"You Can't Be Spiritual But You Can Say Namaste": Why I Don't Say Namaste At The End of My Yoga Classes
A few weeks ago, I was speaking with a wellness retreat for a potential opportunity to teach yoga for their guests.
The interviewer stressed the importance of not having spiritual or “New Age” elements in the yoga asana classes. That for their audience, noticing the breath would be revolutionary in and of itself.
Practitioners are each on their own journey. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with not being ready for all that yoga has to offer. The Heart of Yoga transformed my asana practice, and much of what Desikachar shares is relevant to holding a trauma-informed space. He says, “We must teach a person what he or she can accept at the time, not what we think would finally be best for them.”
And while the word choice of “New Age” was interesting to unpack, perhaps it had to do with this interviewer’s experience of a certain type of yoga teacher, a certain type of spiritual practitioner in our modern mystical marketplace.
So far, during our conversation, I was on the same page.
The interviewer went on to say that there would be no mudras or complicated breath practices, but that saying namaste at the end of class was ok.
I’ve been sitting with this for a few days.
Especially as recently, one of my yoga students came up to me after our evening yin yoga class that I teach in Burnaby, and was curious about my reasons for not ending class with namaste.
A few years ago, the namaste debate was a big talking point that shook yogaland, like a Tower moment in tarot. And hearing the interviewer say that telling sentence, “you cannot be spiritual but you can say namaste” was a perfect crystallization of this debate that I now have some thoughts to contribute to this topic.
I also want to say that I share these personal examples not to make a subtweet out of someone, but because I think these experiences exemplify what we are really communicating when we say namaste.
What We’re Talking About When We’re Talking About Namaste
You can Google why it doesn’t make sense to say namaste at the end of a yoga class. Many South Asian practitioners, whose work is in decolonizing yoga, have discussed why it doesn’t make much sense. Indigenous speakers often use this word to greet elders, not to close a class or an event.
I’ve never completely felt at home with saying the word “namaste.” I tried to rack my brains to think of hot yoga classes that would end with namaste. Perhaps I have a memory block, but for me, it wasn’t until I started to practice vinyasa that I picked up on how this ubiquitous pseudo-spiritual closing was used by nearly every teacher.
Namaste Is An Example of Spiritual Colonialism and Commodifying Spirituality
What makes namaste a great example of commodifying spirituality is because it’s a way for us in the west to feel spiritual without actually being spiritual. A big example of orientalism.
The context that we use namaste, and how we are even pronouncing the word is wrong when we consider why it is used and how it is said in its indigenous culture.
But there is such a clinging on to it. Because other white teachers are doing it, normalizing it. Because students expect it. Because it is a way to “honour yoga’s roots.”
These are excuses people make. Just because other teachers are doing it doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to continue to do. Just because students expect it doesn’t mean we continue to use the same dialogue, if there are ways that we can be even clearer and precise with our language.
If we want to honour yoga’s roots, we would listen to practitioners whose lineage is ancestral to the practices of yoga. We would listen and change -that would be true honouring of the roots of yoga.
I have noticed that white yoga teachers have three common responses when it comes to decolonizing yoga.
Responses to Decolonizing Yoga: #1 White Fragility
One of the responses from yoga teachers is feeling frustrated, like what they learned and paid money for is useless. They then feel resistant, like this is too much extra work. I was once in a Sanskrit workshop where a white woman became visibly agitated about the notion of acknowledging the unceded land that we are on, and of acknowledging the roots of yoga. She had this attitude of, well, this is now getting a little ridiculous- where does this end?
Perhaps this yoga teacher feels they cannot teach anything now. And so they will either decide not to change how they teach or, ultimately, leave the practice because it’s now hard. I have heard teachers express their vulnerability in how learning to change how they teach is hard for them…
Because it may be difficult to understand how they can be contributing to the problem, a teacher with white fragility may not be able to make a firm or long-lasting decision towards committing to decolonizing yoga. They may feel inspired, while simultaneously trepidatious about changing how they structure their class. They may try, they might feel awkward, discouraged and self-conscious, and so easily fall back into teaching the same way that they have been doing.
It’s not like there is someone watching them. And if no one is the wiser AKA the students, then perhaps it doesn’t really matter. Perhaps they think that attending one workshop, thinking about this topic for one hour is good enough. What disturbs me is the idea that they might feel, because their students aren’t asking for it, that they don’t need it.
