Long's teaching focuses on freeing the individual from unhappiness which he defined as 'happy today, unhappy tomorrow'. He stated that this fluctuating condition is set in motion and maintained by an addiction to thoughts and the emotions they create. These emotions encourage other thoughts and so a vicious cycle is initiated. We are trapped in this cycle, he suggested, until we follow "the way of truth". It includes:
- constant vigilance in observation of one's thoughts, emotions and actions;
- meditation to still the mind and connect with life within i.e. what "I" call "me"; "feeling the well-being in the body";
- being, without thought; the next step on from meditation;
- getting your life right, taking action in those areas of your life which disturb you because something is wrong.
The sexual aspects of his teaching gained great notoriety, assuming a greater prominence in the public mind than Long wished. He maintained the relationship between man and woman caused the greatest unhappiness in the post-industrial West. He taught and wrote in detail about sexual love between man and woman and its use to purify them both, ridding them of what he called 'personal, human love.', He responded to controversy by pointing out that getting one's life right in all its aspects, and prolonged selfless giving were more important. He suggested that a person practicing this would naturally attract a loving sexual partner. In response to an article by Andrew Cohen he wrote
"One notion I would like to correct is where you say that in my teaching "the primary spiritual practice is making love rightly." The primary spiritual practice... is self-denial, giving and honesty practiced over a long period out of an inner perception of rightness and goodness."Long also wrote about many other aspects of "Love, Life, Truth, God and Death". In
The Origins of Man and the Universe he presents his cosmology. Speaking of this book he stated,
There's so much in this book ....it's like a base which my whole teaching goes back to, or extends from. My current teaching might be more refined, but is always consistent with it . He taught and spoke about family life and the importance of raising children from birth in justice and truth not just love. In response to the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the USA, an extract on terrorism from his
Origins book written in 1983 was published separately as well as a new book 'A Prayer for Life: The Cause and Cure of Terrorism, War and Human Suffering'.