How Likes and Dislikes Create Emotional Pain

Barry Long describes how attachment to experience gradually forms the emotional self. From childhood, we seek to repeat pleasurable experiences and resist unpleasant ones, developing likes and dislikes that disturb our natural stillness. He distinguishes these emotional attachments from simple preference: freedom from likes and dislikes means letting go of identification with experience, without losing the ability to prefer one thing over another. He also talks about how parents and society reinforce this conditioning, teaching children patterns of self-assertion, negativity and unhappiness – the self develops through these learned reactions, drawing us away from peace and stillness. "We are taught to like and dislike from a very early age. So we are taught to have a self, because the self consists of likes and dislikes." "We’ve learned from our parents to be unhappy. We’ve learned to be negative." #BarryLong #SelfKnowledge #Attachment ~ Source: This extract is drawn from the 90-minute recording “Necessary – Vital – Essential: Aligning my Self with Me,” recorded in Melbourne, Australia, in 1996. In this talk, Barry Long explores spiritual stillness as the way to freedom from suffering and a more intelligent way of living. He distinguishes personal development from spiritual realisation, directing attention beyond self-improvement to the stillness of being. He describes three aspects of human existence: the necessary — the physical body and its actions; the vital — the eternal being that records experience; and the essential — pure spirit, or God. Barry explains how spiritual life involves bringing the emotional self into alignment with the vital stillness within. This means being present, releasing identification with past experience, and no longer dwelling on likes, dislikes or regrets. Through this alignment, we begin to live from the stillness beneath our emotional agitation. The full recording is available here: https://www.barrylong.org/archive/ass... The complete six-recording meeting set is available here: https://www.barrylong.org/archive/mee... ~ From the archive: 📃 Aphorisms - Like & dislike – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/art... – “When you embrace what you like you embrace what you are not going to like in the future.” 📃 The Hardest Death – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/art... – “Only when the attachment to your likes and dislikes is dissolved for all time can you BE - be what you are.” 📃 No Experience In Truth – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/art... – “There’s nothing wrong with my experience. But when I attach myself to it, I get emotional.” 📃 Bringing up a child rightly – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/art... – “I endeavour to show you how and why unhappiness arises in every child and in every family.” 🏷 Attachment and Detachment – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/top... – “You can’t turn your back on living, but we don’t have to get attached to it.” 🏷 Identifying emotional content – cleaning the mirror of inner space – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/top... – “What you think about is what you’re attached to.” 🏷 Stillness – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/top... – “Stillness is the way… There is no other way but stillness.” 🏷 Purpose of the spiritual life – https://www.barrylong.org/archive/top... – “You must come back to your senses – that’s what the spiritual life’s about.” ~ About The Barry Long Archive: The Barry Long Archive is a repository of over 20 years of Barry Long’s teachings. The archive currently features more than 350 videos, the full podcast, and over 1500 audio recordings on the way – these will be added over time as the archive continues to grow. The archive offers two subscription options: monthly and yearly, with the longer plan offering concessionary rates. The subscription includes unlimited streaming of all available content for the duration of your access. Link: https://www.barrylong.org/archive Subscription: https://www.barrylong.org/subscriptions ~ Barry Long was a spiritual teacher who taught internationally from the 1980's up until his death in 2003. His spiritual teaching is grounded in practicality and addresses all aspects of modern day life. http://www.barrylong.org   / barrylongquotes     / barrylongnews     / barrylong.truerealandhere