A Review of “Mastering Your Hidden Self” by Serge Kahili King – A Guide to the Huna Way
Wayne Axelson – November 2023
Preface
The author reflects back on the nature of his Huna training over his lifetime, first with his father, then the African shaman M’bala, then the final stage with his adoptive “uncle” Wana Kahili. In retrospect, he identifies his personal initiative to learn as the most important “speed control” on his progress. He was provided with new opportunities when, and if, he absorbed the current ones.
Huna teaching is student driven; each student takes personal responsibility for their own progress. Intriguingly, the author makes two clear and bold promises to the kahuna aspirant, “There is no limit as to how far you can go, and there will always be a guide of some kind available at every stage. But each person has to get there on his or her own two feet.” Such is the personal challenge of the Huna Way.
Introduction: The Rediscovery of Huna (page 1)
The universe operates subtly on a few basic principles a diligent seeker can learn and use to understand the diversity of the human experience. Individuals over the centuries have discovered variations of these principles and attempted to teach their contemporaries: Buddha, Moses, Confucius, Jesus, Mohammed, and others. Their original teachings where characterized by simplicity and brevity, while the developed teachings of those following after are characterized by institutionalized complexity. There seems to be a human tendency to assume the important truths must be complex.
Then, when a group does grasp some of the principles effectively, there seems to be an overwhelming tendency to hold the knowledge secret to themselves. When a writer does reveal the inner teachings of the group to the wider world, they tend to express the truths in a coded symbolic form that only the initiated of the group understands anyway.
The open inquiry method of science promised to be an alternative to the acquisitive nature of secret societies and the inner circles of religions, and for a period it was. Then the effort fell into its own dogma and denied the existence of anything not physically measureable, and so isolated itself from the very source of the greater truths of the universe.
The author makes an excellent statement of the place of Huna in the world:
“Into all this darkness comes the shining light of Huna. It is religious in the sense that it inspires man to attain spiritual perfection. It is scientific because it deals with the physical here and now and its techniques produce repeatable effects on people and the environment. Huna is a philosophy of life with a strong but simple code of ethics. Some consider it to be occult because it works with forces that are unseen but very real. It is all embracing because every religion contains parts of it and science is beginning to recognize its principles in the workings of the universe.”
The author makes a point of saying clearly that Huna is not a part of the ancient religion of Hawaii – it is actually much older. It is part of a more universal Way, encoded into the language of Polynesia, conceived by the ancient civilization of Mu and then transmitted through Atlantis, to ancient Egypt and the rest of the ancient world.
Max Freedom Long studied long and hard to decode the knowledge embedded in plain sight in the Hawaiian language. His written works reveal the prolific fruits of his efforts. The author has studied the system revealed by Max Long and much of his current understanding is supported by this systematic decoding of the meanings of the Hawaiian words used to encode Huna principles.
The author has added something uniquely valuable to the body of Huna knowledge. He has created a synthesis in the English language for modern seekers. His synthesis is the balanced blending of the traditional oral tradition of his personal kahuna teachers with the codified understandings of the Hawaiian language itself, which he then synchronized with the findings of modern psychology and selected concepts of the New Age movement. This particular volume is a part of that synthesis.
Huna is:
– A scientific, psycho-religious system… that provides a logically consistent explanation of human nature and tools for significant personal development and happiness.
– A way to develop one’s personal psychic abilities.
– A system of thought without dogma or any claim to completeness and is completely testable by personal experience.
– A set of concepts and tools that can be blended effectively with any religious system of belief; or it can be practiced as a complete belief system of its own.
Some of the important fundamental insights of Huna are:
– We are each actively creating our own personal experience of reality. The goal of Huna is to do this with more conscious control and deliberate design.
– All systems of belief are fundamentally equal because they are all equally arbitrary in the categories and classifications they utilize.
– What humans call “God” (by whatever name) is equivalent to the Universe in its totality (everything that was, is or will ever be).
The seven principles of Huna can be concisely listed as:
1) The world is what you think it is.
2) There are no limits.
3) Energy flows where attention goes.
4) Now is the moment of power.
5) To love is to be happy with.
6) All power comes from within.
7) Effectiveness is the measure of truth.
Each of these seven principles naturally requires elaboration and explanation for complete understanding to develop, but all of the techniques of Huna are derived from these seven basic axioms. Once these principle axioms are understood, any needed technique can be fabricated to meet the felt need of the moment.
The operational effectiveness of Huna can be largely experienced by understanding and implementing this simple action formula:
Bless the Present. Trust Yourself.  Expect the Best.
The author ends the chapter with a bold call to action. “So here is Huna – as old as the oldest truths known to man, as new as the most modern theories of quantum physics. You can add Huna to the best of what you already know, or add what you know to Huna. Either way, it’s time for people to know what they are truly capable of.”
Chapter 1 – Your Three Selves (page 14)
People have gotten used to psychological descriptions of the self as having multiple parts that work together to determine an individual’s behavior. In Huna terms these parts are ku, lono and aumakua, termed in English as sub-conscious, conscious, and higher self. These three parts work together intimately and constantly and have the capability for forming a powerful “team”, leading to the experience of a powerful and fulfilling life. However, what is more common in the experience of most people is varying degrees of dysfunction caused by the misalignment of these parts.
The author describes the function of these three parts in detail in other published works; we will review only the essentials here.
1) The Ku (sub-conscious) has the primary function of memory. It maintains a tremendous library of action rules used to instantly make life decisions about what “should” automatically happen next. This includes: controlling all bodily functions, managing the next step in your walk, the next word in your conversation and supplying the name of the good friend you are walking and chatting with.
2) The Lono (conscious) has the primary function of making decisions and directing the action of the ku. This is the portion of the three that most people are most familiar with and the part that thinks of itself as “I”. Ironically, it is also the least powerful part of the complete “Self”. Lono is completely dependent on ku for all of its sensory inputs and then it is aware of only a handful of the nearly infinite aspects of reality that ku is actively managing. Yet, it is lono that has command authority, even the aumakua high self acts only as an advisor.
3) The Aumakua (Higher Self) is a blended male and female entity that is an internal source of nearly infinite energy and knowledge. It is the thin slice of Universal Consciousness that is dedicated exclusively to being You. It is the source of the continual cosmic energy flowing into the pattern remembered and maintained by ku in which lono has its existence. The aumakua is the immortal portion of “You”, ku and lono are specific to this particular lifetime, although all of “your” experiences remain as a permanent part of it as “You”.
Interestingly, it is only in this particular book that the author includes the next four items as aspects of the self as well.
4) The Iho (Soul) is that nebulous part of the Self that holds personal identity. It is not often referred to in Huna philosophy, with its focus on practical effective action, because iho does not do anything – it just is. It could be thought of as the ego or perhaps as “The Watcher” from some forms of mindfulness practice.
5) The Aka Body (Astral Body) is the energetic blueprint that holds the pattern ku maintains in physical form. It is an energetic form that has a one-to-one correspondence to the physical form; a copy of the physical body at a higher energetic frequency. This energetic body can be utilized in surprising ways by trained kahuna.
6) Mana is a well-known Hawaiian term commonly misunderstood. When used in its native Huna sense, it is a term that combines the three forces for effective action: ability, confidence and energy. If only life force energy is being referred to, the Hawaiian word “ki” is more appropriate. Powerful mana is abundant life force energy applied with complete confidence and practiced skill. Gathering, storing and using mana is the essence of being a kahuna.
7) The Kino (physical body) is the last aspect of Self the author calls out. The Hawaiians of old thought of the body as a high energy thought-form, powered by aumakua highself energy. As a thought-form it is capable of very rapid healing and Huna has many effective techniques that leverage this truth. This rapid healing is possible because it is misdirected thought that pushes kino off balance and prevents it from following the natural inner blueprint for perfect health available from the high self.
The author ends the chapter with a very provocative thought. The Hawaiians used the word “kino” to refer to more than just a person’s body; it was also used to refer to everything in a person’s immediate environment as well. This is a good example of how the very language of Hawaiian itself reinforces the knowledge that a person co-creates all of their experience: body, circumstances and environment. The principles of Huna make it clear how this is done.
