Are you noticing the word ‘Namaste’ more and more?
I am!
Maybe now we’re communicating about it, we’ll see it more and more. Life has a way of working like that. What you focus on, you get more of. Worth noticing what we are noticing, isn’t it.

When I write the word namaste, pronounced “nah-mah-STAY”, sometimes people ask me what it means.

Namaste is an ancient Sanskrit blessing, a combination of the two Sanskrit words, nama, and te.
Basically, nama means “to bow” and te means “you.”

Namaste is then “bow to you.”

Sanskrit is an ancient Indic language, a fixed literary language, that is the language of Hinduism and the Vedas and is the classical literary language of India.

The mudra, a series of symbolic body postures and hand movements, for namaste is, hands held together, palms and insides of fingers facing (as the position when in prayer), in front of the heart or brow chakra, head bowed slightly downward, eyes sometimes closed. It is a gesture of being humble, expressed as a recognition that we are all equal, all of us are childen of god, we are all one. Around the globe it’s used as a greeting.

The word namaste is also used around the globe as a completion, without the accompanying prayerful hands and the bowing head gesture. In writing, as you might use love, or sincerely, or kind regards.

You may have seen these namaste greeting translations, or a variable of them:

‘The God/Goddess within me acknowledges the God/Goddess within you.’

‘The Spirit in me meets the same Spirit in you.’

‘I greet that place where you and I are one.’

‘I salute the divine in you.’

‘I salute the Light of God in you.’

‘I bow to the divine in you.’

‘I recognize that within each of us is a place where Divinity dwells, and when we are in that place, we are One.’

I see these phrases quite a lot on images in MySpace. Maybe you have a picture with these words on your MySpace?

My Mum trained as a yoga teacher with The British Wheel of Yoga. She tells me namaste is also a yogic thank you. In that, yoga students sometimes say “Namaste” at the end of a class as a thank you, honoring their teacher.

The sound of the word inspires a beautiful feeling when I speak it, a feeling like a soft, tender, warm, whispering breeze. I like that it speaks of humility, unity, love, appreciation, honor, respect, oneness, … I hope to hear it more!

“Namaste”

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