Why Saying “Namaste” is Culturally Insensitive and NOT Just a Yoga Term.
All you aspiring yogis, this is for you.
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“Assalamualaikum”, “Sat Sri Akaal” and “Namaste”. What do they all have in common? They are a greeting attached to three different faiths. One belongs to Islam, another to Sikhi (or Sikhism as it’s more commonly known as) and the other to Hinduism. I’ll let you figure out which is which.
The key word to focus on is faith. They all actually mean something to groups of people who follow a particular path in life and out of all faith-based greetings, the most misused and mainstream one has to be Namaste. In Hinduism, Namaste is a respectful greeting when giving namaskar and means “I bow to the divine in you”. Now that beautiful meaning and greeting has become this:
Why? What does that phrase even mean? But it’s not just the word Namaste itself that is being wrongfully puked over every Western wannabe yoga and spiritual movement, there’s a whole list of spin off words/phrases that have come off the back of it that are now used in everything from clothing to movies to songs. A few examples are:
- Namaste in bed
- Namaslay
- Namaste-away
- Namaste at the bar
- Namaste bitches (as shown on that confused sweatshirt in the above picture)
There’s a whole list but I’ll stop there. Commodifying parts of a religion or culture for t-shirt sales and a lifestyle practice is where learning to balance life and beginning your spiritual journey starts to become somewhat of an issue for me. As someone who is British Indian, I get it. I get the Western need to understand life, meditation, yoga, oneness, mindfulness and all the Eastern spiritual practices that teach us so much about ourselves; in mind, body and spirit. When you grow up and live in West, there isn’t much emphasis on understanding these practices and exploring another side to life and yourself and so when you come across them in Eastern philosophy, it’s pretty mind-blowing stuff.
“They are here for everyone to appreciate, not for everyone to appropriate.”
