The significance and meaning of namaskaram

When you see a person, whether it is in your workplace, on the street, at home or anywhere else, the nature of human intellect is such, the moment it sees, it will make a judgment – “this is okay in that person, this is not okay in that person. He is good, he is not good, he is beautiful, he is ugly” – all kinds of things. You don’t even have to consciously think all this. In a moment, these assessments and judgments are made. And your judgments may be completely wrong because they all are coming from your past experiences of life. They will not allow you to experience something or someone the way they are right now, which is very important. If you want to work effectively in any field, one thing is, if someone comes in front of you, to be able to grasp them the way they are right now is most important. How they were yesterday does not matter. How they are this moment is important. So, the first thing is you bow down. Once you bow down, your likes and dislikes become mild, not strong, because you recognise the source of creation within them. And it is a constant reminder that the source of creation is within you too. If you recognise this, you are paving the way towards your ultimate nature every time you do namaskaram.

There is no piece of creation without the hand of the creator operating in it. The source of creation is operating within every cell and atom. This is why in Indian culture, if you look up at the sky, the culture taught you to bow down. If you look down at the earth, you bow down. If you see a man, a woman, a child, a cow, a tree or whatever, you bow down. This is not some kind of subservience. This is a way of taking away the distinction of your judgment as to what is important and what is not important. Everything that has been created in this existence is important. That is why it is here. If you look at an ant closely, you will see, it is an exquisite piece of art. If someone took so much care to create this tiny little creature, who the hell are we to think it is not important? It is important that we look and act upon everything – the so-called small and big things in our life – with the same sense of involvement.

There is another aspect to namaskaram. Your palms have a lot of nerve endings – something that medical science has also discovered today. Actually, your hands speak more than your tongue and your voice. There is a whole science of mudras in yoga. Just by holding your hand in certain ways, you can make your whole system function in different ways. The moment you place your hands together, your dualities, your likes and dislikes, your cravings and aversions, all these things are leveled out. There is a certain oneness to the expression of who you are. The energies are functioning as one.

So namaskaram is not just a cultural aspect. There is a science behind it. If you are doing your sadhana, every time you bring your palms together, there is a crackle of energy – a boom is happening. On the level of your life energy, there is a giving, or you are making yourself into an offering to the other person. In that giving, you will make the other being into a life that will cooperate with you. Only if you are in a state of giving, things around will work out for you. This is so for every life. Only if it gets the cooperation of all life around itself, it manages to prosper.

(Ranked amongst the fifty most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a Yogi, mystic, visionary and a New York Times bestselling author. Sadhguru has been conferred the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India in 2017, the highest annual civilian award, accorded for exceptional and distinguished service. He is also the founder of the world’s largest people’s movement, Conscious Planet– Save Soil, which has touched over 4 billion people.)