Conversations with Avant-garde Sages - The Wizard LLC

WIZARD: Be still.
Conversations with Avant-garde Sages
LBERT NAHMANI: Yes. I was going to so say, also. In
Christianity, the word Shabbat is the Sabbath, this is nothing but
another word, the English accent of the word Shabbat in Hebrew,
and the word Shabbat which means Saturday, but it also means to
sit. Because that's what you do on Friday night, Saturday, your
mind sits, the commandments for a religious Jew, or practical
Jew, is to do nothing with regards to the mind, nothing that is not
spiritual that is, with the mind to being active in that weekend, to
take a break. And you are allowed to read spiritual books, you are
allowed to talk about God and spirituality, but you're not allowed
to talk business, or to be worried about what tomorrow will bring.
In a way you're ordering your mind to set aside, to sit, to be still.
So that's the meaning behind Shabbat and Sabbath.
TRIP: Are you a Jew?
ALBERT NAHMANI: I was raised under the Jewish Faith, and
during my search obviously I went in different streams from that.
I was a socialist, Marxist, Jew, non-religious, and then I touched
upon and shopped around in different spiritualities including
whatever was encountered in my life. But mostly it was Selfinquiry.
I've read about a lot of the religions and spiritualities, and
picked up a little here, a little there, until my mind exhausted
itself, and it sat still.
TRIP: And there are some notable Jewish folks in history, Jesus
Christ, and Ram Dass, and was Meher Baba born a Jew?
ALBERT NAHMANI: Yes.
TRIP: Okay. And now you and I met and I'm sure there were
others on our programs that were Jewish.
ALBERT NAHMANI: Was really Meher Baba a Jew?
TRIP: I don't know. Okay, maybe not. I was asking.
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