Chapter 2 – Huna and Modern Psychology
Here the author cleverly compares and contrasts the formative ideas of Huna with those of the better known schools of modern psychology: Freud, Jung, Reich, Berne and Perls. This was important at the time the book was written and still holds some interest today. This current work will bypass that information and focus on some additional concepts of Huna that are revealed here to be useful.
To help put the wisdom of Huna in perspective, it is worth noting that at the time the early missionaries were arriving in Hawaii to “save and educate” the locals, the idea of a sub-conscious was unknown to the West. Similarly, the idea of Spirit was very restrictive, stereotypical and religiously narrow minded. The kahuna knowledge that spirit energy is pervasive and is the actual prime-mover in physical phenomena is still not understood by mainstream science today. Huna wisdom has much to offer the interested student.
Chapter 3 – What Your Subconscious is Really Like (page 34)
In describing the ku we often say it is “like” the unconscious; we cannot be more precise only because modern psychology has not yet settled on a definition of the subconscious all parties can agree on. Huna is quite clear about the functioning of the ku however, having studied it for centuries. It is important to keep in mind that the mind is actually a single entity; when we divide out the ku for closer inspection, it is merely for convenience in the challenging task of encoding Huna wisdom into words.
1) Memory is the major function of the ku. It stores memories within its energetic self, but not in the physical brain of the kino, that organ is best thought of as a physical transceiver of thought energy. Rather, memory traces are stored as energy frequency overtones in the aka body and throughout the kino body as a whole, especially in the musculature structure.
So, in Huna terms, whenever we choose to remember something, it is actually the lono decision maker putting in a request for stored information to the ku which the ku then dutifully and rapidly locates and provides to the awareness of lono. Since ku is actively storing such a tremendous volume of information, for optimum conscious retrieval, two things must happen: first, the information must be consciously noted by lono as it is going into storage, and second, the information must be tied to other related information already in storage. So, for effective retrieval of information important to lono, lono must “put its mark” on the information as it is being stored by ku.
2) The ku controls all functions of the body.  It readily cooperates in fulfilling directives from lono, but lono has no direct control of the body at all – it all goes through ku. The wisdom of ku to control the nearly infinite complexity of the kino body comes largely from the encoded wisdom of the individual cells themselves, which all cooperate with all other cells in higher and higher levels of communication and cooperation. This “bottom up” communication from kino is balanced by a degree of “top down” communication from ku based on the belief systems active in ku memory that relates to how kino “should” be functioning. Poorly formed memory directives are the cause of most dis-ease within kino. If lo no can learn to correct and improve the directives stored in ku, kino can be freed to work much better. Biofeedback is one example of this improved control by lono, and the remarkable physical achievements of yogi’s and star athletes are others.
3) Emotions and feelings all come from the ku. They are flows of mana through kino stimulated by specific thoughts and physical tension patterns in the musculature. Healthy emotion is mana directed to flow free and strong through kino for a useful purpose.
It may be helpful to think of the full colorful palate of emotions as being mixtures of four primary emotions: fear (withdrawal), anger (attack), joy (expansion) and action (mental or physical activity). The primary emotion of action is the foundation for the majority of emotional “tints” in a healthy person. Fear and anger are special heavy-duty reactions blended in to deal with pressing environmental threats, and are not meant to linger for any length of time. The expansive feelings of joy accompanies the energetic blending of kindred spirits and cannot continue indefinitely without a reset at some point, although individual usage certainly does vary.
4) Habits are formed by beliefs that are repeatedly stimulated, and so are open for change and improvement by lono like any other belief memory stored in ku. Habits are a good example of how the ku can automatically respond with a particular action sequence when triggered by a recognized pattern of inputs. Such specifically triggered responses can happen without being commanded by lono and often occur without its awareness.
The majority of habits are deliberately trained by lono and positively serve the greater mission of the self. Only occasionally do habits develop that form a negative influence. The good news is that lono can readily regain control by reviewing and modifying the beliefs forming the habit. Huna has a number of techniques to help make this happen.
5) All perception and action comes from the ku. Lono has no direct sensory experience at all without ku. If ku is considered to be the shell of a walnut, lono is the nut inside; totally isolated from direct contact with the outside world.
From this protected position, lono is able to exert a good deal of indirect control of situations by virtue of its direct command and control ability over ku. The lono can learn to fine tune the beliefs the ku uses to filter the chosen inputs it directs to lono’s awareness and optimize it. Prejudiced perceptions can be reformed by changing the beliefs that lead to the distorted filtering. In fact, a major part of the skill development in Huna is to enable lono to ultra-tune the filtering beliefs of ku to make them more effective than most other untrained individuals will ever be capable of.
6) The ku is the receiver and transmitter of all psychic energy and information,
as a natural part of its sensory filtering role. As such, Huna skills enable the adept to do what untrained individuals can only call “magic”. The development of these skills largely consists of “unlearning” the limiting beliefs imposed by early misdirected training in childhood and the current influence of social peer pressure.
7) Growth is a function of the ku. The Huna understanding of growth goes beyond mere physical increase to focus on the increase of: awareness, skills and happiness.  One has the sense of reaching into the complexity of experience like small plant roots into the soil, to explore and understand life in ever increasing detail. Kahuna recognize that this urge to increase awareness, skills and happiness exist naturally in all things, not just humans. And so they cooperate with this natural curiosity in nature by befriending it and inviting it into new experiences of consciousness.
There is no built-in limit to growth from the Huna perspective. This leads the author to make a very bold statement: “In fact, the only thing that keeps any of us from becoming demigods is fear, the fear-producing beliefs that interfere with the ku’s natural progress toward fulfillment.”
8) The ku is eminently rational and logical and very powerful. It is essentially a biological super-computer, programmed to trigger on pattern matching algorithms to execute stored procedures. This bio-computer works flawlessly until there is a “bug” in the program caused by some mal-formed belief. Then, depending on the nature of the malformation, there could be a large cascade of resulting errors. Once again, it is the job of lono to untangle the programming of ku and get the system optimized for good again.
9) And finally, it is very important to remember that, obedience is built into the fundamental fabric of ku. It wants to follow orders; it wants to do the “right thing” and to do it right away. Ku is looking to lono for direction. Problems arise when lono does not provide the needed direction when ku needs it.
This is a very large problem for humans when you stop to think about it. Ku is on the ground doing its job 24/7 for years before the lono ever shows up. All of ku’s earliest programming is received from others – and this continues for years! It is little wonder that inefficiencies and contradictions develop in the program memory. The majority of Huna skills are tools to enable lono to lovingly comb through ku’s action library of beliefs and cleanup all the entries.
Chapter 4 – Your Conscious Mind (page 44)
Now that we have exhaustively described the functions of the ku, the alert reader will likely wonder, “What is left over for lono to do? Just make a bunch of little decisions?” The answer is mostly “Yes”, but to do it with style…
This ability of lono is more precisely defined as being able to choose where to focus ones attention and awareness. Awareness can be thought of as the total contents of the conscious mind at any moment. Attention is any particular subset of this totality. A workable analogy is to think of awareness as a flood light lighting up a large area and attention as a spot light focusing on a particular spot. A good example of this is found in martial arts, where the student is instructed to stay aware of the total situation, while keeping their attention on the opponent.
Huna training involves learning to shift the location and scale of both of these types of focus independently of one another – but under strict conscious control. For most people, it is this conscious control aspect that needs development. Adepts through the ages refer to the “monkey mind” to describe how most people’s focus shifts abruptly and spontaneously, much like the “snitch” in Harry Potter’s famous quidich matches. Getting ones own snitch to hover motionlessly, rather than darting about, is the goal of all meditation techniques.
Free will is a term used to describe the ability to shift ones attention at any time. Having a strong will, in these terms, means to continually repeat the same decision to focus on one thing, no matter what the urge my be to shift to something else. Like a marathon runner who continually maintains the free will decision to keep running. Having a “weak will” describes someone who chooses to decide to shift their focus prematurely and stop running before the goal is reached.
