Namaste is a Hindu greeting that acknowledges the divine aspect of the person being greeted. It has been adopted outside of India thanks to the influence of Indian spiritual practices, such as yoga. The greeting is derived from the Sanskrit word namas, which means to bow down or pay homage to another being. When performing the namaste greeting, the eyes are closed, and the hands are brought together in a prayer-like gesture over the heart as they bow. The purpose behind Indian spiritual practices, including yoga, is to tame and lessen the demands and weaknesses of the human ego.
Namaste is a greeting traditionally used by Hindus to acknowledge the divine aspect of the person being greeted. The greeting, and its variant, namaskar, has been adopted outside of India and the Hindu world, thanks to the influence of Indian spiritual practices such as various forms of yoga. Although namaste can be used as a daily greeting in a similar way to the use of “good morning” in English, the term has a specific spiritual meaning for Hindus and Sikhs. Yoga teachers often invoke the greeting at the beginning and end of classes to help students recognize their inherent divinity and connection to the teacher.
The greeting is derived from namas, a Sanskrit word that refers to bowing down or paying homage to another being. It denotes reverence for the other person when the suffix te, the Sanskrit second person singular pronoun, is added. Therefore, namaste literally means “to bow down.” More poetically, it could be interpreted to mean “I bow to the light (or divine spirit) within you.” When performing the namaste greeting, the eyes are closed and the hands are brought together in a prayer-like gesture over the heart as they bow.
Used as an ordinary daily greeting in the Indian subcontinent, the word namaste itself is often omitted, as the bow and clasped hands imply greeting. When the greeting is used during yoga classes in the West, the word is usually uttered as a means to help students realize the nature of divine love and recognize that the same divine power is embodied in all sentient beings. In yoga, the heart chakra is seen as the energetic center of that universal love, and by invoking the namaste greeting, teacher and student acknowledge their divine connection to each other and to the universe at large. During meditation, the student can also offer the inner greeting as a way of acknowledging their own divine nature.
One of the purposes behind Indian spiritual practices, including various schools of yoga, is to tame and lessen the demands and weaknesses of the human ego. Using the namaste greeting helps instill a sense of humility and reverence for others and all of creation. By recognizing the divine aspect in ourselves and in others, it is believed that the human personality with all its fears and desires can be subservient to our higher and nobler aspects. On an intellectual level, the namaste invocation seeks to create a meeting of minds to achieve a greater good.
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