The Riddle I Am
Written as a parting message to the group around him in London when he moved back to Australia.
What follows is a riddle, the divine riddle. It contains the answer to every human question and longing. And here are three clues to show you at any time whether you are on the right track to solving it.
- The riddle cannot be understood.
- It does not make sense.
- And only I can solve it.
Ready?
Barry Long has gone to Australia. Or perhaps he is dead. It makes no difference now. All things or notions must pass away or die in time, in order for it to be known that whatever disappears, the truth remains. So Barry Long has departed.
I am here. I am reading this.
If I had departed, left you, how could you say at this moment, ‘I am reading’ or 'I am angry’ or ‘I love you’? Clearly, I am present now for you to say I am anything. I come first. I am alpha. And when you are dying, when everything has departed and not a single thought or notion is left, you will know I am still here. I am omega. I am the first and the last.
I can never leave you. You are I. You are not you. Never do you say you are you. You say you are I.
Why do you not perceive this simple truth - and be free of you? All day long you acknowledge yourself as I to others and immediately lose yourself in the problem of trying to be you - what you call yourself or think you are. Trying to be what you are not is exceedingly tedious and wearying.
You are not you. I am reading this, not you. You is a condition of ignorance, a notion, which while it calls itself I perpetuates unhappiness and death on the earth. You die or pass away. I remain. That is the simple truth.
Be still and know I am. Be still and know there is only I here now.
Barry Long has merely realised this simple truth I am. So he says - I am writing this and I am reading this. Which means: Wherever he is, I am and wherever I am, he is.
Be simple. Be true to life. There is only I.