My mom and I have been taking a yoga class for several weeks which has several benefits, not the least of which is some mother-daughter bonding time. It is a day that I look forward to all week and I enjoy my yoga class very much. It's relaxing, it's fun, and it helps me with this whole being healthy thing I'm doing.
Anybody who has ever taken a yoga class will be familiar with the end-of-class ritual where everyone bows and says "namaste." For anyone who has not taken a yoga class, here's a little bit of background on the ritual and the meaning of the word. Namaste is a word that originates in India and literally means "I bow to you." The bow with the word is the recognition and acknowledgement of the divine spark, or soul, that lives within each of us. In some parts of the world, the bow alone gives this message. It is a beautiful, brief way to acknowledge that we are all the children of the divine, however or whoever we may understand that to be.
I think this is something that we don't take enough time to do. We fail to acknowledge the fact that our fellow human beings are all children of the divine. We all belong to God. It doesn't matter where we live, what we believe, what we wear, what we look like, what gender we are, or anything else.
I see a lot of things on TV, on the internet, on the street disparaging groups of people for one reason or another. Things that suggest that Arab mothers aren't "brave" because they strap bombs to their kids while Jewish mothers are brave because they will cover their child's body with their own to protect them. Or things that suggest that homosexuals are less than human. Or that women are less than men and don't deserve to make decisions for themselves because they lack a basic morality. Or that poor people are lazy, shiftless, and morally bankrupt. You get the idea.
Put bluntly, I think all of that is a bunch of crap. If we spend so much time tearing others down just to build ourselves up we cannot acknowledge their spark, their soul. I get really angry when I see anyone professing any viewpoint that says that one group is somehow worth less than another. But sadly, I see more of that from people I love and care about than I would like to admit, and that doesn't just make me angry. It also hurts my heart.
It hurts me because I truly believe that all of the external packaging is superficial. What really matters is our spark, our soul. I acknowledge that everyone, in the whole entire world, has the same soul as I do, and what's more, that their soul carries the same value as mine. None of the external stuff matters in the least. And when I am tempted to forget that, I remember that God loved Hitler. I'm pretty sure that God wasn't a fan of what Hitler was doing, but then, I'm not sure God is a fan of a lot of the stuff we're doing either.
Now, I am not God. My love is not perfect. I screw up and make mistakes and get angry and I judge others. However, I think if we could all be mindful of the fact that we all belong to God, it would be a lot harder to draw these lines and make these distinctions. It would be harder to say that I am better than you. Because I'm not, and you're not.
So what does all of this have to do with yoga? Well, for just a little bit, every Tuesday, I take the time to acknowledge the God-given soul that resides in all of us. From my heart I acknowledge that your soul and mine belong to God and that it is there that we are all truly equal. Namaste.
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