The Barry Long Bulletin ~ 53
                                                                                                               5 July 2013
TO MAN IN TRUTH

A man endeavouring to live the spiritual life has to practise loving woman. For the essence of woman is God or love in existence. Every man knows that woman is what he thinks about most throughout his life - from boyhood to the time of his death. He might say he doesn't want woman but he will still think about her. He will have thoughts about how he needs or wants to love her; or what he would like to do with her body - he's always thinking about that. This is true of all men. It indicates that the truth of love for man must be in woman. However, the one major obstacle to him loving her is his sexual lust for her. Now, how does he get rid of lust?


   He gets rid of it by loving her physical body. I said loving her not sexing her. Love is utterly different from sex, although love is expressed through the sexual act. To love a woman is to enjoy her. And I don't mean just to enjoy her for five minutes in physical lovemaking. First man has to see that he loves being in the presence of woman for the pure sensation of that enjoyment - holding her hand, walking with her - without any thought process. Any thought process about woman turns to sex. When the physical woman is in front of him, does he need to think about her? No, you only think about what's not immediately present. If he does think or fantasise about her while she's there, he is lusting, not loving. And if he thinks about sex with her when she's not present, he's still lusting.


   The man has to be able to see the beauty of her. If there wasn't this recognition of her beauty somewhere inside him, why would he think about her all his life? He has to see her intrinsic beauty instead of his own habitual sexual wanting to possess her. He has to realise that he loves her because she has an indescribable essence that he, man, does not have. She is his missing love, the missing expression of God in his existence.

 

Extract from the Barry Long book title:
'To Man In Truth' (pp 8-9)

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