Namaste

Like many concepts and practices in of yoga, the greeting “Namaste” has a variety of meanings.  Its first and most common is simply a form of salutation or respect..

In this sense, the word is related to the practice of linked poses known as Surya Namaskar — is the “Sun Salutation” or greeting to the sun.  Surya is the sun and Namaskar is another form of Namaste.  The sequence can be a wide variety of connected postures depending on the practitioner, but it invariably begins with Tadasana (Mountain Pose) followed by Urdhva Hastasana – arms raised to the sky in greeting to the sun.

The ordinary, everyday meaning of namaste is grammatically “I bow to you,” with “nama” or bow as the key word.  The hands are held with the palms together in front of the chest and fingers extended.  It is a ubiquitous gesture in India and much of the Indian subcontinent and it can be relatively formal, fleeting and casual, or imbued with great respect.  Often it is a gesture of reverence to an honored person.   It is something like a handshake, and perhaps like a bow in Japan – for both, there are shadings of meaning and subtle expressions of status in the way it is done.

It is identified in the West as a sign of respect and often used to open and close a class.  In that sense it is like the practice in some martial arts of “bowing in” at the beginning of the class and “bowing out” to close.  It is an expression of respect, gratitude, and closure to the group experience of practicing together.  It is more ritualized than, say, a typical end of a meeting of friends because it signifies that the preceding moments have been significant, that they are now ended, and that one acknowledges the importance of the experience.

In yoga in the United States it has often been taken from the everyday, common practice of social relations to a specific recognition of the experience of yoga practice in the company of a community of other practitioners.  It may also signify the mutual respect and gratitude of the students and teacher to each other, or to the lineage in which they are practicing.  Those meanings have developed within the community of practice and have a significance that goes beyond the simple grammar of the gesture.

For some there is a further spiritual meaning that also goes beyond the grammar to signify affirmation of a deeper connection to the persons to whom it is offered.  The translation of this intent can be taken to mean “The spirit (or the holy) in me bows to the spirit (or holy) in you.”  This deeper gesture is also referred to as the Anjali Mudra, or Pramanasana. Here, it is important that the hands are held near the energy center of the heart — the anahata chakra traditional yoga. In this form it is more than a simple greeting or gesture of gratitude — it is a spiritual expression of shared humanity and purpose.  If done sincerely it can reference an inner spiritual quality (perhaps something like the Buddhist understanding of a “Buddha nature” that we all share deep in inside) — or it may have the sense of the type of religious meaning embodied in the biblical injunction that “All are equal in the sight of the Lord.”  In signifies that whatever separates us in much of our daily lives, in this moment I recognize and honor our common worth and dignity. A goal of the practice is to truly mean this expression of universality (hold it in the heart, or anahata chakra); another is to extend that expression into more and more of one’s life.

 

Om, A-U-M

Two thoughts:

As the universal word/syllable, it has all meanings, and yet no single  meaning.  It doesn’t name a specific deity.  It refers to an ineffable, universal spirit of the universe.  This is unsatisfying to people who want a literal interpretation, but there it is.

                      ….

There is also, as always, a minimalist, secular meaning to OM/A-U-M.  At the very least, it is a resonant syllable (or three linked syllables) and a silence, that help focus, concentrate and pacify the mind.  It shares a bit of this characteristic with the pranayama technique of Brahmari, which is the breath invoking a bumblebee which is resonated higher in the nasal band.  OM is throatier and more deeply resonant, filling the space in the chest the head and preparing the mind to focus on practice.

OM/A-U-M  as the sound of the universe.

Om is more complicated because of its multiplicity of  spiritual meanings in many different traditions.  We know the written symbol from its popularization as a decorative device, its appearance in the names of yoga apparel and studios, its uses by businesses and commercial products; and elsewhere in popular culture.

OM is also a form of prayer or invocation to express an inward reverence and centering.  Its spiritual meaning may vary from person to person, but there is a deeper potential to the symbol and its sound than the numerous appearances in popular culture,

We may know it as the opening syllable in many chants, prayers and incantations in the Hindu tradition.  It does not reference or name any specific entity, but rather salutes the entity of the greeting.  Some examples known to many Western yogis:

Om bhur bramah savah,,, (the Gyatri)

Om ekadanta ya vidmahe ,,, (chant to Ganesha, referred to as “one-tooth” — ekadanta)

Om ganapataye namahe.. (again, to Ganesha, sometimes called Ganapati)

Om namah shivaya… (greeting/honoring Shiva)

It is also found in some Buddhist practices, as in the mantra “Om mani padme hum,” the mantra to Avalokitesvara,  Bodhisattva of compassion.

