Beyond the Human Condition: The Sacrifice of Self

This is the fifth recording in a series of thirteen from the Gold Coast Talks, originally recorded in Australia in 1998—over 25 years ago. Recently, this recording was digitally remastered to enhance its clarity and quality. The complete series is available for purchase through the online store: https://www.barrylong.org/series/gold-coast-talks

The paid version of The Barry Long Podcast offers an expanding library of Barry’s teachings. Available on both Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-barry-long-podcast/id1709595005) and Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/34rcMFK6b4CcicY7JDxo9f), the subscriber-only edition features over 100 episodes, with more than 200 hours of listening. This collection includes a mix of talks from the online store and exclusive, previously unreleased recordings.

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Summary:

In this talk Barry explores the profound question of why humans suffer, delving into the intricacies of human emotions and the illusions that perpetuate suffering. He challenges narratives that trap individuals in cycles of pain and suffering, pointing to the deep-seated human propensity for attachment – our tendency to cling to what causes us pain. Barry says that by moving beyond emotional suffering and embracing the stillness of being individuals can uncover a life of profound liberation and peace – this is the sacrifice of the self – and the next step in our evolution.

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Extracts:

'So I ask you, will you make the great sacrifice – the great self sacrifice? ... let me tell you what self sacrifice is. I give up my moodiness. I don't have to display it to anyone and get knighted or something for it. I have to do it in this body, in this space without any positive demonstration of what I'm doing, because if I give up my moodiness, I give up the positive demonstration of moodiness, and then what am I? Well, I'm not moody. And who's going to notice that? Well, some people might notice that he or she is never moody. Isn't that en-lightening?'

'Do you want this life to go on, up and down, up and down? You meet a new man or a woman. You're all up here. You make beautiful love, isn't it wonderful? Then a month later, bang, what's happened to our love? What have we done? Why are we growing apart? Why? – Because of ignorance. Simply, ignorance. Why does the love that you first have – why does it have to go stale? You know how beautiful is when you first meet, when your bodies are first together, making love, it's wonderful, it's glorious, you want it to go on forever – well, that's true, because that's the body's making love. As soon as the human comes into making love, love goes out the window, all those thoughts, all those judgments of the other, all those self doubts, moodiness comes up, opinions come up, and an emotion comes between us that we cannot see except that we can feel, and we despair of that drives us apart, and we say to each other, 'what's happened to us?,' 'where is all the love we had?''

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We are happy to announce our work on an extensive digital archive of Barry’s talks, spanning an extraordinary 30 years. This comprehensive repository features over 600 hours of video and 2,000 hours of audio recordings, offering unparalleled access to Barry’s teachings.

This project, many years in the making, was brought to life by a dedicated team who worked tirelessly to digitize and modernize a vast collection of archived recordings. From meticulously restoring fragile tapes to ensuring the highest quality playback in the digital formats, every step of the process was undertaken with precision and care to safeguard this invaluable archive.

We look forward to sharing more updates in the coming weeks and months, including how this digital archive will be made accessible to the community.