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 recognize the source of creation within them.
This is the intention behind doing namaskar
The
Hand of the Creator
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. And it is a constant reminder that the source of creation is within you
too. If you recognize this, you are paving the way towards your ultimate nature
every time you do namaskar.
There is another aspect to this. 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.
Making
Yourself into an Offering
So namaskar 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.