Remembering back to the fact that lono is meant to command ku, it becomes clear that lono has the capability to consciously decide how to think, feel and act in any situation, because these are functions of the ku and therefore subject to lono direction. It is often not easy to maintain lono direction. It is the nature of ku to be very quick in making its reflexive decisions to act; much faster than the deliberating lono is capable of. So, much of Huna training is designed to help lono get back in the driver’s seat when ku suddenly takes off at a tangent.
It is also important to understand that the “free will” of lono is truly free. No person or situation can remove your free will power to decide what to do next. You may be stuck with no desirable options to choose from, but it is still yours to decide. Similarly, there is no psychic power that can over power your lono deciding power. In every case where that seems to happen, it is actually a triggering of your ku in some way not noticed by your lono. Get lono back in the game and you can take back the power you seemed to have lost.
An important “secret” Huna technique to use to do this is to completely relax all your muscles. The ku cannot maintain any energized emotional pattern if it is denied the matching pattern of muscle tension that defines it. For instance, when you sense you are about to activate a non-effective ku anger reaction, quickly
and completely relax. The inner urge towards anger from the ku will disappear. Similarly, if you did already just now “lose it”, it is possible to quickly regain control. Simply decide to stop acting out and choose to completely relax all the muscles of your body to break the energy flow pattern. When you are ready, consciously choose a more reasoned response. Easy to say and hard to do at first, but with determined practice it will become possible for you.
Chapter 5 – Getting to Know Your Subconscious (page 54)
It is one thing to know about the ku, while it is something else entirely to know your own ku personally. However, it is completely necessary because your ku is you. Most people are never exposed to the tools and techniques that enable a person to communicate with their ku and so are prevented from developing a productive working relationship.
This is one of the natural hurdles in the human maturation process. As said earlier, the ku is actively in complete control for years before the lono is developed enough to even have a coherent independent thought, much less exert intelligent control. Consequently, many if not most of your closely held beliefs are not even yours. There is little wonder maturing individuals spend so much time battling within themselves rather than designing cooperative win-win strategies with their own energetic natures.
Once the lono is up and on the job many things shift naturally. The author says, “Many beliefs, attitudes, and opinions that are formed early in life simply change without any conscious effort, and many others are changed consciously with ease. Some, however, seemed locked in so tightly that even a hammer and chisel couldn’t move them. This is only a problem when they give rise to behavior and experience that are unpleasant, painful or dangerous.”
The author continues, addressing the challenge:
“In all cases where behavior and experience are difficult to change, it is because there are beliefs, attitudes and opinions stored in the subconscious bio-computer that are held there by one or more powerful motivations. In spite of any negative behavior and experience that may be produced, the motivations are always positive. Your subconscious never works against what it believes are your best interests. Unfortunately, the assumptions on which those beliefs are based may be very faulty.”
The situation is much like if a young person where to inherit the family home they grew up in. They are now the only one living there and they are surrounded with very familiar conditions, but none of it was their personal creation. As the occupant grows and develops, there will come a time when a remodel is necessary if they are to have an independent life.
Or as the author says, “In order to develop fully and freely, you must know the contents of your own mind; you must “get to know your subconscious,” for only then can you guide and enlighten it.”
Huna has many tools to aid this process. One is deceptively simple: come up with a personal name for your ku. Sharing names is how you begin a relationship with any one. It will get you started in a friendly way to start conversations with this most intimate roommate that is so reluctant to speak. Experiment with different names until you find one that “feels right.” This feeling will be your ku giving its approval.
Another technique the author calls “memory probe”. Since the ku is in charge of all memory storage, you can use this in an interesting way. Ask your ku to find a memory that it especially likes; make it a game. Expect to be pleased and perhaps surprised. Knowing what memories your ku likes will go a long way in helping you understand its deeper nature.
Another technique leverages your ku’s natural ability to communicate with symbols, which it does better than handle words. Get calm and turn inward, think of a situation in your life and say, “give me a picture of what you think about this!” And then just wait expectantly for the response. Accept what ever pops into mind as the answer and try to figure out the significance. If the image remains a puzzle, simply repeat the exercise and ask for a new image.
Since your ku never sleeps, it hears everything you say both out loud and silently to just yourself, and it typically has an opinion about it. The expression is simple: positive sensations if ku agrees and negative sensations if it does not agree. With practice, you can learn to identify the kinds of sensations your ku prefers to respond with.
The author has a set of four phrases that can be used to trigger the opinion of your ku on a proposed action. Simply end each phrase below with the action you are contemplating.
1) I have the ability to… (or, I have the power to… )
2) I have the right to… (or, I deserve to… )
3) I have the desire to…
4) I have the determination to… (or, I have the will to… )
Ideomotor response is a term used to describe micro-motions of the body that
are below the threshold of recognition by lono. This is essentially controlled trembling that the ku can be instructed to use for the purpose of communicating its answers to questions poised by lono. This can be a very fruitful channel of communication because both aspects are able to communicate using their preferred behaviors: speaking words for the lono and muscular motion for the ku. This can be especially helpful if the “sensation language” of your ku is difficult for your lono to interpret fully.
1) Create a small pendulum. This can be as simple as a metal nut tied to a 12 inch piece of string.
2) Tell your ku what you want the motions to mean. When I use this technique, I set up a forward and back swing as a “yes” response and a side to side response is a “no”. A circular response is an “I don’t know”. Now, consciously move the pendulum in the directed way for each motion while repeating aloud what that motion means. Expect the answer
motions of the ku to be somewhat less pronounced than the demo version.
3) Rest your elbow comfortable on the table in front of you, allow the pendulum to hang freely and ask your question. Patiently wait for the ku to respond. Start with simple yes/no questions you already know the answer to. Once the communication channel is clear, head out into deeper waters…
4) Trust the responses you get.
5) If you start getting uncertain responses, stop and rest for a bit, drink some water to rehydrate, if necessary.
If you get comfortable with this technique, it can be a tremendous tool for getting to know the preferences of your ku in a personal way.
Chapter 6 – The Reality of the Invisible (page 65)
Aka is a very important concept in Huna because it is a proto-substance that pervades the entire universe. It is more pervasive and fundamental than either energy or matter because in forms the substrate that energy and matter both use to establish their existence on the physical plane. Aka forms a matrix medium that energy flows along and frequency patterns held in the aka matrix direct the flow of energy into forms that create matter. The aka matrix is a realm between pure thought and physical matter.
The aka realm of pre-matter and aether physics has been explored scientifically by some intrepid individuals who compiled careful systematic reports of their findings – reports that have been soundly ignore by the scientific mainstream. A Russian couple named Kirlian developed a range of photographic techniques for capturing high energy aka effects on film which has become known as “Kirlian photography”. A kirlian photograph can reveal the aka pattern of a leaf that remains even after a portion of the leaf has been physical cut off. Other researchers who helped establish the scientific basis for the aka field effects are Baron von Reichenbach researching in Germany, Dr. Kliner in England, Dr. Wilhelm Reich working first in Germany and then in the United States and a contemporary of his, Dr. Harold Burr. These researchers are all mentioned so the inquiring reader can reference their work.
The aka matrix is the medium through which mana works. Notice, it is not just ki, the energy portion, but it also includes the melding of mental intention and the feeling of confidence. The aka matrix is the bridging structure between thought and raw ki energy that provides the foundational framework from which mana is able to exert its power in the world.
Chapter 7 – Mana, Mysterious Energy of Life (page 75)
The study of mana is of central importance in the study of Huna. Mana is the life force. The more mana you have, the stronger your life force is. The stronger your personal life force is, the more effective you can be as a shaman.
The author makes this point very clearly, “When your flow of mana is strong and clear, you are at your peak of physical health; you have abundant energy and strength; you can remain calm or enthusiastic under trying conditions; you can think clearly and effectively; you have great confidence and compassion; you feel happy; and your physical and psychic abilities are most efficient.”
