- “I AM in You”9/30/68
“My friend Abdullah once said to me that this elderly lady…he was an old, old gentleman and he was in Atlantic City…and someone told her that he could do something to a man in her neighborhood and destroy him. So she came and offered Ab $300. Ab said, ‘My dear, whoever advised you this way is silly. God is love, just love. First of all, if I had that power I wouldn’t use it, not in that direction, and secondly, it isn’t.’ Well, he went all the way down in her estimation. She went right next door to a phony of phonies…but this one next door knew Ab, he was a neighbor, and she gave the $300 and he took it.”
- “Abdullah How We Got Together Q&A” lecture “Pure of Heart”1964
“But if I judge from appearances, I would say, ‘Well, he can’t be a holy man.’ For which today I am most grateful that he wasn’t! Because he taught me real Christianity. And he was born in North Africa, of Jewish parents, and raised in a strict Orthodox Jewish home. But he knew more Christianity than anyone I’ve ever met, because he spoke the Hebrew tongue perfectly. He spoke other tongues. And Rabbis would come to study with him. And he and I would discuss, day in and day out, for over five years, teaching me all that he could teach me that I could absorb concerning the Kabbalah, the great mystery of how this thing is put together in these simple little letters of Hebrew….I know that in the– before the Civil Rights Bill, in New York City, no negro could go to the box office and buy a seat in the orchestra. You’d get a seat in the balcony. You think Abdullah would ever let me go and buy the seats? No. Abdullah would go right straight down to the box office–and he was a negro, I tell you– and he’d go right down and say, ‘I want two in the center. I don’t want too far back. Not beyond the sixth row. Right in the center.”
- “God Plays All the Parts”12/2/66
“Abdullah taught that way. He taught by shocking. He always demonstrated everything, which I don’t do from the platform because it would embarrass many of you. Everything he did, he did it with a physical gesture that would really shock. But you can do it in words without using your hands and other members of the body to demonstrate. But he would use all parts of the body to demonstrate passages of scripture to show the unity and oneness of God. He always began the meeting, ‘Praise be unto that unity that is our unity’ Always, the oneness of us all! No matter what we appear to be on the surface, we are all one.”
- “It is Within You”12/3/65
“‘Well, right now, this very moment’—I’m stopping in his home on 72nd Street, right off Central Park West—he said to me…As far as the dying goes, Ab was right one hundred percent. When I got on that boat I was a celibate, with a disastrous first union, and separated. I felt soured against anything ___(??) of marriage, and so I was celibate one hundred percent. I didn’t smoke, I didn’t drink, I didn’t eat meat, I didn’t eat fish, didn’t eat fowl. In fact, I did nothing and that’s why my old friend Abdullah said, ‘Neville, you are so good you are good for nothing.’”
- “For Hatching”12/8/64
“When I first heard it years and years ago from my old friend Abdullah, he said, ‘Neville, never think of Christ save you think of him as a child’—people paint pictures of a matured man—-‘Always think of Christ as the Christ child, always.’ I couldn’t quite grasp it, didn’t quite understand it. These words have been told me by a Negro Jew, born in Ethiopia, of the Jewish faith. He knew more of Christianity than all the priests of the world.”
- “I Am All Imagination”6/4/1971
“Then from the boat, I went to my old friend Abdullah. He was born, so I am told, in Ethiopia. He was a black man, raised in the Jewish faith, but really understood Christianity as few men that I ever met understood it. He understood the Law, not the Promise… I am standing in his place on 72nd Street, off Central Park West; that’s where he lived. He lived at 30 West 72nd Street.”
- “Evil: Turning to Other Gods”6/18/65
“Now the schools of the world teach us that God didn’t make anything but good. Well, my old friend Abdullah, walking down Central Park West one day, and we saw a certain sign on the Ethical Society, the building, and they had the word purity. There were three words and one was ___(??) stand for purity, ___(??) that was pure. Abdullah, in a very graphic way—I will not use the word he used—but he said, ‘Pure what? Pure what, Neville? What purity?’”
