Wednesday, February 15, 2006
namaste, namaskar. . . a call for a return to unity
Many of you have asked or perhaps wondered on your own why we bring the palms together at the end of the class and say "namaste".
This Yoga Journal article explains what "namaste" means.
Yogis believe that everything in the world is of the same essence, which is the divine essence. . . However, somehow we, inhabitants of the world grew to forget about this. Because we are encouraged to develop a strong sense of self when we grew up, due to our selfish egos, we tend to see things divided into distinct categories. Usually, this takes the form of an "us" versus "them" perspective. The tragic conflicts in history and in the present day is a sad manisfestation of this "me" versus "others" delusion. These categories do not have an existence outside our minds. They are a mental construct. They are not real. They prevent us from experiencing the world in a real way. And ultimately, they become a cage, an obstacle to our ability to see the unity of all things. And what's worse, we lose our sense of the divinity in ourselves and in things of our world.
I feel that the namaste or namaskar (the more formal version) greeting is a call for a return to this recognition of our essential unity, a co-acknowledgement that the same essence that is in me is in you and that at a very fundamental level, we are all one. This unity is what yoga is all about. "Yoga" itself means "unity" or "to unite" -- first to unite us with a sense of who we are and to unite us to all beings in the world.
Y Our thanks to Fern Fern for asking the question.
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This Yoga Journal article explains what "namaste" means.
Yogis believe that everything in the world is of the same essence, which is the divine essence. . . However, somehow we, inhabitants of the world grew to forget about this. Because we are encouraged to develop a strong sense of self when we grew up, due to our selfish egos, we tend to see things divided into distinct categories. Usually, this takes the form of an "us" versus "them" perspective. The tragic conflicts in history and in the present day is a sad manisfestation of this "me" versus "others" delusion. These categories do not have an existence outside our minds. They are a mental construct. They are not real. They prevent us from experiencing the world in a real way. And ultimately, they become a cage, an obstacle to our ability to see the unity of all things. And what's worse, we lose our sense of the divinity in ourselves and in things of our world.
I feel that the namaste or namaskar (the more formal version) greeting is a call for a return to this recognition of our essential unity, a co-acknowledgement that the same essence that is in me is in you and that at a very fundamental level, we are all one. This unity is what yoga is all about. "Yoga" itself means "unity" or "to unite" -- first to unite us with a sense of who we are and to unite us to all beings in the world.
Y Our thanks to Fern Fern for asking the question.