Sri Annamalai Swami
Bhagavan once expounded the theory behind namaskaram and explained why he disliked people continually prostrating to him.
'Initially, the practice of namaskaram was introduced by great people as an aid to dedicating their mind and body to God. This original purpose has been entirely lost. Nowadays people think, "If we do one namaskaram to Swami we can charm him into doing whatever we want." This is a big error because Swami can never be deceived. Only those selfish people who perform namaskaram with false motives will be cheated. I don't like seeing people come and do namaskaram to me. What namaskaram is needed? To keep one's mind on the correct spiritual path is alone the greatest namaskaram.'
Bhagavan didn't seem to mind if we did namaskaram with love; he only raised objections on a few occasions when he thought that we were prostrating to him out of habit rather than devotion.
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