Pandemic: Handshake to Namasté

Namasté is a gesture of greeting undertaken by many at this time of physical distancing. It replaces the handshake that has been with us in the western world since ancient times. My friend and classicist Dr. Brian Burke notes that the marriage contract in ancient Rome first ritualized the clasped hands of bride and groom. Eventually the act moved into society itself signifying honesty and truth. Some ancient Roman coins showed the goddess Concordia (hearts together) shaking hands with a Roman citizen. (Winning the Heart of America)

The origin of Namasté is Hindu and its spirit is quintessentially Buddhist. Hands are pressed together, thumbs close to the chest and fingers pointing upwards, the head bows slightly. I have mostly seen the gesture translated "I bow to the divine in you." But a Buddhist friend Stefan Schindler, who once lived in a Zen monastery for a year, translates the gesture as meaning, "The divine in me bows to the divine in you." The one hand signifying the divine in oneself greets the other hand the divine in the other with head bowed. The divine in me bows to the divine in you. Namasté. (donstefanschindler.com)

It strikes me that as a physical gesture namasté also evokes the Christian greeting, "The Lord be with you... And also with you." I bow to the Lord with you; you bow to the Lord with me. Similarly, "The peace of the Lord be always with you... And also with you." It recalls Mary’s greeting of Elizabeth in the Gospel of Luke. “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit” (1:41). Mary responds with her song of praise, the Magnificat. Namasté. In each case Hindu, Buddhist or Christian, the gesture is praise language.

Spiritual awakening happens through the ascent from pride to praise. Hugh of St. Victor (c.1096-1141) observed that “if you truly love the virtuous, whatever blessing comes to them makes the charity which is in you rejoice as though the benefit were yours and not another’s.” (Soliloquy, p. 21) Namasté. The divine in me bows to the divine in you.

Pride covets what another has; or perhaps more dangerously pride covets what one possesses that another does not. This was the conundrum in which the Apostle Paul found himself and that he describes in his Letter to the Romans, chapter 7. Paul lived the life of Torah judging those who did not. It was an example of this second kind of pride. Mark Nanos describes “the human impulse to covet into discriminating by the Law against the one who does not also embrace the Law” as a trap. (The Mystery of Romans, p.362) The more Paul tries to keep the Law the more he breaks it by coveting his privileged position. Paul cries, “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (7:24-25) Pride judges one person in and the other out. This can be overcome by living according to the Spirit of Christ. The spiritual life produces inclusion (all in Christ) and equality, the impulse to judge another inferior is overcome. As Christians we have not all learned Paul’s lesson. We too can fall prey to partisanship and judge others to be outsiders with fewer privileges. This has hurt the church immensely. Praise recalls us to the awareness that the divine is present to all and no one is loved less than another. Namasté.

One needs to ascend from pride to praise. This is awakening, or what one might say today, being “woke.” The Quaker and Welsh Poet Waldo Williams said that the purpose of praise is “to recreate an unblemished world,” a world that shines with inclusion and equality. Praise language undercuts pride and exclusion. It builds unity where each is equally loved.  The divine in me bows to the divine in you. Namasté.

Burke, Brian Charles; Winning the Heart of America: Abraham Lincoln Takes a Hand in the American War of Civility; Philadelphia, 2012.

Hugh of St. Victor; Soliloquy on the Earnest Money of the Soul; translated by Kevin Herbert; Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1956.

Nanos, Mark D.; The Mystery of Romans: The Jewish Context of Paul’s Letter; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996.