So, the “prime directive” for shaman aspirants is to increase their mana. Fortunately, this can be done through a number of very practical life style choices. The first is by how you eat. The specifics of what you eat is a personal preference but it is important that the quality of the food be high: nutritious, fresh, appealing to the senses. Even more important is your emotional state when eating it. If you are tense or stressed, less of the nutritional content of the food is available to you because your body is not biochemically focused on digestion. In fact, depending on the nature and intensity of the stress the food may be converted into toxins and have an actual negative effect on your energy level. Finally, and most importantly, since everything is alive and aware, the attitude of awareness and appreciation you have for the food you are enveloping and diverting to your personal purposes is very important.
The next lifestyle focus is on your breathing. Many esoteric paths have evolved breathing into a complex fine art. Huna embraces the importance of effective breathing but characteristically maintains a more balanced and practical approach because effective breathing is actually very simple. The key is to breath deeply while staying relaxed. For effective breathing involves more than just gathering the mana from the biochemical reaction of the oxygen; there is “free floating” mana all around you to be gathered by the act of breathing as well.
There is an ancient Huna exercise that uses lono to direct ku in achieving the best breathing pattern. It is called the Complete Breath and it is actually identical to an exercise developed independently by yogis in India. First, prepare for the breath by comfortably moving all the air out of your lungs with a complete exhale. Notice your abdomen sinking back towards your spine. Now begin the complete breath by inhaling and directing air first into your lower lungs in the abdomen. Notice your abdomen expanding with the inhaled air and allow your chest to rise in its turn. Decide to feel good about your noticeably bulging belly. When your lungs are comfortably full of air, begin the exhale by first moving air out of the top of the lungs and then continuing down to empty the lower lungs by shrinking the abdomen back towards the spine.
This is one complete breath. Four of these in a row is probably enough if the practice is new to you. You can do more sessions of four cycles later in the day as ku grows into the practice. This practice will revitalize every aspect of your life.
The long range goal for the shaman is to have every breath habitually be a complete breath.
Remember that mana flows in the aka matrix and that the aka matrix framework is the free flowing bridge between thought and raw energy, which is the foundation for all matter and the visible energy that flows in physical space. Since thought and energy are intertwined in the foundational aka realm, it only makes sense that your mental attitude will have a profound impact on your relationship with mana. This is one of the more profound insights of Huna.
In general, negative thoughts and feelings are experienced as having a negative effect because the related tension constricts the free flow of mana in the body. In contrast, thoughts and feelings experienced as positive accelerate the flow of mana and encourage the gathering of more into the system.
The most negative of the feelings are quite familiar to most people: fear, doubt, resentment and guilt. For some people, these are the ever present emotional back drop to all of their thinking. It is as if the decor of their mental central decision making control room was decorated with furnishings derived from these negative emotions. Such a situation will keep ones mana at the lowest possible ebb, with just enough flow to maintain basic life support.
Fortunately, this dark habitual decor can be readily changed, as soon as lono understands the need and ku agrees to begin to change its habitual ways. The most effective way to change a single negative thought-feeling into a positive thought-feeling is the most direct: as soon as a negative formation is noticed, lono changes it to the opposite positive formation and firmly informs ku “this is how it really is!” Lono patiently maintains its insistence until ku makes the commanded emotional shift. The overall emotional decor can be systematically changed using just this tool on one item at a time.
In reviewing these tools to increase mana, we have been progressing from the most basic to the most effective. Now, we can combine these techniques to achieve what the author calls a “supercharge” of mana. This technique does what the name implies, it helps the shaman to quickly gather a much larger amount of mana energy to achieve an important purpose in the moment. Lono and ku come together to combine forces with this technique. It involves mobilizing the emotional strength of ku with four deep breaths combined with a specific visualization tailored by lono for the purpose at hand.
The supercharge begins with the four breath cycle, but it is important to kick off the effort with an added physical aspect to make it clear to ku this is to be no ordinary breathing effort. Perhaps you can clap your hands loudly and command, “super mana now!” If the circumstances require more stealth, perhaps without noticeably moving you can deliberate use strong isometric tensing of a large muscle group and release it with the silent mental version of the command phrase.
Now that ku has activated the familiar breathing cycle, lono adds a powerful visualization that makes it clear to ku that large amounts of mana are being
gathered through its efforts. It could be mana from every star in the universe streaming right into the body through the top of the head. Or it could be all available mana from the immediate environment condensing on command to form a thick cloud that is streaming powerfully into each cell in the body. Or it could be mana from the center of the earth so thick and dense it rises up from the surface as a glowing liquid to fill your body like a living vessel of power. Or… well, surely you get the idea. Once you are energized, use your mana to do something good.
You will know you are significantly increasing your personal mana when you begin to feel something different about yourself. One of the first things will be a direct sensation of the extra power flowing through you: a tingling like sensation in a body part, like your hands, solar plexus or your forehead; or a current running up and down your spine (the Kundalini yoga “serpent rising” is a poetic metaphor in common use today). It could be a feeling of physical lightness, for mana has anti-gravity properties. It will likely become easier to see your mana charge when you hold your hands in front of a blank background, perhaps as rising heat wave type impressions radiating from your fingers.
The important thing to remember is that all Huna practices require mana to operate. The more mana you have, the more you can do. The author provides a very useful hint: “In very practical terms, mana is directly related to emotion. The greater the inner excitement, the greater the supply of mana, and the more effective the practices will be.” So, learn to constructively unleash your excitement on command and focus it on your purpose.
In fact, if a Huna adept has enough mana, an incredibly large amount, they can connect with the aka framework of a material object and move that object using their mental command of mana. This may sound unbelievable to some readers, so let me quote the author directly here: “It is entirely possible for an adult to learn how to move objects with mana”… (and then he goes on to explain in some detail why it may be difficult for you to learn to do so – even though it is possible!)
We will close this section with the author’s words again. “Mana can be accumulated and stored and then released slowly or all at once. As natural as air and water, as versatile as electricity and magnetism, mana will simply keep you alive, or it can change your life. It’s your decision to make.”
May the Force be with you…
Chapter 8 – Clearing the Path to Power (page 84)
If gathering personal mana is so fundamentally important on the Huna path, why are so few people able to it successfully? This chapter is a response to that question. The quick answer is that most people dissipate their mana as soon as they gather a bit. It is easy to do; as easy as indulging a negative thought or feeling. Remember, all negativity dissipates your mana. Pure and simple. It is like taking a live electrical line and deliberately touching it to a metal ground, just to watch the sparks fly!
Stay positive and keep breathing deeply – this is the essence of the solution. Of course, if this was as easy to do as it is to say, everyone would indeed already be doing it and the world would be full of individuals with kahuna level self- mastery.
We already spoke about the extensive belief programming the ku receives before the arrival of lono and how much of this is easily changed with a little common sense from even the young lono. However, we did gloss over the fact that some beliefs are embedded so deeply that even a metaphorical hammer and chisel can not break them up. We are about to deal with those beliefs now.
A “Belief Complex” is the author’s term for one of these rock solid belief structures in the ku. If the overall impact of the structure was positive, it would not be a problem for the person, but fixed beliefs rarely have a positive influence. A strong positive belief structure can be very firm and clear but it always retains some flexibility to allow future modification and growth. A negative belief complex, in contrast, is focused around a negative kernel of “truth” that ku has used to fabricate a self-protective structure and constantly energizes to resist any “weakening” of its protection.
Guilt and fear are common “seed crystals” for belief complexes to form around. A guilt complex is a fixed belief that one deserves punishment for violating some other valued belief structure; especially common with religious belief formations. When the guilt complex is held in the ku below the level of awareness of lono, it will give rise to psychosomatic illness and other neurotic behavior as the ku silently creates its own appropriate punishments, for “crimes” too heinous to be aware of.
A fear complex is similarly debilitating. It can inexplicably block a person from engaging in common harmless behaviors, like getting into an elevator or looking over the side of a building. The existence of a belief complex is verified by the intense defensive actions the person takes when the complex is “threatened” in any way.
