Namaste is more than a word you whisper at the end of yoga class. It is an invitation to recognize the divine within yourself and carry that sacred awareness into every moment of your daily life.
Namaste: Connect to the Divine Within
Na-ma-ste (n): I bow to you. The divine in me bows to the divine in you
The time you set aside to practice yoga is a beautiful gift you give to yourself. During that time, you have full permission to unplug from the distractions and worries that dog your days. Think of how good it feels to step onto the mat, take a few deep breaths, let your neck and shoulders relax, and settle into the now, where you belong. Practicing yoga is coming home to the present moment. When you’re on the mat, there is nowhere else you need to be, and nothing else you need to be doing other than connecting your mind, body, breath, and spirit.
And then, almost as quickly as it began, practice is over, and you return to real life, which is all too often busy, rushed, lonely, and disconnected.
But maybe, like me, you’re someone who doesn’t want the practice to end.
Maybe you’re someone who wants to feel that sense of inner peace, of connection, of being fully present, all the time.
Perhaps you want to bring yoga into your life, into your relationships, your community, and into the world, creating a sense of real and lasting transformation for the better.
Maybe you want your entire life to feel like a beautiful gift.
If so, then this book is written for you.
In your yoga practice, namaste is the peak pose.
Namaste Can Transform Your Life
It can transform the world.
But for namaste to reach its full potential, it must be lived. First, you have to understand it, then you have to really mean it when you say it, and finally you have to embody its wisdom in your daily life. This book shows you how to achieve one foundational goal of practicing yoga: to learn to live the wisdom of namaste.
Our starting place is the same place that any yoga practice begins with fundamentals. If namaste is a peak pose, you must build it from the ground up, ensuring that it rests on a strong foundation.
Namaste means “the divine in me bows to the divine in you.” So, when you say namaste, it is an invitation to recognize the divine in yourself. At its most fundamental, namaste is a reminder of your own divinity. In today’s world, acknowledging the divine within is a tremendous leap, one most people need support with. What does “the divine within” mean? What does it mean to call ourselves “divine”? These are the questions explored in this first chapter.
Here you’ll learn how to connect with the divine within and tap into your own inner peace through mindful breathing.
This mindfulness practice will serve as the foundation you return to in future chapters as you explore how connecting with the divine within can help you navigate moments of difficulty and challenge. Consider this chapter the first step on a new yoga journey, one where the practice doesn’t end as you step off the mat and the best things about yoga, the feelings of inner peace, connection, and being fully present—become more readily available to you every day, in all parts of your life.
A Brief History of Namaste
Namaste is originally a Sanskrit word made up of two parts: namas, meaning “bow,” “bend,” or “honor,” and te, meaning “to you.” Literally, namaste means “I bow to you.” In Hindi and several other Sanskrit-derived languages, it is a respectful way to say both hello and goodbye—much like aloha. Today, namaste has entered English alongside many other words borrowed from non-English languages.
From Sanskrit alone, English has adopted words such as yoga, avatar, guru, jungle, karma, shampoo, veranda, thug, loot, and punch. Some borrowed words keep both their original spelling and meaning, while others retain their spelling but take on new meanings in English. Namaste is one such word: in English, its meaning has expanded from “I bow to you” to “the divine in me bows to the divine in you.” Understanding this expanded meaning is central to Living Namaste.
While it is impossible to say for certain, it is most likely that the influence of Ram Dass in the 1960s and 1970s led to a change in the meaning of namaste. A charismatic spiritual teacher and bestselling author (his most popular book is Be Here Now) with a background in psychology, Dass toured college campuses and popularized yoga, meditation, and psychedelics as a countercultural lifestyle choice for a discontented generation.
In his book The Only Dance There Is, based on talks he gave in 1970 and 1972, Dass wrote:
In India when people meet and part, instead of saying hello or
goodbye, they say something to each other . . . which reminds
us of who we are . . . The word they use is Namasta. Na-masta.
It means “I honor the light within you.” So may I close by saying to all of you, Namasta.
Words of Connection
In Polishing the Mirror, he expands this definition as he recounts his experience studying meditation in India:
In India, when people meet, and they part, they say “Namaste,” which means:
I honor the place in you
Where the entire universe resides.
I honor the place in you
Of love, of light, of truth, of peace.
I honor the place in you
Where if you are in that place in you and
I am in that place in me,
There is only one of us.
Ram Dass captures a word in motion. Many common salutations have religious roots, including the Spanish and French words for goodbye: adios and adieu, or “a Dios” and “a Dieu”—literally meaning “to God.” These words are a way of saying “go with God.” This is even true of the English word goodbye—a contraction of “God be with you.”
The Divine Within
Most Indian religions and spiritual traditions agree that there is something divine in all people.
Tracing the evolving meaning of namaste, it is understandable how the word shifted from meaning “I bow to you” to “the divine in me bows to the divine in you.” During the countercultural revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, namaste evolved from a simple greeting and parting with a word that is a mini-meditation on the interconnectedness and shared divinity of all beings.
Fast-forward a couple of decades. As yoga’s popularity exploded in the 1990s and early 2000s, namaste became more popular, too. One of the most prominent yoga teachers of this period is Shiva Rea.
“I am Divine”
She introduced many Americans to the flowing sequence of postures called sun salutations and became so prominent that Vanity Fair dubbed her “the Madonna of the yoga world.” She also popularized the saying “namaste” at the end of practice.
In her words, namaste means “I bow to the divinity within you from the divinity within me.”
“This salutation is considered to be the essence of the yogic practice of seeing the divine within all creation,” she writes.
The New Age guru Deepak Chopra, who introduced many Americans to Indian philosophy as they followed what he called the “seven laws of spiritual success,” repeated a similar definition: “‘namaste’ means ‘the spirit in me honors the spirit in you’ and ‘the divine in me honors the divine in you.’”
One of my own meditation teachers, Tara Brach, describes namaste as a practice of “soul recognition” that involves “realizing and honoring the sacredness that shines through all beings.”
Today we need words of connection, words of unity, words that remind us of how much we share. This is exactly what namaste does. Said with intention, namaste is not just another three-syllable word muttered automatically, like bandana or pajama (two other words borrowed from Sanskrit and Hindi).
When you bow to another person, you are honoring something precious in them; you are acknowledging that they are sacred and worthy of respect; you are recognizing that they are a light in a world that can be dark and stormy. And if that light were to go out, our shared world would be dimmer.
But namaste does not simply mean “I bow to the divine in you”—it means “the divine in me bows to the divine in you.” The first of the three reminders of namaste is I Am Divine. There is something in you, too, dear reader, that is sacred and worthy of respect. You are a light in the dark. The world would be dimmer if your light were to go out. Each time you say namaste, it should come from a place of deep embodied understanding of your own divinity.
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About the Author
Jeremy David Engels, PhD, is a Liberal Arts Endowed Professor of Communication and Ethics at Penn State University. He is also a co-founder and teacher at Yoga Lab, which offers science-based yoga and meditation classes that emphasize mindfulness and functional movement. Jeremy has written extensively on community-building, peace, and justice. He lives in State College, Pennsylvania. jeremydavidengels.com
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