The meaning of Namaste by Jeffrey Armstrong

I like listening to the Sivana Podcast with Ashton Szabo when I'm folding laundry, driving kids to football practice or waiting for the odd middle school surf PE pick up.  He recently interviewed the spiritual teacher, poet, author and speaker Jeffrey Armstrong.  The took on the HUGE title of "How Yoga Can Change the World".  Wow.  That's a big bite at the apple. 

Because of the lofty goals of the episode, Ashton asked the esteemed Mr. Armstrong to break down one simple way for all us yogis and yoginis to make a small change in the world.  Armstrong chose to focus on the word "Namaste". 

He said the word had three parts.  "Na" meaning Not, "mas" meaning me, and "te" meaning you.  Translated as "not me, but you".  He notes that namaste is not a philosophy, but rather a way of looking at someone else.  When you speak it to someone else, like in greeting or at the end of a yoga class, Armstrong asks that we see things a little differently than we normally do.  Namaste requires way more than the mere acknowledgement of that other person'spresence or body or appearance or opinions or thoughts. It says that the speaker of Namaste must see the consciousness of that/those people.   What is the consciousness?  More simply put, he said, "You must see the driver (that person who sits inside) and not the car (the exterior)."

So one way to use yoga to change the world comes down to how we look at one another.  It's a shift in perspective.  Mr. Armstrong asked us to see that inner light that unites us all instead of the exterior of the car.  He asks u sto "see every being as a divine traveler on a journey of being." 

So you look at your child sleeping and see the divine.  Simple enough.  But what about that driver who just cut you off on the way to work, or that Trump supporter or NRA member, chain smoker, commercially raised meat-eater, gas-guzzling SUV driver, person whose dog poops in your yard ever day, etc..?  Can you see that "driver"? Armstrong asks us to remember that we are all divine beings, even though some of the ideas we may have are wrong. He says that even though there are right and wrong choices for our world, that every divine being is in a different grade in school.  "You wouldn't date a sixth grader if you were in high school!" he quipped.  We are all in "different grades".

Yoga asks us to consider the divine connection all living beings have on this planet.  And when we see one another, we need to see more than the exterior of "the car". Armstrong finished his interview with Ashton by noting the urgency with which we need to do this for the sake of our world.  He concluded that this small shift in perspective could be a good start on the way to"holding the world together instead of living towards destruction." 

 So Namaste. I see you and I hear you, Mr. Armstrong.  We are all in this thing called life together.