There are many other examples linked to Indian spiritual practice and often to specific chants.  This does not necessarily make OM just Hindu (or Buddhist), but employs it as an invocation and sign of reverence.

There are many other occasions where OM is present. We often chant “OM” at the beginning and end of classes, sometimes with “Shanti, shanti, shanti” (peace, peace, peace).

There are many, many deeper meanings and interpretations associated with the holy syllable, and they often give pause to people identified with non-Hindu religious traditions.  This has led many non-Hindu practitioners to re-interpret those meanings to accommodate their own beliefs.

Practitioners from other religious traditions sometimes substitute a chant or prayer from their own heritage to perform the same function of invocation and respect.  One Christian website expresses respect for the intent of the OM chant, but substitutes syllables from their Catholic faith.  Another website describes yoga among conservative Jews in Crown Heights, New York, where poses are not named in Sanskrit, conservative clothing is worn and the chant is given as “Shalom.”  Yet another Jewish practitioner, now living and teaching in Israel, describes how her early contact with OM was tinged by a California hippie ethos, then by religious overtones she could not accept.  She accepted OM only after a decade of personal practice by interpreting its universality as the “eternal word.”

Many practitioners are interpreting traditional Eastern meanings in their own diverse ways.  They recognize that in many religious traditions you can find very conservative and orthodox/fundamentalist believers who reject any yoga or chant as idolatry or “false religion.”  Yet there are members in these same faiths, both liberal and conservative, who cherish the practice of yoga and actively find an accommodation with their own faith. Many agnostics find no conflict in the spiritual practices and can be fairly ecumenical and tolerant about them, but atheists may find the chants to be a bit too “theist” for their taste. These things are not always easy when you take the spiritual side of yoga seriously, and the the diversity of yogis has produced a wide range of practices and accommodations.

The most general spiritual explanation is that OM is the supreme mantra of India, a sacred sound that dates back thousands of years.  Here it is also known as omkara, aumkara, or pranava.

In Pantanjali sutra 1.27 it is taken to refer to the Higher Power: “His word is OM.”

[For more on the above, see a related post in this blog series on the “God” Sutras in Patanjali)

As the universal word/syllable, it has all meanings, and yet no single  meaning.  It doesn’t name a specific deity.  It refers to an ineffable, universal spirit of the universe.  This is unsatisfying to people who want a literal interpretation, but there it is.

It is a universal sound of the universe, or, in some explanations, it is really three sounds and the fourth non-sound, the silence between OM’s.  OM as A-U-M has a polysyllabic, polyvocal set of meanings.

As A-U-M it can refer to many different tripartite notions.  To some it is to the conscious, unconscious, and subconscious. Adding the non-sound at the end, it may also signify the supraconscious.  It may also refer to the three faces of the Higher Power – Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the sustainer), and Shiva (the destroyer — who of course is also the Lord of yoga). These multiple aspects of “God” interpretation is often depicted in Indian statues of the trimukta, the three faces of God – there are also echoes of this in the Christian notions of the Holy Trinity.  Others see in it three forms of consciousness – the waking state (A), the dream state (U), and sleep (M). Some see in it a metaphor for time – past, present and future (all that is, ever was, and will come to be).  There is no end of of evolved meanings, as you might expect in a tradition that is thousands of years old.

There is also a grammatical metaphor: The A-U-M represents the beginning, middle and end of the Sanskrit alphabet and, therefore, is the word that stands for all words and meanings.  To preserve this sense, OM is often chanted as three sounds with each pronounced as the mouth and vocal apparatus changes in a sliding polysyllabic scale.  The resonance of A-U-M is different and more inflected than the monosyllabic OM.

There is, in the end, a minimalist secular thought on OM/A-U-M.  At the very least it is a resonant syllable (or three linked syllables) and a silence, that help focus, concentrate and pacify the mind.  It shares a bit of this characteristic with the pranayama technique of Brahmari, which is a special breath that invokes the sound of a bumblebee.  It is resonated higher in the nasal band.  OM is throatier and more deeply resonant, preparing the mind to focus on practice.