This collection of poetic and mystical writings by Barry Long reveals the
source of his inspiration as a spiritual master. As for any true mystic, the
source is total devotion to the divine. Everything in the book arises from
this passion and is the outpouring of a true mystic voice. Each poem is an expression of the same inspiration, whether he writes out of love for a
woman or the passion that brings the mystic to a personal encounter with
the impersonal, the absolute, or God.

The book is also the story of an ordinary man transfixed by extraordinary
moments of truth. The course of Barry Long's spiritual awakening was
punctuated by the impulse to express in song and verse what was happening.
His original writings are in this book in chronological order, accompanied by
the author's more recent biographical commentary. Early on, his inner voice
spoke through the ordinary form of popular songs; later as a kind of rhetorical monologue in verse. The words capture the power and immediacy of real
spiritual insight.

You don't need to know anything about Barry Long's spiritual teaching to be captivated by the penetrating honesty, drama and vitality of these writings.
They are full of yearning, love, crisis, torment and vision. They reach to the frontiers of death and insanity, where only the mystic stays sane. These
poems are not artistic flights of fancy, prettifying experience. Some of them
bear the raw mark of the dark night of the soul. But others are sweet,
light-hearted, even humorous. Barry Long's spiritual life is not lived out of
this world. His poems are engrained with commonplace details, humanity,
the business of living, and they are accessible.

The book is a rare and unique document, especially because the voice that
speaks in the poems is so undeniably genuine. It is the spirit, speaking to
its own.

The author and the origins of the book

Barry Long was born in 1926 in Australia and lives in northern New South Wales.
He has been speaking as a spiritual teacher to audiences around the world
for over 20 years and his work has been published in ten languages.

When his spiritual awakening began in the early 1960s he often found himself spontaneously composing songs and verses. This helped him externalise his
inner process. At a critical moment, in 1965 while he was in India, the words
of a prophetic song came to him. Suddenly he knew that he would 'have to go where the four winds blow/ Where the spirit speaks to its own/ For now I am free/ Like the wind I must be/ And help the others home.' From then on he became
more and more devoted to that task.

Later in the 1960s he found that the most natural way for him to express his deepening realisation was through a kind of poetic interior dialogue, often
writing on scraps of paper in the busy composing room of the London
newspaper where he worked as a sub-editor. Eventually he was able to give
his whole life over to teaching, and continued to write poems occasionally
as a personal means of expression.

Until now these writings have only circulated privately or been read to people
who follow his teaching. Barry Long is therefore not generally known as a mystic; rather for his plain-spoken, practical application of self-knowledge to all aspects
of daily life - parenting, work, self-discovery and above all relationships and love-life. But the power with which he speaks on all these subjects comes from a profound point of consciousness and love of the divine. The 'cosmic' extent of
this is seen is his master-work 'The Origins of Man and the Universe'. His new
book 'Where The Spirit Speaks To Its Own' reveals the intimate mystical
dimension of his inspiration.