Where the Spirit Speaks to its Own' is subtitled 'The passion of spiritual awakening' and describes Barry Long's own story through the songs and verses he wrote in the early days of his self-realization. His commentary on the poems gives us enough autobiographical detail to place them in context. So we hear about his isolation in the Himalayas, his romance with the 'bhagavati', or divine woman, and the terrors of the disintegrating self. But the real 'inner story' is in the poems themselves. Profound but easy to read, sometimes even amusing, these songs and verses tell how a modern mystic was called to the divine. Their personal quality is revealing and moving. Their impersonal and mystical purpose is truly inspiring.
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.
