Ubuntu — and You
Love and happiness — the game changers of our world.
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Dear human friend.
Are you sometimes sad? And you are pushing your sadness away because there is no place for tears? Are you sometimes angry and you want to get rid of your anger because it is not welcomed this very moment? Are you sometimes jealous and you swallow the jealousy because you want to hide it from the others? And what about your fears, your judgements, your disappointments? Are you trying to get rid of them?
What would happen if you changed perspective? What if you allowed them all to be? What if you would invite them with love and happiness?
Imagine you would react on your inner troublemakers like it is done in the Ubuntu tradition of some regions in South Africa, in which, when someone does something wrong (lying, stealing, raping, killing, …), this person is taken to the center of the village and is being surrounded for forty-eight hours by one`s whole tribe. And all the crowd is doing then is gifting this person with love and happiness. That is, by speaking of all the good this person has done up to this day and by telling this person how much they enjoy being around her or him, how beautiful she or he is. This is due to the believe that each human being is here for good reasons and is just perfect for this world even though we all sometimes do things that are hurting others, things that we consider as mistakes or morally and ethically wrong. In Ubuntu they believe that any act of misbehaving is only a cry for help, a way to be heard and seen by the others. And this gives them the reason to unite in this ritual and thus to encourage the person to reconnect with one`s true nature. The belief is that reconciliation and trust have more power to change behavior than shame and punishment have.
How beautiful.
When I first came across Ubuntu and the ways the South African culture uses unity, generosity and love to serve to invite anyone in who might not fit at first glimpse and to understand that we all might walk a path from time to time that lets us do so-called wrong actions, I fell in love with this tradition and wished for myself to being able to embed it into my own world. I decided to live Ubuntu. To live it within me and outside of me.
