Love Brings All to Life
Recording 10 of 10
The myth of Pygmalion, the sculptor who brought his heart's desire to life
Barry Long presents a mythic teaching in which woman is inwardly love but outwardly hardened by disappointment, and man’s true task is to love her, and free her and bring her to life. He speaks of our spiritual task, which is to free ourselves from lack of love, this is ‘the great art’ by which God consciousness is brought to earth through the love of man and woman.
LENGTH: 1 HOURS AND 48 MINUTES
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
YEAR RECORDED: 1996
PLACE RECORDED: EINDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDS
MAIN TOPICS
Male and female principles, Woman 100 love Man 90 Love 10 something to do, Love of the mystery, Purpose of making love, Myth, Mans love for woman, Woman the product of time and experience, Woman and love, Man and woman in love
SUMMARY
The talk begins with the outline of the Pygmalion myth. As the sculptor lovingly brings the woman in marble to life, so here man encounters woman as a being whose beauty has been encased by heartbreak, fear and compromise. Her hardness is not her essence but the result of failed love of man. The whole burden of the talk is that sexual excitement cannot undo this; only love can.
From there the teaching expands into a practical and spiritual challenge for man. He must give up fantasy, deception, bravado and impatience, and learn the art of loving woman without using her for self-satisfaction. If he does, she can yield her defensive personality and respond in living love. If he does not, both remain trapped in past, emotion and repeated suffering.
The myth then broadens into a metaphysics of existence. Love once animated space itself; beings communicated by being, not by speech or machinery. The spiritual life is described as a descent through the body into this still, original reality. Thus the relation between man and woman is a doorway into the recovery of innocence, beauty and the consciousness of God.
09 - Staying free
