Sunday, April 21, 2013

UBUNTU - (oo-bun-too). I am, because we are.

Ubuntu is a South African philosophy.  A person with Ubuntu is open, affirming of others, not threatened when others are successful and good.  With Ubuntu, a person realizes that he/she belongs to the whole of humanity and each of us are individually diminished when others are humiliated, tortured, or oppressed.  Ubuntu recognizes that we do not exist in isolation.  When one of us does well - it is shared - there is improvement not just for the individual, but for all of humanity.

The accuracy of this report is unclear, but the truth is there for all of us....if we choose to see it:

An anthropologist proposed a game to kids from an African tribe. He put a basket of fruit under a tree and told the kids that whoever got there first, won the sweet fruit.  When he told them to 'GO!', they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together, enjoying the delicious treat.  When he asked why they had run together like that, as one of them could have garnered all the fruit, they replied,"UBUNTU!  How can one of us be happy if the others are sad?"

How indeed?  UBUNTU for the Xhosa means:  I am, because we are.

Ubuntu.  - c

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