The meaning of Namaste

Of all the paths to God, there is one called the path of the heart. The thing of primary importance is to seek God in the heart of mankind. There are three ways of seeking God in the heart of mankind.

The first way of seeking is to recognize the divine in everyone; then to be considerate towards every person with whom we come in contact in our thought, speech and action. The second way is to think of the feelings of someone who is not with one at the moment. Humans often think of those who are present but often neglect to feel for someone who is out of sight. The third way of seeking the Divine is to recognize in one’s own feeling the feeling of God, to realize every impulse of love that rises in one’s heart as a direction from God, to realize that love is a divine spark in one’s heart, and to blow on that spark until a flame may rise to illuminate the path of one’s life.

And Rumi said

“All that comes from God is for all souls. If they are worthy, they deserve it; it is their reward; if they are unworthy, they are the more entitled to it. Verily, blessing is for every soul; for every soul, whatever be his faith, or belief , belongs to God.”   —excerpted from Hazarat Inayat Khan

“The heart is a receptacle on earth of the divine spirit, and when it holds the divine Spirit, it soars heavenward; the wings picture its rising.  The crescent in the heart symbolizes responsiveness. The crescent is a symbol of responsiveness because it grows fuller as the moon grows fuller by responding more and more to the sun as it progresses. The light one sees in the crescent is the light of the sun. As it gets more light with its increasing response, so it becomes fuller of the light of the sun. The star in the heart of the crescent represents the divine spark which is reflected in the human heart as love, and which helps the crescent towards its fullness.”—-excerpted from The Unity of Religious Ideals.

The Heart and Wings

The living thing in the heart is love. It may come forth as kindness, as friendship, as sympathy, as tolerance, as forgiveness, but in whatever form this living water rises from the heart, it proves the heart to be a divine spring. True religion  lies in the opening of the heart, in widening the outlook, and in living that religion which is the one religion.

God and the god ideal may be explained as the sun and the light. As there are times when the sun becomes covered by materialism. But if for a moment the cloud covers the sun, that does not mean that the sun is lost; and so the God-ideal may seem to have disappeared in the reign of materialism, yet God is there just the same. The condition of the world is like the ever rising and falling of waves. Sometimes it seems to rise and sometimes to fall, but as with every rising and falling wave the sea is the same, so, with all its changes, life is the same.  Thus we can’t give up on this world because the God-ideal is ever present and ever changing.

The Carribean Ocean  Photograph and copyright by Barbara Mattio

Waves in ocean Photo and copyright by Barbara Mattio 2013