- “The Bible is the Word of God”3/30/65
“So my old friend Abdullah, he didn’t want any kosher meat, and he was born and raised a Jew. He said, ‘My teeth can’t stand it any longer, it’s too tough. I want nice ripe aged meat that’s been hanging for awhile.’ But he wouldn’t eat any other kind of liver than kosher liver, fresh calves’ liver, this day’s liver, and he wouldn’t take any other chicken than kosher chicken. He wanted it killed the way the kosher butcher would kill the chicken”
- “Justified States”4/3/72
“Then overnight, my friend Abdullah told me, ‘You’re going to come back from Barbados and you will have died, you know.’ I said, ‘I will die?’ He said, ‘I don’t mean that you’re going to die and be buried in Barbados or be buried at sea, but you will have died. All the things you haven’t done in seven years, you’ll be doing before you get back.’”
- “Partakers Of The Divine Nature”12/6/68
“And my old friend Abdullah told me years ago when I saw him eating all these things and I was not, he said, ‘It would poison you if you ate it, because you have quibbles. But you see, I can eat everything because I have no quibbles. But since you have quibbles, it will poison you.’”
- “Memory”6/8/65
“Even as old Abdullah said, an undigested piece of beef, well, even that, if that’s the cause of the dream, it’s still…the dream is important.”
- “In Praise of Wisdom”4/23/65
“I only know when I stood in the class with Abdullah I knew not one word of Hebrew, but not one word. When I was criticized or he was criticized for bringing me to the blackboard to instruct this class in Hebrew—I’d only been there a few months—and this one who spoke Hebrew and taught Hebrew, and then he criticized Abdullah for taking up his time, with taking this novice at the blackboard to describe Hebrew, Abdullah said, ‘You do not know who he is. Neither does he remember who he is.’”
- “Your Future”1/04/66
“She wanted to do something in the City. Well, my old friend Abdullah…I took her to Abdullah…and she couldn’t quite get the feeling of what Abdullah was trying to get over, but she could believe in astrology.”
- “The Real Man”1/05/65
“So, instead of saying which is the Yod He Vau He, which, on the other hand, it’s a word you can’t even pronounce. It’s almost…my old friend Abdullah in trying to show me how to pronounce it he would have to belch. It’s a belch; it’s something you can’t pronounce, Yod He Vau He.”
- “Eternal States”2/20/64
“I wanted to go on a trip. I didn’t have a job, living in the basement on 75th St. in New York City, overrun with cockroaches, I mean really a mess. Anything in New York City on that ground floor is just like that even in the best areas, but this was not the best area. I desired to go to Barbados, and I simply confided, I confessed to my friend Abdullah”
- “Now My Eye Sees Thee”1/30/1964
“Another friend of mine who came here twice last year—-I knew him back in the days of Abdullah—-and he came here, Robert Cummings, a very, very healthy person, a nice chap.”
- “The Supreme Ideal”1/21/1964
“As my old friend Abdullah used to say, and this was his statement, ‘I willed it so to be, I still will it so to be, and I will will it so to be until that which I have willed is perfectly expressed.’ I haven’t forgotten what I willed, said he, I willed it so to be. I still will it so to be. I will continue to will it so to be until what I have willed is perfectly expressed. So I will assume that I am that which I want to be. I’m still assuming that I am it. I will continue to assume that I am it until what I have and still am assuming is externalized and is expressed.”
- “Incubate the Dream”5/10/63
“My old friend, Abdullah, he was born in Ethiopia. He was born of the black race, of the Hebrew faith. He was a strict vegetarian for other reasons because that is not part of the Hebraic faith. But he never in his life touched pork, never, not in any form.”
- “The Secret Of The Sperm”1963 or 1964
“Now about a week ago I suggested a certain technique that I learned from my old friend Abdullah. Sitting physically in one place and assuming that I am physically seated in another place. And I go from place to place.”
- “Partakers of the Divine Nature”12/6/68
“And my old friend Abdullah told me years ago when I saw him eating all these things and I was not, he said, ‘It would poison you if you ate it, because you have quibbles. But you see, I can eat everything because I have no quibbles. But since you have quibbles, it will poison you.’”
