Barry Long's approach to parenting includes not only love for the child, but practical ways of bringing truth and justice into the family. He explains that what children also need from parents is the example of an honest and responsible life. To introduce truth, teach the child to observe the fact of the world. To introduce justice, ask of the child only what you are prepared to do yourself. He also has radical things to say about the development of the personality and the encouragement of imagination. The book is compiled from conversations with parents, so it is possible to understand Barry Long's approach in the actual circumstances of the many families who shared their problems with him. Their experience gives readers a complete picture of the benefit that harmony in the home brings to the next generation.
Barry Long (1926-2003) was a writer and spiritual teacher with an original and challenging way of communicating age-old truths.
Born and raised in Australia he started out as a junior journalist and became the youngest-ever editor of a Sydney Sunday tabloid, somewhat prophetically called 'Truth'. At that time spiritual truth was far from his mind, but in his early 30s, the ambitious and successful family man began to question all his values. For some years his inner pain and suffering increased. Eventually, in 1965, he fled Australia and went to India. After many adventures, alone in the Himalayas he experienced what he called a 'mystic death', or the realization of immortality. This was the real beginning of his journey towards 'the unfathomable mystery of God or Life and that other divine mystery of true love between man and woman'.
He wrote of his insights and realizations and for thirty years gave talks and seminars in many countries. He inspired and guided many thousands of men and women without wanting to create a big organization or attract personal fame. He was concerned with the individual, not society. He taught that the way to truth and the reality of love is through direct experience, not belief or imagination; and that freedom comes from taking responsibility for one's own life. He was fulfilled by the prospect that one day someone might hear the truth from him and be able to live it. Evidently very many did. His legacy may be seen in their lives and in the work of some of those he inspired, including other teachers, notably Eckhart Tolle.
