Its come to be expected. After savasana, role to your right side, press up into a seated position, bring hands to heart center in anjali mudra...maybe there’s an Om, maybe not, but the last element of practice, the final close is often a chorus of “Namaste.” Many - maybe most - yoga teachers close their class this way. But not me. Why not? You might expect it, you might miss it, but what is it?
Namaste is a Hindi phrase with Sanskrit origins often used to end a yoga class in the way “Amen” is used to end a Christian prayer or sermon. However, outside of the western yoga context its simply a greeting. A salutation, as in Surya Namaskar A and B, sun salutations.
According to Merriam-Webster, "...namaste is formed from namaḥ, meaning “bow, obeisance, adoration,” and the enclitic pronoun te, meaning “to you.” The noun namaḥ, in turn, is a derivative of the verb namati, which means “(she or he) bends, bows.” (How 'Namaste' Entered The English Language)
Here are some things Namaste does not mean:
At least, not literally. But perhaps there is a symbolic or culturally understood meaning, an additional significance?
Not to Indian people….
"My parents taught us to say namaste as kids growing up in India. They told my younger sister, my brother and me that it was good manners to say namaste to the elders. It was the equivalent of hello, but with an element of respect. If we didn't say namaste, they wouldn't consider us to be good kids."
And while for Hindi folks there is a connotation of reverence and respect for elders, the flowery and effusive definitions on inspirational JPGs all over Pinterest are new meanings coming out of western yoga culture. Invented by white yogis.
So...why are we giving a respectful greeting in a language we do not speak at the end of class, to close our yoga practice?
Is there perhaps a bit of Orientalism at work here? An unintentional and ignorant mis-attribution of meaning based on the racist and colonialist idea that “eastern cultures” are mystical, spiritual, pure; and yoga is ancient, authentic, unchanging? As if using an “exotic” foreign language, an “ancient” (and therefore pure) liturgical (spiritual!) language somehow facilitates you feeling like you’re connected to some holy energy?
Its not uncommon to hear people say that namaste means “the divine in me bows to the divine in you” .... if that's the sentiment you wish to express, why not say it in English? Most of us are pronouncing 'namaste' incorrectly anyway.
Why do we feel the need to express our reverence for and gratitude to each other with a word from another language? It is because we think that language, we view that culture, to somehow have some ancient mystical quality that makes it more spiritual, more meaningful, more authentic? To me, that feels like racist essentialism. And that's why I choose not to say namaste in yoga class.
As Kamna Muddagouni writes in the Sydney Morning Herald, "Sure, there are yoga teachers in western societies who have studied Hindu teachings in their certified yoga teacher courses. Critically analysing your yoga practice isn't undermining the years these yogis might have spent dedicated to learning this form of exercise, art, lifestyle – whatever it may mean to them. It's about questioning whether your practice of yoga is claiming space away from people of colour to whom yoga is more than a part of their daily routine – it's a part of their cultural and religious identity.
It's about considering whether you can practise yoga without spiritually harvesting a culture and religion that is not yours when you have no deeper understanding, or desire to understand, the historical and social roots of the culture yoga comes from.
And it's about considering whether your casually saying a few namastes at the end of your yoga class feeds into the commodification of Hindu spirituality that then makes it OK for people to Instagram memes such as 'Namaste away from me', to publish a yoga book as a white woman called 'Namaslay', and to make people of South Asian and Hindu identity feel exoticised and misunderstood."
Namaste is a Hindi phrase with Sanskrit origins often used to end a yoga class in the way “Amen” is used to end a Christian prayer or sermon. However, outside of the western yoga context its simply a greeting. A salutation, as in Surya Namaskar A and B, sun salutations.
According to Merriam-Webster, "...namaste is formed from namaḥ, meaning “bow, obeisance, adoration,” and the enclitic pronoun te, meaning “to you.” The noun namaḥ, in turn, is a derivative of the verb namati, which means “(she or he) bends, bows.” (How 'Namaste' Entered The English Language)
Here are some things Namaste does not mean:
At least, not literally. But perhaps there is a symbolic or culturally understood meaning, an additional significance?
Not to Indian people….
"My parents taught us to say namaste as kids growing up in India. They told my younger sister, my brother and me that it was good manners to say namaste to the elders. It was the equivalent of hello, but with an element of respect. If we didn't say namaste, they wouldn't consider us to be good kids."
And while for Hindi folks there is a connotation of reverence and respect for elders, the flowery and effusive definitions on inspirational JPGs all over Pinterest are new meanings coming out of western yoga culture. Invented by white yogis.
So...why are we giving a respectful greeting in a language we do not speak at the end of class, to close our yoga practice?
Is there perhaps a bit of Orientalism at work here? An unintentional and ignorant mis-attribution of meaning based on the racist and colonialist idea that “eastern cultures” are mystical, spiritual, pure; and yoga is ancient, authentic, unchanging? As if using an “exotic” foreign language, an “ancient” (and therefore pure) liturgical (spiritual!) language somehow facilitates you feeling like you’re connected to some holy energy?
Its not uncommon to hear people say that namaste means “the divine in me bows to the divine in you” .... if that's the sentiment you wish to express, why not say it in English? Most of us are pronouncing 'namaste' incorrectly anyway.
Why do we feel the need to express our reverence for and gratitude to each other with a word from another language? It is because we think that language, we view that culture, to somehow have some ancient mystical quality that makes it more spiritual, more meaningful, more authentic? To me, that feels like racist essentialism. And that's why I choose not to say namaste in yoga class.
As Kamna Muddagouni writes in the Sydney Morning Herald, "Sure, there are yoga teachers in western societies who have studied Hindu teachings in their certified yoga teacher courses. Critically analysing your yoga practice isn't undermining the years these yogis might have spent dedicated to learning this form of exercise, art, lifestyle – whatever it may mean to them. It's about questioning whether your practice of yoga is claiming space away from people of colour to whom yoga is more than a part of their daily routine – it's a part of their cultural and religious identity.
It's about considering whether you can practise yoga without spiritually harvesting a culture and religion that is not yours when you have no deeper understanding, or desire to understand, the historical and social roots of the culture yoga comes from.
And it's about considering whether your casually saying a few namastes at the end of your yoga class feeds into the commodification of Hindu spirituality that then makes it OK for people to Instagram memes such as 'Namaste away from me', to publish a yoga book as a white woman called 'Namaslay', and to make people of South Asian and Hindu identity feel exoticised and misunderstood."
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