- “The Serpent: Jesus Christ”3/25/68
“So he (Blake) said: ‘Double the vision my eyes do see and a double vision is always with me. With my inner eye it is an old man gray; with my outer, a thistle across my way.’ Haven’t you had that experience? I used to practice that morning, noon and night with my old friend Abdullah. He would say, ‘Look and tell me what you see.’ So I couldn’t tell him that I’m looking at a lampshade. He told me to look at the lampshade, but he didn’t mean to look at the lampshade, for anyone can see a lampshade: ‘Look and tell me what you see.’ I had to look through it, focus my attention beyond it but look at it.”
- “The Congregation of God”11/1/66
“So when I come back with the memory that I met Abdullah last night, I met my father, I met my brother, I met all these people and they’re not here in this world any more, but they were so real and so wonderful. I embraced them, kissed them, felt them, and we had the most heavenly time and then I returned. Any modern psychiatrist would say, ‘Well, Neville, you know they are only images of the Imagination.’ I would say to him, ‘They’re just as solidly real as you are. When I touched them my hand didn’t go through them…I can’t conceive of anything more beautiful than that 17th of John. When you read it and you get lost in it, I defy you to just restrain the tears. It’s the one chapter that old Ab, my friend Abdullah, insisted that we commit to memory. Everyone had to know it. No reading of books. You rise and together we would say…‘the 17th chapter of John,’ he would say.”
- Five Lessons: A Master Class1948
“It was back in 1933 in the city of New York, and my old friend Abdullah, with whom I studied Hebrew for five years, was really the beginning of the eating of all my superstitions”
- “Awakened Imagination”1954
“It was in the fall of 1933 in New York City that I approached Abdullah with a problem. He asked me one simple question, ‘What do you want?’”
- “The Secret of Praying”10/6/67
“When I was with my old friend Abdullah…I would have an exercise. And daily I would sit in New York City where we lived in this apartment for fourteen years, almost fourteen. In the living room you could not see the hallway towards the telephone.”
- “A Lesson in Scripture”10/23/67
“When I first met my friend Abdullah, that’s back in 1930, 1931, when I came into the room Ab was talking. At the end of his talk, he came over, extended his hand, and he said, ‘Neville, you are six months late.’ I never saw the man before. I said, ‘I am six months late? How do you know me? I have heard of you, Abdullah, so I know your name is Abdullah, but how did you hear of me?’ He said, ‘The Brothers told me that you were coming…and you are six months late…Well, the reason I was six months late is because the one who told me of Abdullah was a Catholic priest.”
- “The Cabala”1/15/1965
“I found two letters of my friend old Abdullah. I had long forgotten them, for they were given to me back in 1930 or ’31.”
- “Gift Bestowed By God”6/4/1971
“I went back to Abdullah and I told him. Do you know what he did when I said, ‘I am going third class to Barbados, but I have the accommodations of the first for the daylight hours?’”
- “Who Are The Condemned?”3/10/1964
“He was born in Ethiopia of the Negro race in the Hebraic faith. That was his background. I was born as you see this garment (I’ve worn this from birth) in the Christian faith. And we were inseparable. He taught me scripture as I never heard it from my mother’s knee or from my minister or from anyone who taught me the Bible before. It became a book that was alive to me under the guidance of Abdullah. Well, here is a man, you look at him, here is a Negro, this brilliant, wonderful gentleman. Never once for one moment made any other claim, he would only say to me, ‘I picked up this garment ninety-odd years ago in Ethiopia.’ He always described it as a garment that he wore, just a garment….“Abdullah? Lived to be over a hundred and had one consuming desire, to put the body back where he picked it up which was in Ethiopia. The last time I met Abdullah was about eight years ago in New York City. About seven years ago I met his secretary and she voiced that request of his, and said he was planning to return to Ethiopia. I haven’t seen or heard from Abdullah or the secretary since. I know he’s gone from this sphere. I know now that when I see him he is wearing his primal form, which is completely under the control of his imaginative power…Well, this morning, in my usual ventures in the mind, here I found Abdullah. Ab is gone from this world now. Here stands before me—and Ab was my height, I’m 5’11” — Abdullah stands before me a man not over fifty years old, about 6’5”, in a Caucasian body. And here is Abdullah before me, no loss of identity, no change of identity, but this majestic figure, and he and I were discussing this theme of tonight. Then he showed me a little instrument with a tape, and then he said, “Now as you know, Neville, it only echoes; that’s all that it can do. That’s the world, the world is only mechanism, it’s just mechanical.