The negative effect of belief complexes on mana cultivation is two fold. First, the complex itself is diverting a tremendous amount of mana into its own structure which is now not available for more creative purposes. Second, the obstructionist nature of belief complexes blocks the free flow of mana in the system as a whole so less is available to constructive purposes. The impact of these conditions are so severe that they will prevent the aspiring student from making any significant progress on the Huna way.
Complexes are obstacles that block the path to power, therefore the Huna tradition has developed a number of techniques to dissolve and neutralize them. We will talk about three techniques here. The first was called “Kala”, in the sense of “release of limitations”. One very direct release technique is simple massage. It works with the understanding that any firmly held fixed belief will generate tension somewhere in the body. If the locations of tension are identified and physically squeezed out, then the hold of the feelings and beliefs that caused the tension will be eased out as well.
Lomi-lomi is a form of true Huna massage. In addition to highly effective physical movements, the skilled lomi-lomi practioner utilizes targeted mental visualizations to reinforce and intensify the healing effects by giving the knotted energy a new direction to flow and a more positive pattern to follow.
Another form of Kala release is forgiveness, both of yourself and of others. An amazing amount of mana can be diverted into the swirling repeating energy patterns of guilt and resentment. Forgiveness can be used to release these unproductive energies and the blockages they cause so the energy can be used for positive creative purposes. Effective forgiveness is composed of three steps. The first step is to honestly and completely acknowledge the wrong done in a way that brings it to your conscious awareness. You could write out the details, or tell it to a trusted person, or to a tree; achieving conscious clarity of what ku is feeling is the key to this first step.
The second step of forgiveness involves working your way to a clear new path of behavior so you can be assured of never repeating the wrong done. It can be nice to express this new plan to the offended party, but it is not necessary. The third step is resolving the matter as complete and finalized so it need not be thought about again. Remember, it is your ku you are convincing, so be sufficiently persuasive.
If you are forgiving someone else for a wrong done to you, the steps are quite similar and the need to do so equally urgent. Continuing as a resentful victim is just as unproductive energetically as continuing as a guilty perpetrator. Forgiveness is your path back to personal power and freedom. So, first identify the wrong done to you and grant permission to the person to have done what they did. Not that you think it was right, but just that you give your permission to them to give you that experience. Next, decide to reverse your resentful attitude towards them and begin behaving to them in a positive fashion. Then third, decide to pardon them of all guilt with regard to the situation; they get a fresh start with you.
Another method used by kahuna to open the doors to power was hypnosis. The Hawaiian word for it was “kupono”, or “setting things right with the ku” and the kahuna were adept at its use. The technique of hypnosis is an extension of the basic skill of lono to tell ku what it is now to hold as its operational truth. This is easy with simple beliefs that ku readily accepts, but to redefine entire negative belief complexes requires a more refined technique.
There are four steps in this self-hypnosis process:
1) Acknowledge the condition you want to change. 2) Define the opposite positive condition as the goal.
3) Imagine yourself in the new positive condition as realistically as you can and notice the feelings of pleasure that arise from your success. Create a trigger phrase to describe this new state.
4) Repeatedly reimagine yourself in your new condition and tell ku “You can do it. Do it now!”. Repeat this process multiple times a day. If you
are short on time, simple say your trigger phrase and say something like, “Make it so! Do it now!”
This process will always work, as long as lono does not give up before it is complete. A very deeply formed negative complex could take a few weeks of diligent work before you feel the shift of acceptance by ku. Remember, a strong persistent lono decision is ultimately unresistable by ku.
A third set of Huna techniques were called “hana mana”, or “create mana” or “activating power”. It describes a variety of techniques for increasing personal power. It should be made clear, that personal power in the Huna philosophy describes the power to control and direct yourself – not other people. Hana mana does not give you magical abilities to control others; instead, it grants the even more magical ability to consistently control yourself. More specifically, it grants extra power to lono to stay alert for the best commands to give to his very good friend and strong ally ku.
Extra power is helpful in dealing with belief complexes because complexes where formed by ku to create the semblance of power when it felt insufficient power was available in the moment. Ku attempts to cover its insecurity at the lack of power by using manipulation, and rigidity is used as a substitute for true strength. A firm hand by lono, lovingly applied, goes a long way in allowing ku to untangle itself from a mass of self-protective limiting beliefs.
By now it should be clear to the reader that hana mana is primarily for the benefit of lono. The high self is already saturated with mana for it is the part of the Self that is directly tapped into the very Source of mana. The ku is created and sustained by the constant flow of mana the high self continually supplies from the Souce. So ku theoretically has access to an infinite supply of mana, although practically it only does access as much as it believes it can handle. It is lono that needs the extra mana.
Lono starts its existence as no more than a babe in the arms of ku. This continues for years as lono gradually grows into the fuller capabilities of its adulthood. And this is where most people remain in their development. The techniques of Huna are designed to bring the lono to the level of using all of its latent capabilities to their full potential – and this requires an abundance of mana under the personal control of lono. Lono the “regular citizen” needs to develop to fully occupy its rightful place as lono the “Imperial Ruler of its Domain”, in full and balanced command of all its power and both of its allies.
The author intimates there is much more to the hana mana method than he reveals here and that it is a long process to reach self-mastery. He does provide a behavioral guideline that will start you off in the right direction and take you quite a ways up the Huna path.
“For your mind, cultivate a positive attitude toward everyone and everything. This doesn’t mean to pretend that everything is fine. It means to look for the good in everything and if you can’t find any, figure out a way to put some in.
For your body, cultivate a positive self-image, including appearance, activity, and emotional state, and coach yourself into making the ideal real.
For your spirit, cultivate the habit of deep breathing and learn something about the art of bioenergetic healing and meditation.”
The next chapter provides more detailed techniques for the process.
Chapter 9 – The Road to Self-Mastery (page 99) Lono must establish control of ku.
No uncontrolled emotional reactions
Lono crafts all responses and ku reinforces with appropriate emotion Lono must never simply suppress emotions arising from ku
Lono must learn to handle a larger awareness of what ku is managing Lono listens to ku with greater sensitivity
Extending lono awareness into the “ku field”
Programming the filtering process of awareness
Lono develops better reception of signals in the moment from ku
If the ku field becomes unpleasant, lono can “relax the mind” Lono reviews, reprogramming as necessary, every belief held in ku Lono expands the capabilities of ku to distribute energy upon command
Store vastly increased quantities of mana
Notice and stop all energy “leaks”
Encourage energy flow and release “tension energy” obstructions
Talk to your ku: thoughts, feelings, body
Lono takes over complete responsibility for everything ku does
Chapter 10 – Your Superconscious Self (page 111)
In western religion, God is a power above its creation, just like power in western human society is typically considered to be power over others. In stark contrast, Huna considers God to be equivalent to all of creation and every part of creation is considered to be consciously aware of its unique self in its own way. Therefore, each person has an identical slice of the total god-head within them. This is called “aumakua”.
So for the kahuna, god is found within and the proper application of power is to gather and use it to establish control over yourself – all three parts of Yourself.
The adventure of Huna calls one to establish collaborative relationships with significant aspects of ones environment and leverage these friendship connections to influence outcomes for the benefit of others and yourself. Friendly influence for good – not control.
There is a mysterious irony at the heart of Huna. The aumakua highself supplies all the power for life, with access to all the knowledge of the universe and the ku is in charge of all sensory input and output and the very life of the body, yet it is the little lono inside that is placed in command of both of them. It is important to understand the purpose behind this mystery. We have already examined how the ku is always eager to receive orders, now we will look at how the “infinite being” of the aumakua is equally eager to respond with helpful assistance whenever it is requested by lono.
All the power of aumakua and the full capabilities of ku are placed at the complete disposal of lono for a reason. This reason is to empower the lono to craft a personal reality of its own design to generate its own unique flow of experience during its lifetime. Lono’s limited conscious awareness and single minded focus is designed to force it to continually make specific choices among available options. Everything that happens is recorded in the ku as a unique pattern string of memories. All of these memories are stored in the aumakua as the accumulated experiences of a lifetime for of this unique lono node of consciousness and are in turn complied with the collected experiences from other lono-ku nodes in other lifetimes. The purpose behind all this effort at compiling unique experience is actually the great mystery. Perhaps, to expanding souls, experience is considered to be its own reward and so, infinite experience is itself an infinite reward.
