again. Then they can get rid of the confusion.

AC: In tantric lovemaking, do you stress that it's essential for the man to prolong the period before ejaculation or even to avoid it altogether? So that he's able, for example, to experience profound intimacy with the woman?

BL: Yes. In the beginning, he has to, as much as possible, practice retention, but without doing it by suppression. And it's just very difficult to get the distinction between those two. But eventually, because this is a divine thing and it is God who is making the love, not any person, there's no focus on retention or nonretention; there is just what is. And that's because the person has gone, whereas the retention has a certain person in it, a certain intention in it.

AC: A person who is still trying to do something or not do something.

BL: Yes, and of course, the question is, How do I get between these two—suppression and retention? And that's where he's got to give up trying with the mind. He's got to allow his body to just do it. There are times when he may have no retention at all, when he starts to have orgasms and he can't stop it, and that will lead him to doubt himself. Now the whole purpose of the spiritual life is to arrive at a point where one has no self-doubt whatever. So he's got to give up one of his favorite attachments, which is self-doubt. And so, you know, God takes over more and more.

AC: And as self-doubt is given up or transcended, the ability to make love in a nonselfish, nonaggressive, nondualistic way would begin to occur more and more naturally.

BL: More and more naturally, that is so.

AC: And ultimately, one would be making love for very long periods of time—hours and hours at a time?

BL: What I'd say is that there's no interruption: that attraction is always there, it doesn't come and go, and so you no longer feel like making love. What I teach people is that you must give up feeling like making love, and you must give up not feeling like making love. Because if you feel like making love, that's selfish. And if you don't feel like making love, that's selfish too. At one of my last meetings someone said, "Well, how do you get rid of wanting to make love and not wanting to make love?" This is something we're all familiar with. The man lying beside the woman says, "Am I going to or not? Do I want to or don't I?" And my answer was, "Well, you make love all the time." Now, if you're doing something all the time, you can't want to or not want to, can you? And they said, "Well, how often would be often enough?" And I said, "Well, morning, night, and if possible, at noon." I suppose that shocks everybody, but otherwise you will want to and not want to because you haven't given yourself to love. If you get a pause between making love, you will have a mental or biological urge to make love to a woman—you're a man, you can't help it—but that's a want, and you can't want in spiritual life.

You see, this is tantra. I'm the only Western tantric master. I know that's self-advertisement, but I don't hear anyone talking the truth of tantra, you see. Whereas I am very open; I'm open about the fact that I am a tantric master. I told my people at the time that I had taken on and was making love to five women from among them. Because I don't permit secrets, and I don't have secrets. I don't go into intimate details, but I don't like to mislead people either. So that's the way of my life, and if you don't like it, you leave. But if you listen to the truth that I speak, perhaps you will get something out of it.

Someone sent me an article from America about a tantric master, a Tibetan I think he was. Some women in the States were suing him, and I read in this article that as a result the American Buddhists have decided to lay down a code of conduct for spiritual masters. That is such a contradiction because, of course, real tantra is not abusive. Tantra is love, God loving God in existence. And God is not abusive. What I so dislike is the secrecy of these people. This Tibetan teacher didn't let the people know what was going on—that he was making love to his students. He didn't announce, "I am a tantric master, and this is a holy state." It is because of this kind of thing that tantra is so misused, and we have tantric schools and tantric this and tantric that—everywhere I go I hear it—by people who do not know what they're talking about because what they have is not a God-given power. It's a God-given power to be a tantric master, to have that power in your body; it's a God-given state, just like Self-realization or God-realization is a state, just like enlightenment is a state. This is something given by God and it's for the people. But if you don't speak to the people about it, tantra becomes abused by commentators and frauds and sexualists and God knows what! So I try to avoid that by being open and honest about what I do with my life.

AC: That's essential.

BL: Yes, especially with such a tricky subject. The whole world is sexual, is sex. But I'm talking about God coming out of man and woman making love. I'm not talking about orgasms and sexual indulgence and excitement. I'm talking about something pure and beautiful coming out of it.

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.