- “The One Greater Than John”1/9/64
“I met a friend of mine in New York City, his name was Abdullah. He said to me in 1933 (I met him in ’29)…and he did everything, he ate everything, he drank everything. He didn’t smoke only because he just didn’t enjoy it, but he did everything. An old, old man, he was then in his late eighties when I met him. And he said to me, ‘So you’re going to Barbados? You want to go to Barbados?’ I said yes. Now, this is where the good news of the kingdom comes in. Then, when I met him, I did not eat flesh in any form, I did not drink alcohol in any form, and no smoking and a celibate. He said, ‘Well then, you are now in Barbados.’ I said, ‘I’m in Barbados?’ This is on 72nd Street in New York City, where the buildings can go thirty and forty stories high.”
- “Changing The Feeling of “I””1952 or 1953 San Francisco
“I have seen scientists, doctors, lawyers, bankers, from every walk of life seek an audience with old Abdullah, and everyone Who came thought themselves honoured to be admitted to his home and to receive an interview. If he was ever invited out, and he was, he was always the honoured guest. He said, ‘Neville, you must first start with self. Find self, don’t be ashamed ever of the being you are. Discover it and start the changing of that self’.”
- “The Mystery of Inspiration”1/27/69
“My old friend, Abdullah, who was born and raised in the Jewish faith, said, ‘Not only was I raised in the most orthodox environment in Judaism, but for forty years I was a strict vegetarian. I had never tasted pork in my life, no part of the animal. The voice said to me, ‘If you will not eat what they give you, how do you expect them to take what you give them? So you are feasting them and you expect them to accept what you teach and yet you will not eat what they offer you.’’ And he said, ‘I broke my fast after the vision, and what do you think was served me, and it had never happened before? I was the guest of honor and I went to this lovely party, and they brought in a little roasted pig.’”
- “Power and Wisdom”10/4/68
“I recall the first night I met Abdullah. He came to me at the end of the meeting and said, ‘You’re six months late.’ I said, ‘I’m six months late?’ He said, ‘Yes Neville.’ I said, ‘How do you know my name and how do you know I’m six months late?’ He said, ‘The brothers told me you were coming…that’s six months ago…but you are late.’ Then he said to me, ‘I’ll be here until I have finished giving you all that I must give you, and then I will go.’”
- “Is Christ Your Imagination?”3/22/63
“Well, I said, as far as I am concerned, I knew a point in time, if you dwell in the future as though it were true and shocked myself so severely when I opened my eyes to think that I’m not there. It’s a little trick that my old friend Abdullah taught me in New York City.”
- “Follow the Pattern”3/25/68
“Every day, with my old friend Abdullah I would practice this art. At dinner he would ask me to look at the lampshade. He didn’t mean for me to see the lampshade – anyone can do that – but to focus my attention through it. Looking beyond, I would see living, breathing human faces”
- “Conception”3/11/1968
“‘Oh, isn’t he awful!’ But isn’t it true? Truth is awful…every one of them. And if you make a mental picture…as my old friend Abdullah said to me once, ‘If anyone ever stands before you and tries to make himself important at your expense and to make you feel little, Neville, make a mental picture of him performing his normal, natural functions, and you reduce him to the level where he belongs.’”
- A Lesson in Scripture10/23/67
“I came into the world completely forgetful of the being that I AM. I had to. When I first met my friend Abdullah back in 1931 I entered a room where he was speaking and when the speech was ended he came over, extended his hand and said: ‘Neville, you are six months late.’ I had never seen the man before, so I said: ‘I am six months late? How do you know me?’ and he replied: ‘The brothers told me that you were coming and you are six months late.’”