Which is unfortunate.
Because this is the teacher relinquishing their accountability. At the start of this essay, I share my opinion that we cannot teach students what we think they should ultimately know, but that doesn’t mean we don’t teach them something just because they haven’t asked us about it. They are students, after all, and come to a teacher seeking some direction.
Responses to Decolonizing Yoga: #2 Cultural Sterilization
Another common response I see is overcorrecting cultural colonialism through complete rejection of culture.
I have spoken with studio managers who say that they do not recommend saying the Sanskrit words for the yoga asana poses at their yoga studio. Saying the words takes so long - it disrupts the flow. Why say adho mukha svanasana when you can say down dog? Saying the words are inaccessible to those who do not know the Sanskrit words.
When I first heard this, I thought it made sense and went away on my own way.
But of course, I sit with these conversations like the Scorpio I am, and now I think the unthinkable thought that they must believe, in their own way, that they are doing their part to honour yoga… by ironically stripping it of its indigenous roots! That by avoiding Sanskrit words they are not appropriating.
Perhaps they do not realize or care that by completely sterilizing yoga from its spiritual origins, they may be doing the same harm as those who try to fetishize this practice by make-believing a spiritual practice is all about the look of it: a tatted up toned body in a handstand.
Yet at the same time, even this studio would have teachers end class with namaste. What this says to me is that namaste means nothing and because it is meaningless, it is safe for everyone. Students who have trouble chanting om will be ok with namaste.
Compared to white fragility, a response that often centres the oppressor’s emotional guilt and turmoil without ever focusing on the solution at hand, the cultural sterilization response takes different steps but it ultimately reaches the same conclusion: cultural erasure.
Responses to Decolonizing Yoga: #3 Performativity
And finally, a third response that I see to this question of, should I say namaste at the end of class? (A question that is really about the value of decolonizing our yoga) is performativity.
This is why I felt compelled to write this long essay about namaste.
If your commitment to decolonize yoga devolves down to not saying namaste, you can be doing more.
I’m not saying that you have to do it all, that you have to get it right, but that, really, this is the tip of the iceberg.
I studied ayurveda, yoga philosophy, and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras last year with my teacher based in Bangalore. She advocated for inclusivity in yoga, is a brilliant mind and speaker about hypocrisy in yogaland… and she would end our classes with namaste.
This, along with other anecdotes I have heard from yoga teacher friends, is that, at the end of the day, namaste is a gateway for you to reframe your positionality to your yoga practice. To bring in your responsibility as a steward and ambassador, to be accountable to this practice, to show up with respect.
Not Saying Namaste At The End Of Class Is A PR Job, If That’s All You’re Doing To Decolonize Yoga
I was always bothered by the vague wisdom that was spread in yoga asana spaces. You know. That love and light bypassing schtick. I disliked the superficiality of these statements, the lack of nuance, the hustle culture, the stubbornness - the lack of compassion or accessibility of these surface level statements that we were supposed to take like they were wise words.
As a curious student, I craved more. I was encouraged to take my training, at the behest of a studio owner, and because I wanted to know more. There is so much gatekeeping that happens because there are rigid understandings of what a yoga asana class is, and what a yoga student wants.
So when we think about the needs of the student. We must teach them what they need.
But that does not cancel out the reality that we, as yoga teachers and facilitators, should share what is relevant within that context. There is no friction between honouring the origins of this practice and teaching a yoga class.
We dilute the practice when we expect our yoga teachers to be fitness instructors. They are space holders of transformative experiences that cannot be diminished to weight loss.
I primarily facilitate yoga asana classes online via zoom and in-person, and 1:1 private sessions in Vancouver, and I am constantly thinking of how to create an experience that satisfies my students yet transforms and challenges them.
We must have teachers willing to do this work.
Because it’s not about being right or doing the most, but being committed to decolonizing yoga from fake spirituality that commodifies from the inside out, nourishing us like empty nutrients. It’s not about packing everything in 60 minutes or finger pointing and calling out.
It’s about doing this work for our students, and for the integrity of our personal practice.
Whether you know of teachers that say namaste or don’t say namaste, know that this is one important issue of decolonizing yoga, but it is not and should not be the only one.
Written By: Irene Lo