Living the Namaste Principle

Philly Bob’s eyes burned into the back of my head as Jones spit out his question for a second time. “What are you going to do about it?” Everything froze for a moment. The words may as well have been venom. Jones loomed in front of me like a giant, his lips pulled away from his teeth in a sinister smile. He was goading me, testing me, and I knew it. He had just loudly challenged me in the rec room, the most public arena possible at the state hospital for criminally insane prisoners. I needed to decide how to react, and I needed to decide fast. I could feel the other inmates looking at me. Philly Bob, a notoriously tough man doing a natural life sentence for murder, watched quietly. I realized that the way I chose to react to Jones right now could potentially set the tone for the rest of my time on the job. We must have made an amusing picture: Jones, a hulking, muscled dark-skinned man doing time for a violent offense, standing aggressively over me − a Midwest minister’s son, fair-skinned, slight of build with a soft voice that could barely rise to a yell even when I wanted it to. I had just started working at the state hospital as a Psychiatric Security Aide while finishing up my graduate coursework in Eastern Studies and Comparative Psychology. I had a wife and new baby daughter at home and although I’d worked some nursing jobs before, this was my first experience with the prison population. The other aides on the floor had warned me about the prisoners—technically, our patients—some of whom were suicidal and many of whom were sociopathic. The staff told me they were manipulative, violent, untrustworthy, and that Philly Bob was the worst. He had a presence which ruled the floor like the Italian mobster in the movie “The Godfather”. I looked around for another aide in case I needed help. I had not yet earned the trust of many of the psychiatric aides, who were all veterans and who presented a much more intimidating presence than I did. At 25 years old, I was one of the youngest staff members on the floor, and since I was just 5 feet 8 inches and barely 150 pounds, I was not first choice for back-up when needing to subdue an out of control 300-pound, psychotic, violent offender. Most of the interactions I'd witnessed on the floor were the result of a dichotomous, “us-versus-them” relationship between the patients and the aides. Proving domination was the key operant and words quickly dissolved into physical violence. I didn’t have that option—there was no way I would be able to physically dominate Jones—but I also didn’t want to. "Namaste," I thought to myself, relying on my meditative and yogic practices to ground me. "The divinity in me recognizes the divinity in you." Calmly and quietly, I told Jones I wanted to get to know him better, and asked him a personal question about his life. Jones looked puzzled. Then the muscles in his neck, which had been strained and tight during our confrontation, relaxed. I continued, starting a conversation, treating him as I would any other human being I wanted to get to know. I didn’t curse, or yell, or threaten. Instead, I treated him with respect. Philly Bob kept a close eye on us as the conversation in the room returned to normal, the rest of the patients sensing that the danger was averted, and they wouldn’t be watching a fight between us anytime soon. This is the moment The Namaste Principle was born in me. I wouldn’t name the concept for years to come, but looking back, this is the first moment in my life that I can see the imprint and power of the principle coming to life. I realized later that it had been some time since Jones had been regarded as a human worthy of respect, much less a divine being worth getting to know. I went from viewing him as something apart to literally a part of me. With just this simple change of world view I was able to diffuse this potentially violent situation.