The striving for uniqueness is the key. Nearly infinite power is provided to a child – just to see what the child will choose to do with that power as it grows. The aumakua is continually setting the stage, the ku manifests the actor in the scene, and the lono acts out its pleasures in the moment. The goal of Huna is to enable each individual “player” to fulfill its chosen role in the most complete way possible, with the widest awareness and ever deepening understanding.
In the words of the author, “…you have a High Self who is your constant guide and companion, not only ready but anxious to help you on your way toward perfection. Your aumakua can help you rid yourself of all the unnecessary negative conditions of your life and help you to understand and benefit from those which seem negative but are necessary. You are never alone. Huna shows that God is far more personal than most people would have ever thought possible.”
So, the beginning student may well ask, “How can I get to know this wonderful aumuakua being?” The author supplies a number of techniques.
1) Inward Quest – This is not the easiest way but mystics and sages have found it to be effective down through the ages. One sits in a comfortable position, directs the attention inward and begins asking perplexing questions such as, “Who is aware of sitting here?”, “Who is aware of this
body?”, “Who is aware of being aware?”. Keep asking such questions in a relaxed but expectant way and wait for the shift towards an expansive feeling to arrive. This will be a touch of your aumakua on your lono consciousness.
2) Praise the Present – This technique is suitable for all people and all situations. Simply pay attention to all the beauty around you and begin praising and complementing anything you can. Staying positive for an extended period will raise your lono vibration to be a closer match to that of your aumakua and eventually your awareness will intersect.
3) Energy Awareness – Since your aumakua most fully resembles pure conscious awareness, lono can utilize its “super-power” of imagination to craft a mental silhouette of what aumakua would be like if it was present. This effort, if made in a relaxed and expectant way, can lead the aumakua to truly appear in the void, so it is no longer just lono imagination that is active.
4) Meeting the Wise One – This is a more tangible form of inward directed imagination. In a comfortable position, go inward and find yourself on a path. Follow this path knowing it is leading you to the wisest being you can imagine. When you meet, touch something nearby, hear the sounds in the vicinity, make it as sensory real as you can. Then simply ask a question and wait for the answer.
Of course there are other ways as well. And now you know the general idea, you can make up your own approach and make it even more effective for you.
Chapter 11 – Dream Talk (page 121)
Huna would not be a complete path is it did not include techniques for learning from our dreams. Nearly one third of our lives we spend asleep. Surely there must be a profound reason for this – there is and dreams are a large part of it. This is because the language of dreaming is much closer to the language of aumakua than any language understandable by lono, so understanding the communication coming through your dream experiences is a powerful way to get closer to your own aumakua. Of course, you must remember that this communication from aumakua is mediated by ku, just like all other experiences of life are for lono.
To reinforce these thoughts with some from the author, “For sleep is not oblivion. It is a time of learning, of play, of praise, criticism, and balancing – of communication with our Higher Self and other forces, powers, and people. It is another dimension where we are often more active than we are in this one.”
We all dream every night, although there is wide variety between people in how many of these dreams are remembered, ranging from seemingly none at all to an abundance. In fact, science has proven to its own satisfaction that it is physiologically necessary for humans to dream. If dreaming is prevented by waking the subject up at the critical time, the subject will increase the rapidity of entry to the dream state at each opportunity. This will increase until the subject is dreaming on their feet during the day. Such experiences are often labeled as hallucinations.
In fact, Huna teaches that we are dreaming all the time. Even when we feel wide awake, our subconscious mind is processing information in the background that brain researchers have identified as exactly like the activity of night time dreaming. Indigenous societies all over the planet have long held the knowledge that a layer of normal reality contains what they call the “dream world”.
Ancient Hawaiians were very familiar with dreaming and have distinctive names for various kinds of dreams. The word most commonly used was “moe uhane”, which means “spirit sleep”. It was recognized that a person’s spirit would routinely leave the body during deep sleep and travel as necessary in the dream dimension.
Hihi’o – dreams received while in a light trance, just beyond relaxed wakefulness.
Kaha’ula – erotic dreams that often are the vehicle of self-integration
Moemoea – a dream in response to a deliberate conscious request for aid or information.
Ho’ike na ka po – or poetically “revelations of the night”, which are dreams sent to provide guidance from the highself aumakua.
The process of understanding the purpose of a dream is an important one – and complex. Assigning your dreams personal significance and diligently striving to understand them is a very important part of lono strengthening its relationship with both ku and aumakua.
The first step is to understand that your dreams are uniquely yours and you are the best one to interpret their significance; other people and books on the subject can provide helpful perspectives to consider, but the decision of what is true about your dreams remains with you. Their significance is best understood in the context of your daily life.
It is important to remember that dreams can be communicating their truths in different formats. Some dreams are literal dry runs for upcoming activities of the next day and some are a means of integrating the lessons learned the previous day. Other dreams are allegorical in nature and require you to decode the symbology involved. One help here is to remember that every part of your dream represents some aspect of yourself, for after all, these are your dreams. Recurrent dreams are especially important because there is a message you are failing to grasp. Give them extra attention. Dreams that vary but share a common recurring theme are also worthy of detailed attention.
There are simple and direct techniques for interpreting your dreams. The most direct is to simply ask an aspect of your dream, “Why are you here?”, “What do you want me to understand?”. If this is hard for you to do during the dream itself, it can be done later during a quiet meditation where you bring the dream back into conscious awareness and query aspects of it; a kind of “morning after” lucid dreaming. You can also make a strong conscious request before falling asleep for the meaning of your previous “mystery” dream be made clear.
A more cerebral approach would be to make a list of every actor and scene in a particular dream and in a relaxed state consciously deliberate on the role and meaning of each. If you pay attention to the feelings coming up from ku, that will help guide you to the intended meaning. An even more deliberate method is to obtain a book on typical dream symbols and pick out ones that feel appealing. Then consciously study the symbols and their associated meanings repeatedly and methodically. You are building a “symbol vocabulary” for ku to use when delivering information from the dream state. Now ku and lono are both singing from the same sheet of music.
The author himself is quite adept at dreaming and leveraging those dreams for his personal growth. In fact, he has devoted two entire books to the topic. The first is entitled “Dream Tech” – How to Master the Art of Dreaming. The other is “Dreaming Techniques” – Working with Night Dreams, Daydreams, and Liminal Dreams.
Chapter 12 – Practical Techniques (page 131)
All through this report, I have been saying frequently, “There is a Huna technique to help with this…”. In this chapter, the author has collected a variety of the more widely useful techniques and we will look at some of them.
The first is a closer look at meditation. Some type of meditation is a central piece in every spiritual development framework on the planet. It is only natural that Huna is well developed in this way as well. For most non-practioners, meditation practices seem like a bewildering waste of time. “I have things to do! I cannot just sit here…”, is a common refrain for the new initiate. So, it is helpful to review some of the fundamental Huna understandings to help internalize a feeling for the central importance of the practice of meditation.
Huna focuses on the development of lono. As stated earlier, when a human is born, its lono is only a wisp of a shadow of what it has the potential to become. Lono has a long long road ahead to come into its own. For lono’s intended role in the Self formed with ku and aumakua is to be in wise command and complete harmonious control of the group. Most people never make it that far in one life time.
Huna is designed to take an “ordinary adult” and guide them in the development of their remaining innate abilities and so enable them to live a happy and effective life and to be a healing guide to others. Since lono is the “weak link” in this short chain of three, most Huna techniques, again, focus on skills needed by lono.
Lono’s primary task is to focus attention in the physical plane. Yet, the typical untrained lono mind is rarely able to achieve a stable focus for long. It is more like a humming bird, or a dragon fly, or the mythical “snitch”. Other mental traditions famously refer to the “monkey mind”. Therefore, meditation is the tool devised to train lono in focusing its attention – its central and most important task.
