When you google NAMASTE here is what you get:
* “I honor the Spirit in you which is also in me."
* "I honor the place in you in which the entire Universe dwells”
* "I honor the place in you which is of Love, of Integrity, of Wisdom and of Peace”* “When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are One."
* "I salute the God within you."* "I recognize that we are all equal."
* “The entire universe resides within you."* “The divine peace in me greets the divine peace in you."
* "Your spirit and my spirit are ONE."* "That which is of the Divine in me greets that which is of the Divine in you."
* "The Divinity within me perceives and adores the Divinity within you".Something about this greeting - which comes from the East, and the gesture of bowing from the heart, has always compelled me, way before I knew what it meant. It was not part of the culture I grew up in.
As much as I love touching, hugging, and feel comfortable with showing physical affection, aesthetically and energetically, NAMASTE feels right, because there it is an honoring of the One Self. You have to be confident, sincere, self-contained, and dwell in your own body, in order to bow and not fall, stumble or feel ridiculous, when both your hands are touching together at the level of the heart, and when you're facing another.As a westerner, you have to be sufficiently free of your ego - in order for such a gesture to be authentic. Whenever I see the Dalai Lama bow and smile, I can feel the lightness of heart, that has come to symbolize an inner peacefulness that is honoring of the One Self, and yet it feels whimsical and funny at the same time.
In 2007, I had to learn through some very challenging experiences, the virtue of Self-honoring. That if I didn't do my part in honoring my Self - NAMASTE was not complete. It could become yet another co-dependent, looking-good, yet, feeling-empty-inside deal. And I don't mean emptiness in the Buddhist way, but rather feeling damaged, lost and bruised-at-the ego way. I had to learn how to take full responsibility for NAMASTE.The culmination of this learning came in my end-of-the-year trip to Israel, from which I just returned. Every year, around Christmas, I go to Israel to visit my-now-95-year-old-mother and other family and also do some work there - usually in the form of teaching a workshop. This year, with my new book & 2 CD’s The Joy Of Being with One Global Breath - just published, I went only for six days, gave a workshop in Tel-Aviv, and presented a meditation for world peace at four branches of the Reidman College for Complementary medicine.
My challenge with NAMASTE started at Kennedy airport, when my connecting flight to Tel-Aviv via Toronto got cancelled, and I found myself with 50 other passengers feeling angry – especially in the face of what looked like shabby attitude of the ground personnel. I realized very fast, that if I kept up my attitude and got into self-righteous complaining, I would probably get fast to nowhere. When I surrendered my stress to the breath, returned to the flow of Presence, my attitude changed and the same woman behind the counter who was so indifferent to me – found me a great flight, and I flew to Frankfurt with Singapore Airlines (what a treat) and spent there 8 hours - having a great time before continuing to Tel-Aviv.
On the 30th of December, I had to drive about 250 miles through the Dead Sea, the Jordan River, and the West Bank area, to facilitate a meditation at the lake of Galilee branch of the college and then at the Haifa branch. Both meditations were dynamic - with about 80 participants, who breathed and danced for world peace.
At the end of the last meditation in Haifa, a woman came up to me and said: “Thanks for demonstrating peace with yourself through the way you look, act and dance – at 60. You inspire me.” I declined an invitation for dinner with the staff, so that I could drive to visit my mother - who lives in a convalescent home in Rehovot - one hundred miles away. After another hour and a half drive, feeling content and at peace, I arrived at my mother’s home. She expressed her anxiety about my driving in Israel.
"I'm much better off with you living in New York. When you come to visit, all I do is worry about you getting into an accident on the road" she said.
"Well mother", I answered. "This is our work. Whenever I call you after 8:00PM from NYC, and you don't answer the phone, I am sure that something bad must have happened to you, or that you're dead. It is exactly this crazy mind of ours, and the stories it tells us that we are responsible to make peace with. You know, this is what I did today. I taught that world peace starts with ourselves. Making peace with our own threatening and violent minds."
Stunned by my response, she seemed calmer for a moment. I thought that now, we were going to have a nice visit. Since my mother is now hard of hearing, I sit close to her, and often hold her hand, so that she can hear me better and also feel me near her. These days we often spend many moments in silence, gazing into each other's eyes. Everything necessary to be said - has been said, and there are not many words needed at this point to share our presence. I have never had much good verbal communication with my mother. At this point, I just want to share love with her, and my gratitude for her doing so well at her amazing old age.
As I was getting into the meditative space of Being with her with my guard down, she said, looking at the blue laces of my sneakers: "Where did you find these shoe laces, I bet you had to go out of your way to find them... when are you going to start dressing like an adult?"
Not too surprised by her familiar sarcasm, I answered, "These shoes came with the blue laces, and are the reason why I got them in the first place."
"And that stupid ring you're wearing.... when are you going to change your ways and become a normal human being?" she commented, pointing to the sliver ring I got some months ago - to affirm my renewed commitment to life - after the break-up of my relationship.
At that point, I felt the old, deep, familiar pain of self-doubt, at the center of my diaphragm - similar to when I was told started breathing, consciously inviting the breath to fill this pain with love. I sat there for another minute, looking into my mother's old blue eyes, and then without much hesitation, I trusted the whispering of my soul, got up, kissed her on both cheeks, and bowed to her, and walked away.
As I drove back to Tel-Aviv, I realized that as never before, I had experienced the Self-honoring part of NAMASATE quite like that.
I thought that perhaps NAMASTE is what the human condition has been struggling with forever. Perhaps, dis-honoring of the One Self is what’s behind global wars and world conflicts. The reason we can treat each other and ourselves with so much unkindness - acting out our deep-seeded fears and responses to our unconscious dishonoring traumas.
While being honored for who we are -is our birthright as humans, it is not something we can take for granted, but rather is our responsibility to keep growing and evolving into. As far as I have seen, everyone I meet has been dishonored in some way or another. Naturally, we want to be treated with respect – for who we are, but we are unaware that we are dishonoring ourselves and each other as we were dishonored. All you have to do is listening to what people complain about. When a flight is cancelled, see what comes up for passengers who are met with the polite-yet-dishonoring attitude of the airlines; watch what happens when you ask for directions at Dwayne Reed and are met with ‘customer-no-service’; treated by a doctor who sees you as a statistic, crave an intimate connection and are met with alienation Or, a senator who is running for president, and who shows she is human, capable of emoting when asked “How do you do it?” “How do you honor yourself to come across so wonderfully perfect, but why can’t I feel you?” Could it be that when we honor ourselves, we attract experiences and people who honor us, and if they don’t we walk away?
The ability to recognize and name the feeling of being dishonored, accepting and honoring myself by breathing, open to loving it from the Source, – is my practice of the healing. Continuing to practice this honoring, whenever triggered out of it, is the dynamic process of mindfulness – the art of NAMASTE.
Whenever life as we know it comes to an end, whenever we face a loss, a threat, a diagnosis, an adversity or a setback, our internalized dishonoring trauma of self-doubt at the core may flair up and rob us of Presence, the Joy Of Being. This is the practice I am at the service of demonstrating, teaching and coaching – how to return to the flow of Presence, restore authenticity and SEf-Honoring - NAMASTE.
Wishing you a happy, Self-Honoring new year,
Samuel J. Kirschner
So soulman, here goes my first blogging. I am losing my virginity all over the place since I have met you. I hope nobody else get to read this.
I really like the Namaste writing. I think it is some of your best, and it is certainly germaine to where I am these days, as I allow my daily mindfulness practice to help me define Self and Self-Honoring in new ways. Mo'
Posted by: Mo' | January 11, 2008 at 08:06 PM