If you look at the Śiva Sūtram, na means “no”; ma is “touch”. “No touch.” But what could this mean, no touch? Are you not touching left and right hands together with namaḥ? A-ha! That is the meaning: the toucher and the touched are the same.
When can something be touched? Only when there is a difference—an interval—between it and the toucher. Can a finger touch itself? No. A finger can touch anything else but itself—yet it can be aware of itself. Similarly, when you are the object of your vision, the “touch” (that is, the interval between seer and seen) disappears, but awareness does not. When you say namaḥ there is no touch, no contact. It means that what I am meditating on has become myself. So I have become the Ocean of Nectar.
Again, when you say namaḥ, you join your left hand and right hand. If you know that your left hand belongs to the female part of you, and your right hand to the male part (again, Ardhanārīśvara), then you can understand that you’re joining the male and the female in namaḥ. Your left is vāma—what you see (vāma literally means what you vomited, what came out of you). The right is what you are. Thus, the joining of the left and right hands implies the joining of what you see with what you are. When you say namaḥ you are, in effect, affirming, “Though I see you as a separate being, I know that you and I are one.”
By the gesture of namaḥ, you also take on the qualities of the object upon which you are meditating. That’s what meditation is: you don’t stop seeing, you don’t stop knowing—but you are becoming what you see and what you know. This state of being, in which you are merged with (in yoga with) the object of perception, is called samadhi. This word is composed of two terms: sama = equal, and adhi = regarding.
Let me tell you about a nice custom we have here in India. When Hindu children are beginning to learn their letters, they practice by writing om namaḥ śivāya siddham namaḥ. What does this mean? Om is the name of God. Namaḥ, as we have discussed, means “Nothing I see is not me.” This knowledge that “I am what I am seeing” is called śivāya; i.e., “for the good of everyone.” How do you attain this state? Siddham namaḥ—you go to a person who is a siddha, one who is enlightened, and gesture namaḥ: “You are me.” In this way you invoke the siddha into yourself, the siddha’s knowledge becomes your own, and thus you become enlightened. The transfer of power or grace occurs through identification, and identification happens through paying attention.
Source: Guruji's "Understanding of Sri Chakra Puja"
