Namaste

Namaste. A belief. A blessing. A bow. What is “Namaste?”

In Yoga Journal, Aadil Pakkhivala defines Namaste as “a gesture (that) is an acknowledgement of the soul in one by the soul of another….Namaste literally means, ‘bow me you,’ or “I bow to you.’” For me, Namaste begins with the belief that there is the divine in each person I meet. Christian traditions speak to each of us being “made in God’s image,” each of us being imbued with the divine. Other religions deliver a similar message.

Try this for one day. Each person you see—your significant other, the mail carrier, the surly clerk at the grocery check out, the road enraged driver racing past—seek the divine. You may not see it. Like so many other things, in this we are often masters of disguise, even from ourselves. But for one day, seek it in each person you encounter. Seek it in yourself as you look in the mirror. Seek it in yourself as you go through the day. Namaste.

This is a part of my yoga practice. As with other aspects of yoga, it takes practice. I am far from having perfected it. But, especially when I find myself wanting to respond to negative energy with the same, I attempt to step back. Namaste.

“To perform Namaste, we place the hands together at the heart chakra, close the eyes, and bow the head,” (Aadil Pakkhivala, Yoga Journal). What could be more honorific than to bless the soul of another through your own soul? Namaste.

I found the importance of Namaste to me in a yoga workshop. We were doing a double circle exercise. There is an inner circle and an outer, with participants matched one-to-one. We were instructed, “Look into the eyes of the person across from you. Voice to that person something that you honor in them. It may be their wisdom, their looks, their compassion; it may be the divine that is in each of us.” Then the outer circle would move one person to the left. The instructions were the same. For some, honoring the divine was easy. It was so visible, right there looking back at me. For others, the divine was not visible, so I chose something else. This bothered me. As I thought about it I realized that the less visible the divine is in another, the more important that I seek it, honor it, allow it to rise to the surface. Namaste.

Namaste. A belief, a blessing, and a bow. Namaste, a new way of seeing. Namaste.