Kahuna use two types of meditation. “Nalu” is a passive meditation where the lono hovers in focused stillness with the intent of synching with the energetic subtle structure of “something” (which could be “anything”), and understand it. “No’ono’o” is an active meditation designed to enable lono to have a direct influence on its energetic environment.
There are four steps used in both in nalu and no’ono’o. Interestingly, the first four of the seven Huna principles are in alignment with these four steps of meditation practice.
1) Ike (awareness) – Direct your attention to the chosen focus object of the meditation.
2) Kala (release) – Release everything that may distract you from the object of focus, like doubts or tension.
3) Makia (focus) – Allow your focused awareness to dwell increasingly on the object.
4) Manawa (now) – In each moment, choose to maintain your increasing relaxed focus on the object, until the purpose of the meditation session is achieved.
As you begin to meditate, it is good to get your body in a comfortable position wearing comfortable clothes, but this is just so these personal physical aspects don’t distract you so much at first. As your meditation skills develop, you will be learning to achieve the same focused state of mind while standing, walking and doing simple tasks. Ultimately, you will be able to access and maintain a relaxed focused aware state even in dangerous situations. But, baby steps first…
Visual thinkers, being a physiological majority of the population, have historically dominated the meditation literature and skewed the terminology and techniques to be more natural for themselves. This can be a source of needless tension for new meditators that are not strongly vision oriented; forming a mistaken belief that if they cannot “see it” in their mind, they are not doing “real” meditation “correctly”. Have no concern in this regard…
Remember, meditation is a tool for you to use to develop your own attention span, so any senses that typically dominate your awareness are the ones you want to focus on first and release the other impressions from other senses as distractions. Focus first on developing control of what you do best. Later, as a more advanced practice, you can shift focus to your non-dominate senses. This is rather like learning to brush your teeth with your “other hand” – good advanced practice.
Centered Awareness
This is an example of a no’ono’o active meditation focused on increasing your sense of confidence and inner balance.
1) Imagine there is an energy point at your navel (again, a visual thinker is going to insist on calling this “a point of light”).
2) Experience the energy from this point as vibrating at a very high frequency and radiating slowly out from your body until you are surrounded by this vibrating field of energy, originating within yourself.
3) Now, imagine that with each inhale more energy is radiated out and with each exhale the vibration of the surrounding energy field gets more intense.
4) Maintain your awareness of this vibrating field of energy for as long as necessary for your purposes.
Conscious Observer
This is a meditation designed in the passive nalu style. The “target”, which could be anything, is in this case the workings of your own mind, so as to develop your inner awareness.
1) Place your body in a comfortable position, mentally surround yourself with light energy, take a deep breath and close your eyes.
2) Place your attention on your natural breathing pattern until your emotions are calm and your body is relaxed.
3) Now direct your attention inward and just observe the thoughts and feelings that are arising. Notice how they change and shift; and come and go.
4) Maintain your role as an unbiased observer of your own mind: no expectations, no analysis, no criticism. What ever does happen, was supposed to happen. Gently observe and remember as much of the experience as you can – store it up as self-knowledge.
5) When complete, just take a deep breath and open your eyes.
Falling asleep is okay, but try to stay consciously aware. This activity is a way for your lono to view the natural memory processes as they move through your ku.
Mindshield
“La’a kea” is a Hawaiian term that translates as the “sacred white light”. In Huna it refers to a process that can be used to insulate yourself from negative or distracting thought energy from those around you. Remember, no one can force you to think in an particular way, but as humans, we are all similar in many ways. So if people around you are emitting negative thoughts that you are inclined to host on your own, they can draw you into synch with them and form a strong distraction.
1) Surround yourself with a field of white light energy.
2) Bestow on this energy field the power to dissolve or neutralize all undesired thought energy before it reaches you.
3) Mentally say the word “Shield!” several times to make the purpose clear to ku. With practice, mentally saying this trigger word alone may be sufficient for quick results.
4) If your shield needs strengthening, increase it with your focused breathing, as in the Centering exercise above.
It is important to allow your shield to dissolve the outside thoughts quickly and completely, releasing those contagious thoughts without inspection, treating them as mere harmless distractions. Keep your focus centered on what you want to be thinking and feeling yourself.
The author describes other techniques of value in this section as well…
Chapter 13 – Creative Meditation (page 141)
Kahuna have developed a very potent system for creating mental power images called “tiki”. This is the same word used more commonly in Hawaii to refer to the various kinds of carved wooden statues popular today. But in Huna usage, a tiki can be better described as a thought-form energized by the kahuna’s mana and created by them for a specific use. There are a wide variety of tiki and a variety of uses for them.
Here are steps to create a simple tiki:
1) Prepare for the meditation using the “super-mana” process by taking ten deep breathes and creating a highly charged energy field around yourself.
2) Bring your hands up to chest level and curve them as if holding a large ball. Direct your mana energy within you to stream out of your hands and form a ball of energy in the space between your hands. Move your hands slightly as if squeezing the energy ball to verify its presence.
3) Once formed, the energy sphere is ready to be programmed with your intentions. You have a wide range of options available to you. One might be to program the sphere with healing energies to assist someone who is sick. Build your mana charge and the clarity of your instructions until you detect something happening. Trust this shift is toward your desired outcome.
4) Release the thought-form to continue its work by spreading your hands and directing the sphere into the sky to fly to your intended recipient. There is a phrase used by ancient kahuna to end a session like this. They would blow the energy sphere up and away and say, “Amama, ua noa, lele wale akua la!”. Using other words this intention states, “It is ended, the mana is released, let it manifest!”
5) Maintain a sense of confidence that your aumakua highself will see the deed completed.
The tiki of course, is the energy ball itself. Understand that this is a construction existing in the aka proto-matter matrix; one that you created from your personal mana energy. This exercise is an example of the first small step towards using mana to create a physical manifestation of personally designed matter. Much more is possible. Practice with other “needs”: perhaps a personal problem of your own you want resolved, perhaps a personal gift to a tree or rock that you want to befriend, perhaps a gift back to the universe as a whole as a thank you for the whole grand experience.
There is, of course, a nalu version of this mediation exercise. This can be most effective when you realize you really do not have a clue on the specifics of what needs to be done, or perhaps you do have a clue but also realize it is not clear enough to take effective action. In such a case, you will choose to put all your trust in the greater knowledge and power of you aumakua highself. You don’t even need to make a specific request, in fact, in this approach it is better if you do not.
1) Select an object of focus. With this nalu exercise it is typically a concept rather than a particular object: health, wealth, love, harmony and the like.
2) Focus on the chosen concept and lightly turn it over in your awareness. Notice it from different angles, in all of its various contexts, in its deepest significance. What is it about it that attracts you? How would it feel if it was present for you now? And so on…
3) Notice any fears or doubts that come up in response. These are memory complexes that have been actively blocking the arrival of this “good stuff” in your life. In a relaxed way, begin to understand the source of the negative formation. What good intention caused the obstructions to appear in your life? What are they protecting you from? Perhaps you can dialogue with ku directly and persuade it to release them. If the source is an early childhood experience or some passing factoid branded into an unprotected memory, dialogue may not be possible. It may be necessary to simply continue gathering enough mana to gently and persistently force a shift, pushing the old limiting pattern out of ku’s memory library to allow the improved version in.
4) Continue this gentle unrelenting process until you feel the positive aspects of the concept fill you completely. No doubts or fears remain. Your thoughts, feelings and actions are all aligned with the new expanded concept. This marks the completion of this practice at this time. It may happen in one session, more likely it will take several sessions… or perhaps several weeks if the shift is large and the opposition entrenched.
Realize that only lono embraces the pseudo concept of time. Mysteriously, both ku and aumakua exist in a nearby realm beyond the constraints of time. For them, all experience is a brilliantly complex moment of Now. Therefore, do not become impatient with this process. The wisdom of the design of nalu meditation is to train lono to trust aumakua to bring the inevitable positive results; more than could be hoped or imagined. It is training to develop deep knowing that now is the moment of power, even for lono, even if it appears otherwise from its perspective forever captive in the labyrinth of the mirrored walls in the halls of time.
