Meanings and Interpretation
As it is most commonly used, namaste is roughly equivalent to "greetings" or "good day," in English, implicitly with the connotation "to be well". As opposed to shaking hands, kissing or embracing each other in other cultures, Namaste is a non-contact form of respectful greeting and can be used universally while meeting a person of different gender, age or social status.
The gesture Namaste represents the belief that there is a Divine spark within each of us that is located in the heart chakra. The gesture is an acknowledgment of the soul in one by the soul in another. In Sanskrit the word is namah + te = namaste (Devnagari/Hindi: नमः + ते = नमस्ते) which means “I bow to you” - my greetings, salutations or prostration to you.
Namaskār (Devnagari/Hindi: नमस्कार) literally means "I bow to form".
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“You can’t write about people out of textbooks, and you can’t use jargon. You have to speak clearly and simply and purely in a language that a six-year-old child can understand; and yet have the meanings and the overtones of language, and the implications, that appeal to the highest intelligence.”
—Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980)