Why I Don’t Say Namaste In A Yoga Class
It’s not because I don’t honor the light in you
I don’t say Namaste at the end of class because it does not mean, “the light in me honors the light in you.” We’ll get deeper into that in a bit, though.
I am a white, able-bodied woman.
It’s important that I acknowledge where I stand in this conversation before I dive into a topic that contains a lot of intersections between race, ethnicity, history, and colonization.
I’m going to talk about some of the ways I have learned yoga has been colonized and whitewashed. It matters to me to educate others on these issues.
I care a lot about decolonizing yoga and not only amplifying the way we’ve made yoga more digestible for white people in the West but amplifying the voices of the South Asian and Desi community.
Let’s jump in.
Namaste
Does not mean, “ the light in me honors the light in you.” I did not grow up in India, so I have never had the lived experience of greeting someone this way. I do know that Namaste is a way of greeting someone with deep reverence.
If you’ve had other experiences with Namaste, let me know in the comments.
