EP29. We Are Coming to the End of Our Civilisation

EP29. We Are Coming to the End of Our Civilisation

Human beings are attached not to life but to living — to the mortal body, to possessions, relationships, and the structures of the world — and that this attachment makes us worship death rather than realise the immortal life that we are. Barry says that when tragedy strikes, especially in public events of mass death, most people are not grieving life itself but reacting to the shock of their own mortality reflected back at them. Against this, Barry says – life is one, universal, and undying – and that real understanding begins when a person stops identifying so completely with the fragile conditions of living and starts acknowledging life directly, moment by moment, with gratitude. Barry offers a fierce critique of civilisation, religion, war, and human nature in the wake of September 11. Barry rejects the idea of any 'holy war' or of God being on one side against another, and says the violence of the world is the expression of collective human nature unfolding through history. He portrays modern civilisation as both protective and deadening: it comforts us, but distances us from life, so that only shock and tragedy briefly bring people back into immediacy and truth. His practical emphasis is not political hope but inward detachment — less belief, less fearful thinking, less dependence on certainty — and a deeper recognition that while living is unstable and perishable, life itself remains untouched. 'We are coming to the end of our civilization. We are now facing our own human nature, and there is no escape.' ~ Source: This is drawn from the three hour long Gold Coast Talk recorded on the 30th of September, 2001. The recording is part of the Gold Coast Talks set and is available to purchase here – https://www.barrylong.org/products/audio/gold-coast-talks-2001-bundle. Later in 2026 all Gold Coast Talks, including this one, will be available to stream in the The Barry Long Archive. ~ From the archive: 📃 Terrorism – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/263/terrorism – Barry Long writing in 1983 predicted the rise of global terrorism as a reaction to western materialism. He saw 'paranational terrorism' as a new expression of human power, which would utilise suicidal fighters, get mixed up with nationalistic and religious struggles on every continent and contribute to the end of the current civilisation. 📃 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'. ~ 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 Support the show [https://www.barrylong.org/how-to-help] All content © The Barry Long Trust

EP28. Shakti: The Power of Divine Love

We are pleased to make this full recording available free as part of The Barry Long Podcast. Out of the more than 2,000 recordings preserved in The Barry Long Archive, this is one of the very few in which Barry enters so deeply into the mystery of Shakti. Barry describes Shakti as the divine feminine power, the power of love in existence, and as the very power of the universe. He speaks of Shakti as the living divine force waiting in woman, called forth through sufficient love, surrender, and purity, and he presents the meeting of man and woman not merely as a human relationship but as a sacred means through which divine love may appear in the world. “Shakti is waiting in every woman, waiting to come into every woman, and every woman knows it's there, because all she wants to do is be consumed in love...” “...the more beautiful a woman becomes, the more difficult it is for him to retain his orgasm – to stand a woman's beauty requires increasing consciousness...” The real work is the transformation of sex into love: man must relinquish selfishness, emotional baggage, fantasy, and his hard and aggressive manhood in order to love deeply enough, while woman must remain true to the divine reality within her. As woman opens in love she releases Shakti and she becomes extraordinarily beautiful, and that has a tremendous effect on man. ~ Source of this recording: This is the fifth and final recording from Barry Long’s 2 Day Talk in Sydney, 1996, recorded on 14 December 1996. Recently digitised and remastered, these recordings are now being prepared for release through The Barry Long Archive. A link to the complete meeting set will be placed here when it becomes available. ~ From the archive: 📃 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 – Barry was a master who showed men and women how to live together in truth and love. This article includes statements Barry Long made about the tantric aspect of his teachings. 📃 Woman in command of love – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/27/woman-in-command-of-love – An extract from one of Barry Long's books - Making Love. He states: 'I teach man and woman how to be true to love and how to be honest in their relationships. I help them to discover a divine love. The key to the mystery of divine love is to see love as it is, and not as you think it or imagine it.' ~ 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 Support the show [https://www.barrylong.org/how-to-help] All content © The Barry Long Trust

Sex and Love: The Crucial Distinction

Barry draws a sharp distinction between sex and love: true love, especially between devoted partners, travels down into the subconscious and disturbs the past, bringing up old doubt, heartbreak, conditioning, and stored emotional patterns so they can be seen rather than lived as present reality. He says the right response is stillness—recognising what rises as past unreality—so love can do its work and lead to increasing detachment from feelings and eventual freedom. Sex, by contrast, may satisfy present desire but it disturbs the emotions in a way that produces cycles of excitement and depression. Sex is a drug — and leads to restlessness rather than settled love. Barry describes the beauty of man and woman disappearing into each other through love, not the mind’s sexual excitement. Barry then speaks of the watcher or the witness in everyone — utterly uninvolved, always present— whose deepest point is the Lord, and reads letters describing realizations of pristine stillness, ordinariness, and the sense of being nothing behind all appearances. He stresses that this is not mere talk or philosophy but a descent into being, and warns that the mind—tied to senses and practical life—is an utter obstacle in matters of God and truth; the practice is to leave the mind in neutral and rest in stillness, like dreamless sleep, letting doubts lose their force. Then, in extended dialogue with attendees, he addresses the fear of stillness, self-consciousness, celibacy and not giving thoughts or images continuity, the gradual stopping of thinking as fear subsides, and practical struggles (including smoking, drinking, and sexual momentum,) repeatedly bringing people back to simplicity, honesty, and being. ~ Source: This is recording 16 of 20 from the Master Sessions of 1996, recorded on 8 November 1996 at Cabarita on Australia’s Tweed Coast. This talk—along with many other previously unpublished recordings—has only recently been meticulously digitised and is now available to hear in high quality. Through The Barry Long Podcast, we’re glad to share the complete recording here, free of charge. The complete Master Sessions series will be available in The Barry Long Archive in mid 2026, and we will add a link here when it becomes available. ~ 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 ~ From the archive: 📃 Lust and Love – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/313/lust-and-love – "What is lust? How do I tell the difference between lust and love?... Lust is in the head. The head never made love, only talked about it or thought about it. Lust is generated in the head." 📃 Is it Love or Sex? – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/304/is-it-love-or-sex 📃 Aphorisms on Love – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/281/aphorisms-love – "Go and love a woman. Why do you want to go and look at pictures of her? Go and love her." 📃 Making love – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/254/making-love 🏷 Man and woman in love – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/topics/480/man-and-woman-in-love Support the show [https://www.barrylong.org/how-to-help] All content © The Barry Long Trust

God’s Will and Man’s World: The Disaster of Progress

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. ~ 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 ~ 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... ~ 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 Support the show [https://www.barrylong.org/how-to-help] All content © The Barry Long Trust

Karma is Not Just Personal | Personal Purification as the Path to Collective Spiritual Renewal

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) ~ 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. ~ 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.' ~ 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 Support the show [https://www.barrylong.org/how-to-help] All content © The Barry Long Trust