“As the river gives itself into the ocean, what is inside me, moves inside you.” -Kabir, Inside This Clay Jug

While the Sanskrit word, “Namaste” is frequently used in our Western asana-based yoga classes, the depth and breadth of its meaning is not fully understood.  The recitation of Namaste is very powerful even to those practitioners who know not its full meaning and intention.  But the prayer and blessing becomes all the more transformational (on the conscious mind and the subtle body level) when delivered and received with a full understanding of its true meaning and intention.

Western Yoga Meaning of Namaste

In my years of practicing yoga (by which I mean the Western asana practice that we routinely call yoga) every class always ends with a group recitation of “Namaste.”  Although this is a fundamental component of every yoga class, I don’t believe that the participating majority in these classes know or understand the deep spiritual significance of the word “Namaste.”

A quick search of the internet for the meaning of Namaste reveals that it is “an ancient Sanskrit word often delivered as a greeting or before parting” and is literally translated into English as “I bow to you.”  This altered use as a greeting is analogous to the current use of “aloha” which traditionally meant love, peace, compassion or mercy to native Hawaiians, but has morphed into a colloquial island phrase accompanying greeting or departure.  While using Namaste in this context is still a beautiful greeting or a parting benediction, it falls far short of its complete meaning, and its full transformational potential.

Broader Meaning

More elaborate interpretations of Namaste proffer a meaning of “the God within me greets the God within you” or “the light within me bows to the light within you.”  A fundamental tenet in this broader interpretation is the concept of mutual spiritual respect.  This prayer and blessing is directed to each soul on its spiritual level.  It honors the spiritual core within each of us, and conveys a blessing of both recognition and respect from one soul to another at our most base level – our spiritual core.

The first component of this broader Namaste interpretation is affirmation, recognition and acknowledgement that there is divinity within me.  Before we can properly love another, we must learn to love ourselves.  In reciting Namaste, I must recognize and honor the divinity within me.  The second component of the prayer is the corresponding recognition of the divinity within you, and the affirmative prostration to that spirit within you.  I see and recognize the Divine within you, and I bow down in honor and respect to Her.

The Missing (or Misunderstood) Component

In each of these interpretations of the Namaste prayer and blessing, there is a contextual framework that hints of duality (or separateness) among the parties and their respective divinity.  I honor the Divine within me, and recognize and prostrate to the Divine within you.  A Namaste benediction delivered in this context by a Christian to a Sufi would convey (at a minimum) religious tolerance, as well as mutual spiritual respect.

But the intention behind the prayer goes beyond mere tolerance or mutual spiritual respect, to acknowledgement of complete spiritual identity.  To deliver the Namaste prayer and blessing is to acknowledge that the divinity that flows within my soul and the divinity that flows within your soul are ONE and the same (although you may recognize this divinity by another name and worship it in a manner or form that appears different to my name, manner and form of worship).

Consider the last two lines from Kabir’s poem, Inside this Clay Jug:

“As the river gives itself into the ocean, what is inside me, moves inside you.”

The penultimate line connotes that we are smaller parts of a vast and interconnected universe, and the last line is the analogous description of Namaste.

Namaste is a prayer and a blessing that recognizes and honors our spiritual identity and unity.  The divinity in your soul (aka Atman, Allah, Adonai, Krishna, Divine Mother, Shekinah, Holy Spirit, Christ, etc) is ONE and the same as the divinity in my soul.  We are not separate such that the concepts of respect and tolerance are inapplicable and misapplied.  To properly invoke the prayer and blessing of Namaste is to acknowledge our spiritual identity and unity – we are small pieces of a greater whole (the ONE), and we recognize and honor the little piece of the ONE that resides within each of us.