Once upon a time, there was an ashram in the Himalayas where a great sage and his disciples lived. They all respected their Guru not only for his knowledge, but also for his love and kindness towards all.

@chittukuruvi4

Because of his kind nature he often accepted disciples who were spiritually immature. This resulted in silly misunderstandings and quarrels among some of his disciples breaking the peace and tranquility of the hermitage.  

@NandiniVenkate3

One day the Guru was very disturbed to see their immature behavior even after his repeated advice. It saddened his good heart to see his disciples turning into slaves of jealousy and anger. His compassion did not let him throw anyone out of his hermitage.

@MANGALADR1

Instead, he sincerely prayed to God to give him a solution. He fasted for many days, and spent the days by himself in meditation and prayer.
After some days of fasting and intense prayers, he had a vision of the Lord. In the vision, God asked him why he was sad.

@manisha_kataki

He explained everything and requested Him to come to the ashram and free their minds of jealousy, anger, and desire for power. To his surprise, the Lord immediately agreed and told him that He would come to the ashram on one condition.

@GSVKapoor

He would come in disguise as one of the disciples, and nobody would know who was God in disguise. The Guru announced to his disciples about his vision and Bhagavan's kind decision to come as one of his disciples.

@SujuS72

The disciples were very happy when they heard about Bhagavans plan to come and live with them in disguise. But they did not know who was Bhagavan and everybody was very gentle and considerate to each other thinking that the other disciple might be Bhagavan Himself in disguise.

When they lived like that for a few months, peace & tranquility filled their hearts as well as the hermitage.
In their pure minds, they felt the Lords blissful presence & they started treating each other, & thinking of each other, as none other than Bhagavan Himself in disguise!

The whole ashram was reverberating with blissful positive vibrations emanating from everyone! This great sage and his disciples told their experience to others and inspired them also to respect each other and to pranam to the divinity in every one.

@anilkhanna248

Since then, everybody started greeting each other saying namaste with folded hands : namah + te, meaning I bow to That (Divinity) inherent in you.
In Sanskrit the word is
namah + te = namaste which means I bow to you - my greetings, salutations or prostration to you.

@naikrakesh

The word namaha can also be literally interpreted as "na ma" (not mine). It has a spiritual significance of reducing one's ego in the presence of another.

#namaste_story
#spiritual

@radvind
@almightykarthik