Likes and Dislikes

"We got to get rid of this likes and dislikes, because we'll never be holy. We'll never be pure enough to be simple while we have likes and dislikes in people. [...] I'm not attached to my likes and dislikes. You can take anything from me at any moment. Now, if I didn't like that, if I didn't like that, I'd complain. But if I wasn't attached to that—to not liking—then it wouldn't matter."

"Likes and dislikes are mostly in our minds. If you walk into a shop and you try to choose something [...] If you're not thinking, if you're not choosing from your likes and dislikes, then you put it back because you didn’t get quite the reflection from it. And then something else catches your eye, and yes, you look at that, and you say, I'll have this."

"The attachment is the emotion that comes out, comes out of us invisibly, like a tentacle of an octopus and many tentacles and puts its hand around something. [...] It's the thing in here that I allowed to build up because I got attached to it instead of just loving it. Because there's no attachment in love."

Barry Long taught that likes and dislikes are a major obstacle to purity, simplicity, and the holy life. He explained that as long as we are attached to what we like and what we dislike, we remain emotionally entangled and reactive—never truly free. These attachments are invisible but powerful, functioning like emotional tentacles that wrap around people, objects, and situations. When these things are taken from us, we suffer not because of their loss, but because of our emotional attachment. True freedom, he said, comes not from having no preferences at all, but from no longer being attached to them. To live rightly, we must drop the emotional charge behind our likes and dislikes and be available to life as it comes, without resistance or craving.

Barry emphasised that choosing from likes and dislikes involves the mind, whereas true movement comes from a deeper intelligence or inner knowing. When thinking is removed, objects, people, and events reflect something back to us, and we know what to do without deliberation. This approach to life frees us from emotional reaction and gives us clarity. The attachment is the problem—not the like or dislike itself. In love, this is particularly vital: love without attachment is rare, but possible, and it is only this kind of love that leads to peace and purity.