The author describes a number of other very useful meditations in this chapter. However, there is one described that stands above all others. It is “waena”, the tiki of the garden. It is based on the Huna concept of “As within, so without”; that all of one’s experience “outside” flows continually and naturally from the constructs “inside” the mind. The great “secret” the kahuna knew is that by sculpting the energetic mental constructs in your mind, those interior formations that correspond to aspects of your exterior experience, your outer experience will naturally be changed to match the new energies from inside that are controlling the manifestation. Or as the author says most succinctly, “…by changing your thoughts you can change your experience.”
The waena tiki garden is a powerful mental metaphor used to give your thoughts productive structure. It is a private internal simulation of all your experiences. The key to its power is to realized that whatever you change in your internal garden, creates a corresponding change in your manifested experience. The garden metaphor is a good one because it naturally provides a living dynamic and emotionally inviting structure. Change is abundant and continuous in a garden.
To establish your garden, simply get relaxed and think about the kind of secret garden you would like to have. Whatever shows up is correct. Inspect the details, make them real and vibrant. Use as many of your senses as possible to create the connection to your garden: look at what there is to see, listen for the sounds, feel the texture of the surfaces, pick something and taste it, smell the flowers, and so on. The more sensory connection you can establish, the more effective the technique will be for you as an tool for change and growth.
Once established, the garden can be used in a variety of ways. One of the most enjoyable is simply to go there in your mind and relax and hang out. Close your eyes; immerse yourself in the pleasure of the private experience.
A more “practical” use could be to ask to see in your garden the part that represents a current problem in your life. Perhaps your work is no longer inspiring you and you want to know what can be done about it. Upon asking to see the “cause” in your garden you become aware that the stream of water that typically flows vigorously through your garden has dried to a mere trickle. Walking up stream, you discover some weird black forms that have built a dam that has stopped the flow and created a stagnant holding pond. You call in some helpful “spirit beavers” to help you break up the toxic dam and get the water flowing again. Then they talk to the weird black forms and teach them how to build a constructive dam that can hold back the floods but always allows a vibrant flow to the rest of the garden. The new dam creates a beautiful lake, teaming with aquatic life and the “new beavers” are entrusted to be the guardians of this resource.
After such inner work, you are likely to see that all the accumulated worries and resentments associated with your job have been neutralized. Your enthusiasm for your work is now genuine and strong, because with this symbolic inner “work” your ku has revealed the nature of your problem and lono has been able to instruct ku to make true and genuine changes to its previous ineffective belief structure. This technique allows you to make genuine productive changes to your own internal belief structure.
People with illnesses like cancer, will often find a section of their garden that is being over run with disorderly growth. They can call in spiritual garden gnomes (or whatever…) to help them chop the weeds back and recover the beauty and integrity and balance of the garden. Physical healings are typical if such inner work is accomplished.
The effective uses for this technique are literally limited only by the limits of your imagination.
Chapter 14 – Spiritual Integration (page 157)
The title of this chapter refers to the maximizing and harmonizing of all three “parts” of the Self: lono, ku, aumakua or conscious, sub-conscious, super- conscious. It is through this integration that a person can achieve their greatest joy and maximum effectiveness. This is a state the kahuna call “Kanaloa”, which is really the embodiment of the archetype of the Hawaiian god by the same name, the friend of the great god Kane. In the author’s words, “Kanaloa” represents the ideal person, fully aware, fully loving, filled with power, and fully at home in the spiritual and material worlds.” Huna (naturally…) has a process to guide this development.
The process is called “haipule” and it is the contemplative practice of drawing mana into yourself and then sending it forth again to accomplish something of your design. The aware reader will notice this is the fundamental structure of most Huna techniques: gather mana, mentally craft it with an intended purpose, emotionally charge it for the task, and then send it out to manifest its intended effects.
In this case, the intended target is yourself and the effect is increased integration of your three selves. The primary way haipule achieves this is by systematically raising the frequency of your default awareness by helping you spend more time thinking the most positive thoughts possible. Again, in the Huna system, thinking precedes action and powerful thinking will make action easier. More powerful thinking is the purpose of haipule and the results can be spectacular.
To prepare for haipule, use the now familiar centering process described by the names of the first four of the seven principles.
1) Ike (awareness) – Call into awareness the nature of each of the three parts of your self and appreciate the beauty of their team work. Lono wisely setting priorities, ku carrying them out as a faithful friend and aumakua infusing it all with power and superhuman knowledge.
2) Kala (release) – Relax your muscles and forgive any lingering resentments or guilt you may feel.
3) Makia (concentrate) – Bring to mind your larger purpose in life. If that is not completely clear to you now, do not let it worry you, just focus on becoming your best self.
4) Manawa (now) – Bring your focus into the present moment and release thoughts of the past and future. The present moment is the point of your greatest power.
This summary of the above may be helpful:
Ike – I (the three of me) create my own reality
Kala – I am unlimited
Makia – I get what I concentrate on
Manawa – My moment of power is now
This process of haipule is one of the ultimate nalu practices. It leverages the energies of the four principles used in the preparation, to help each part of your Self to dwell together on a powerful aspect of life. For each of the descriptive words in the process, fill out your awareness with beautiful imagery in great detail. Here is the author’s concise summary of the process:
Maluhia (peace) Think of scenes of quiet beauty, like deep forests, open meadows, sunrises and sunsets, or scenes of people ceasing to fight and reaching out to hug; or whatever idea the word evokes in you.
Aloha (love) Think of children playing happily together; of being held and cuddled by someone who really loves you; of people doing great and daring things for each other with no thought of return; of scenes of acceptance, caring, forgiving; of anything else the word evokes in you.
Mana (power) Think of the power of God in nature, of suns and stars, of rivers and waterfalls, of all the energy of fire, earth, air, and water; and whatever else the word means to you (but not control over people).
Pono (success) Think of scenes that represent your highest ideals of achievement; of the attainment of important goals; of joyful accomplishment of any kind. (These may be “spiritual” or “material.” In Huna there is no distinction when it is done with a loving attitude).
When you have finished this review, draw your time to a close with a focused feeling of gratitude to your aumakua highself and a blessing of some type for the good of others.
Notice how the four statements used in preparation and the four topics of nalu review make up the full statement of the seven principles, in a context of peace. This will help you remember the structure of the process. The author recommends doing the practice multiple times a day, once each day as a longer process and then as many times as you can in addition as spaced quick reviews.
Do not be fooled. This process is powerful in its simplicity. As described here, it focuses concisely on the most important aspects of your spiritual integration. Since Mind leads Manifestation, the author says, “To be the way you want to be, you have to think the way you want to be.”
The author continues, “What can you expect? Ordinarily, you will gradually become more peaceful, more loving, more powerful, and more successful in every way, without a lot of effort. You will still have to make choices and act on opportunities that appear, but the struggle will fade away and your happiness and joy will increase and grow.”
In closing this chapter and the book as well, it is good to state the larger goal explicitly in parting. The “Hidden Self” this book helps you to master is the Kanaloa self growing within you. We have seen it is primarily lono that needs to develop. The ku and aumakua work together to patiently assist lono in this developmental process in every way possible. As lono eventually grows to be a fully integrated partner in the structure of the Self, the three parts become fused in a balanced harmony of thought, feeling and effective action. Kanaloa is the Hawaiian super(hu)man.
Appendix: The Secret Code of the Kahunas (page 167)
The idea that the Hawaiian language itself has been structured to preserve and illustrate the wisdom of Huna is a fascinating one to me. The author routinely uses the etymology of common Hawaiian words to clarify and illustrate the meaning of key words used in Huna. This code system was originally discovered and researched by Max Freedom Long, whose works the author has studied. I intend to learn this system, and help other interested individuals do the same. However, a description of the system here is beyond the scope of this report.