I don’t know my yoga students well. Their work, their families, their passions, their struggles are mostly mysteries to me. When they walk into class our focus is the yoga. We pay attention to our poses, our bodies, and our breath and try to leave the rest outside.

So when, at the end of class, I repeat the words that my own teacher, and probably her teacher, used to close a practice — “Namaste. The light in me salutes the light in you.” — what am I saying? What light of theirs do I know and salute?

I’m told that the English translation of the Sanskrit word namaste is “I bow to you.” But saluting inner light is both more abstract and more personal than a bow of respect. Abstract because an inner light suggests a soul, a spark of divinity, whose existence is an act of faith. Personal because it suggests goodness, a character trait that could be taken on faith but is better discovered by getting to know someone. I don’t rely on acts of faith, and I don’t know my students well enough to vouch for their character.

Yet I know them well enough to salute their light. When they — when we — are in a pose, fully present, there is light. There is a concentration and a quiet that leaves little room for darkness. The light in each student illuminates all the others and illuminates me. That collective light is what I salute.