The following article from the Washing Post demonstrate the physical and spiritual/religious and Hindu wellness that a simple NAMASTE can convey. (NOTE: All the "new-age yogis" who love to say "Namaste" should note that even the Washington Post realizes the Hindu/Yoga connection ;) Be well!

That Hand You're About To Shake May Prove a Hazard to Your Health

By Paul Farhi

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, December 25, 2004; Page C01

The humble handshake -- cornerstone of civilized behavior, ancient gesture of greeting among friends and strangers alike -- is in trouble.

Politicians are avoiding it. Church officials are worrying about it. Business people are wary of it.

Shaking hands is slowly being transformed from a friendly icebreaker into a potential vector of life-imperiling contagion. The concern may be particularly acute during the flu season, given the well-publicized shortage of flu vaccine in some parts of the country.

Item: The Roman Catholic Diocese of Metuchen, N.J., has advised parishioners that they have the option to smile, bow or wave instead of shaking hands with neighbors during the "Sign of Peace" portion of the Mass if they are concerned about contracting flu. Church members also have been told they are not required to drink from the common chalice during Communion. "Don't hesitate to not shake hands," said the Rev. Michael Crummy, according to the Hunterdon County Democrat this month. "It might be prudent to tell your neighbors before the start of the Mass that you have a cold, and that you are not shaking hands only because of that."

Ironic, no? Shaking hands supposedly got started as a way to show another that you didn't have a weapon in your hands. As it turns out, we do have a weapon in our hands: the flu virus. Human influenza viruses -- the genetically mutated descendants of bird germs -- are extremely clever and resilient little bugs. They can live on hands and on surfaces like doorknobs, railings and computer keyboards for up to two hours.

Passed easily from person to person, they typically enter the body when a recipient touches his eyes, mouth or nose. Once inside, they explode, piling into cells like rampaging vikings. After a short incubation period, an infected person ends up with "so much virus inside / That her microscope slide / Looks like a day at the zoo," as the Broadway tunesmith Frank Loesser put it.

Flu is an inconvenience for most, but deadly to some -- about 36,000 people in the United States die every flu season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and more than 120,000 are hospitalized with flu symptons. Vaccines and antiviral drugs have prevented even worse numbers, but flu viruses are also notoriously creative, and mutate into new strains that defy human resistance every 20 years or so. (Be afraid: The World Health Organization said last month that we're overdue for our next pandemic-causing strain.) The apocalyptic "Spanish" flu of 1918-19 -- it actually wasn't Spanish in origin, but most likely started in rural Kansas, according to historian John M. Barry -- killed perhaps 50 million around the globe, making it the single deadliest human epidemic ever. Based on population growth since then, the equivalent death toll today would be around 170 million people.

Despite limited understanding of what caused the flu in that period, there was widespread awareness that it spread by human contact, says Barry, author of the recent "The Great Influenza," an account of the nightmare. Some cities passed ordinances making it illegal to shake hands. But that was only the beginning. The flu was so terrifying, its killing power so swift, "that in some places almost all human contact stopped," he says.

Taken to extremes, handshake phobia could prefigure a revolution in social custom analogous to the way the outbreak of HIV/AIDs in the 1980s affected sexual practices. The standard American greeting would be forever altered. But to what? The alternatives might include bowing, curtsying, nodding the head, saluting, patting each other on the back, or hugging. Other cultures, of course, are already there. The Hindu namaste greeting (a composite of the two words that means, roughly, I bend or incline toward you), for example, is simple, elegant and touchless: a slight bow with hands pressed at the palms near the heart.