Only Fear Dies (Barry Long)
Beyond Eckhart Tolle’s Teaching
[My 4-star Amazon review (NDA) of “Only Fear Dies” by Barry Long.]
A fellow who appreciated my book “Electrical Christianity” e-mailed me and asked me my opinion of Barry Long (1926-2003). I told him I had no opinion because I hadn’t read Long’s teachings, but I let him know that I would do so and then review one or two of his books. I knew that Long was one of Eckhart Tolle’s teachers (Tolle attended his seminars), and since I’ve written a book on Tolle’s teachings—“Beyond the Power of Now: A Guide to and Beyond Eckhart Tolle’s Teachings”—I looked forward to scrutinizing his teachings.
“Only Fear Dies” was the first Long book I checked out, and I liked this short text for a number of reasons.
First, it is crisply and cleanly written. Long was a professional editor, and unlike most spiritual writers, he “writes to the point” in simple, clear language.
Second, unlike Eckhart Tolle, Long was not a contrived commercial sell-out. For example, whereas Tolle is purposely vague regarding politics and seemingly endorsed Oprah Windbag’s hero, liberal-fascist U.S. President Berserk Obozo, Long rightly and courageously condemns democracy, exposing it as the sociopolitical system that has destroyed modern civilization and enslaved humans.
Long writes: “Through representative democracy man and woman had willingly handed over responsibility for their unhappiness, for all time. In all the thousands of years of trying to cope with unhappiness, man had never done anything so foolish or irresponsible. There had been gradual, creeping transition towards this point, but now, with one seemingly progressive act, the individuality of man and woman disappeared into the ignorance of the masses... But over the centuries as man slowly degenerated towards the folly of democracy and the notion that freedom could be attained through others, he became aware of a growing unworthiness, battling with his inner rightfulness.”
Third, unlike Eckhart Tolle, whose teachings are teeming with poppycock (your cells stop aging when you live in the Now; women are spiritually more evolved than men because of their menses-intensified pain bodies; cats and ducks are Zen masters; emotions can be trusted more than rational thinking; the human mind isn’t creative, et al.), Long sticks to simple meat-and-potatoes instructions for personal liberation.
Long’s teachings bear the stamp of Gurdjieff’s and J. Krishnamurti’s, and if you’ve read these teachings, you’ll see the similarities. Long’s message is simple: Shed your false personality (or “mask”), your socio-culturally conditioned likes and dislikes, and live nakedly in the now. And he honestly informs his readers that stripping away these obstructions to liberation is, at least for a time, a hellish ordeal.
Long provides a list of practical instructions to help you free yourself. These, in order are: Stop living in the; Be True to the situation; Give up your dishonesty; Don’t talk unless you’ve got something to say; No more complaining and blaming; Don’t fidget; Stop indulging your mouth; Beauty tips for women; Tackle habitual small talk; Don’t pull faces.
Although I like this little book, it is an incomplete primer on liberation because it doesn’t delve into the subject of meditation. And Long himself says that without a regular practice of meditation, one will not be able to free oneself. But rather than provide substantial meditation instructions in this text, Long directs readers to his texts on meditation, one of which—“Meditation: a Foundation Course”—I will read and review within the next two weeks.
[My 4-star Amazon review (NDA) of “Only Fear Dies” by Barry Long.]
A fellow who appreciated my book “Electrical Christianity” e-mailed me and asked me my opinion of Barry Long (1926-2003). I told him I had no opinion because I hadn’t read Long’s teachings, but I let him know that I would do so and then review one or two of his books. I knew that Long was one of Eckhart Tolle’s teachers (Tolle attended his seminars), and since I’ve written a book on Tolle’s teachings—“Beyond the Power of Now: A Guide to and Beyond Eckhart Tolle’s Teachings”—I looked forward to scrutinizing his teachings.
“Only Fear Dies” was the first Long book I checked out, and I liked this short text for a number of reasons.
First, it is crisply and cleanly written. Long was a professional editor, and unlike most spiritual writers, he “writes to the point” in simple, clear language.
Second, unlike Eckhart Tolle, Long was not a contrived commercial sell-out. For example, whereas Tolle is purposely vague regarding politics and seemingly endorsed Oprah Windbag’s hero, liberal-fascist U.S. President Berserk Obozo, Long rightly and courageously condemns democracy, exposing it as the sociopolitical system that has destroyed modern civilization and enslaved humans.
Long writes: “Through representative democracy man and woman had willingly handed over responsibility for their unhappiness, for all time. In all the thousands of years of trying to cope with unhappiness, man had never done anything so foolish or irresponsible. There had been gradual, creeping transition towards this point, but now, with one seemingly progressive act, the individuality of man and woman disappeared into the ignorance of the masses... But over the centuries as man slowly degenerated towards the folly of democracy and the notion that freedom could be attained through others, he became aware of a growing unworthiness, battling with his inner rightfulness.”
Third, unlike Eckhart Tolle, whose teachings are teeming with poppycock (your cells stop aging when you live in the Now; women are spiritually more evolved than men because of their menses-intensified pain bodies; cats and ducks are Zen masters; emotions can be trusted more than rational thinking; the human mind isn’t creative, et al.), Long sticks to simple meat-and-potatoes instructions for personal liberation.
Long’s teachings bear the stamp of Gurdjieff’s and J. Krishnamurti’s, and if you’ve read these teachings, you’ll see the similarities. Long’s message is simple: Shed your false personality (or “mask”), your socio-culturally conditioned likes and dislikes, and live nakedly in the now. And he honestly informs his readers that stripping away these obstructions to liberation is, at least for a time, a hellish ordeal.
Long provides a list of practical instructions to help you free yourself. These, in order are: Stop living in the; Be True to the situation; Give up your dishonesty; Don’t talk unless you’ve got something to say; No more complaining and blaming; Don’t fidget; Stop indulging your mouth; Beauty tips for women; Tackle habitual small talk; Don’t pull faces.
Although I like this little book, it is an incomplete primer on liberation because it doesn’t delve into the subject of meditation. And Long himself says that without a regular practice of meditation, one will not be able to free oneself. But rather than provide substantial meditation instructions in this text, Long directs readers to his texts on meditation, one of which—“Meditation: a Foundation Course”—I will read and review within the next two weeks.
