Transcript:

Now, I'd like to make it clear to the people with me that emotions are always negative or excitement. I want to make it clear that joy is not an emotion because the world thinks that joy, beauty and love are emotions – and they are not.

Joy is in me. Joy arises from the place of stillness in me. If you emotionalise joy, you come up into the subconscious where you want to make an impression on somebody or communicate, whereas joy just rises, and it can be there now without any emotionalising.

Love is never an emotion. An emotional person, in the moment of their emotions, cannot be a lover – cannot be love – because love does not project itself as emotion. Love is a state – like joy is a state – like sweetness is a state – like beauty is a state – and this state is within. And it's just there.

Whereas emotion is always out – "e" meaning out, "motion" meaning movement – emotion is always trying to go out. It tries to make a point; it tries to hit back. "You're mine," it says. "You're no good," it says. "I resent what you've done to me," it says. "You must understand me," it says. This is all emotion.

Love says, "What do you want?" or "What can I do for you?" or "I love you." If I say "I love you," that's the end of it. What do I mean by "I love you?" I am patient with you. I hold nothing against you. I don't hold any of the past against you. I don't accuse you of anything, and I don't blame you. Love says it all in that one word. You don't have to say other words. That's the beginning of the end – "I love you."

The way we use love mostly is, "I want you." Want is an emotion.

If "I love you", it follows that it is good to be with you. But I can't want you. Not in love. Because it is not necessary. Because if I love you – what is the good of loving you if you don't love me? If you don't want to be with me? What's the good of me loving you if you don't love me or want to be with me? That would be to put a lack of freedom on you. Because surely if I love you and you don't love me, I don't want you to be with me because that would cause you to be emotional and unhappy. So, do you want to hold anyone that doesn't want to be with you? If you do, then you want to keep someone prisoner. You won't be happy, and they won't be happy. So – what's the point? It all comes from emotion.

Love says – "well, I don't want you to leave because I love you, but if you've got to go, you've got to go; if you don't love enough to stay, then I can't hold you because that would be holding on to something."

If I hold on to something when I go into me (in meditation,) I say, "Come on, let go, don't hold on."

Love is not holding on. Whereas our whole society teaches us – that love is a holding on. So everything (out there) is reversed, really.

Love is not an emotion. Joy is not an emotion. They are both states which are immediately there now. A state is not a condition. Emotion is conditional – "I am angry" because of that condition – "I am jealous because of you." "I am resentful because of what you have done to me." All these are conditions.

Whereas "I love you" does not have a condition on it. "If you want to be with me, that's lovely – but if you don't want to be with me, well, what's the point if you don't love me?"

"I love you –" it's not a condition you see.

Joy – can anyone take my joy from me? Because my joy is within me. Nobody can take my joy from me. They can take other things from me, which are material and objective, and that might disturb me to some degree, but it would not take my joy – my joy of life. Nobody can take my joy of life from me.

So, the point is love and joy are states, not conditions.

~

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.

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