Huna & Spirit
Huna’s Spiritual Component
Dr. Allen Lawrence
Huna is the ancient healing system of Hawaii and Polynesia. While here, in the West, in the 21st Century, we are lead to believe that we have created the most sophisticated healing system ever. Yet for many thousands of years, Hawaiians and Polynesians used an even more sophisticated healing system: Huna.
In the Hawaiian language, the word Huna means the Secret. Since the Hawaiians and Polynesians had no written language, the origins of Huna are still unclear. According to Max Freedom Long, the pioneer investigator, and researcher of Huna in the West, it has been traced back to at least the time of the building of the great pyramids of ancient Egypt. Further evidence suggests that Huna might be part, or one of, the occult mysteries of the ancient world. Other authors have suggested that it might have come from Atlantis or, perhaps, even earlier.
Today, little is known about most these ancient mysteries with the exception that they are generally considered to be the basis of our current spiritual and religious teachings. Huna may well represent a living example of those ancient mysteries which, because of the isolation of the Polynesian and Hawaiian peoples, has survived nearly in its original form to the present day. Whatever its origin, it is as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago.
Huna is possibly best described as the science of the integration of mind, body, and Spirit. It provides an extremely valuable way of understanding the holism of the person and of life. Healing through Huna is based on our ability to integrate all of these aspects into a Oneness of Being. It heals through the harmonization of thought, mind, body, and spirit. While Western philosophy denies what it can’t see, Huna uses what can’t be seen to create changes and healing that can be seen.
The Spiritual Secrets of Huna
According to Long, the ancient Huna masters feared that Huna was so powerful that it could ultimately cause as much harm, as it could cause good – if it were used incorrectly. They believed that this special knowledge had to be withheld from the masses in order to keep it from being used for profane or evil purposes or from becoming too mundane. Consequently, they deliberately buried its secrets within the common language of those Pacific islands, thus keeping it available exclusively for those trained to understand its keys. Only those chosen and indoctrinated by an Huna Master would be given the keys to these closely guarded secrets. Contemporary Huna Masters would call it the Hidden Huna Code or the Hidden Code Within Huna. By maintaining the body of knowledge which is Huna in this fashion, the wisdom of Huna was kept safe and could be passed on, whole and complete, from generation to generation right under an unsuspecting world’s eyes.
Huna Spirituality Versus Religion
There are remarkable similarities between Huna and both ancient Christianity and Eastern spiritual healing beliefs. Not unlike the secret code that underlies the Bible, Huna, in its truest sense, is not a religion but rather a form of psychology and spirituality which integrates the workings of the physical body with the structure of the mind and the spiritual nature of the individual. Unlike Western religions, it more closely mirrors Eastern spiritual philosophies in that it involves and includes the whole person, not just the body or spiritual nature.
The basics of Huna revolve around the recognition that man is an integral part of the Intelligent Universe he lives in. What he believes and how he acts affects not only his own personal outcome but also the structure of the world around him. In Huna, to be physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually healthy meant that one had to integrate all of the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects, bringing them together within himself and within his environment. When all these aspects were integrated one was completely healthy and wise, able to reach for, find and evolve to his Highest Self.
The Huna Master knows that each individual is comprised of not only of a body and organs, but also that each being gives home to three integral spirits. In Huna, they are referred to as the three selves, which are:
- The low or lower self, our the subconscious self, or as I like to modernize it today, our body-mind, that is – the mind of our body.
- The middle self, our conscious aware-self, which today we best think of as our personality, that part of us which knows we are alive and can communicate with others.
- The third spirit, the Huna masters called their High or Higher Self. It is our spiritual connection to the Intelligent Universe we live in.
Huna differs in a number of other significant ways from the current Western, Newtonian-Cartesian based thinking we are most familiar with today. Unlike Western thinking, which long ago separated medicine and spirituality, in Huna they remain integrated. For example, while Huna Masters recognized that illness exists, unlike Western physicians who consider illness to be a condition caused by something outside of us such as bacteria, viruses and parasites. Rather, most masters of this practice believe that illness occurs from within us and that it is related to the way we think and what we believe about ourselves.
Huna is not a religion, as it has no dogma. It doesn’t even have a fixed view of God. In Huna, it is believed that God is so far above us that there is no reason either to worry about a deity or to pray to it. Instead, the Huna master believes that God, or the Gods, have little or no interest in our day-to-day life. The Huna masters offer a system which was ideal for the simple, uncomplicated lifestyles of the Islanders, one which gives answers as to how to healthfully live one’s life and what happens after death, rather than a system of beliefs that creates problems regarding morality, ethics and the nature of and loyalty to a specific God.
The ancient believers in the Hunas saw themselves as being made up of a powerful human intelligence and a connection to the Intelligent Universe they lived in, yet still having an animalistic nature. They saw this animal part of themselves, their low self or body-mind, not as a burden nor an enemy, but rather as a loving Spirit that ceaselessly takes care of all of our bodily needs and biologic functions. It manages the beating of our heart, the digestion of our food, our breathing, the storing of all of our memories, and the connection of our middle self to our Higher Self, and so on.
These same Huna Masters also recognized that our conscious, aware selves are the “I” or “Me” that we often think we are. In fact, our middle self is only one of those three spirits within that comprise the whole. The middle self has a number of specific and important roles. It acts to move us away from danger, find food, cover, and shelter. It is, in a sense, the sentient part of our being. connecting us to the apparent reality in which we live and that we believe we own and operate. The Huna Master knew that without the other two selves, life is impossible.
The third important spirit which is also part of each human being is our High Self. In Hawaiian, the word for High Self is Aumakua (generally capitalized to show great respect) which is translated into English as our Totally Benevolent, Totally Trustworthy, Parental Spirit. Some might think of it as our superconsciousness. We would best think of our Aumakua as our spiritual protector, our guardian angel, or as our personal connection to the Intelligence of the Universe. When the Huna master prayed, he prayed to his Aumakua. To the Huna master God was far away from him, and just as Christians today pray to Jesus or the Virgin Mary as their personal protectors and connection to God, the Huna Master, you and I, best pray to our High Self as it is tasked by the Intelligent Universe which birthed us to take care of us and give us anything and everything we want, need or desire.
Energy and Spirit
Underlying Huna is their recognition that our body and our three Spirits are formed and structured from energy. That this energy allows us to take shape, have form and intelligence. By using our current understandings of the nature of our Intelligent Universe, we are taught to believe that the laws of Newtonian and quantum physics, as well as some other laws which we might not yet either know or understand, combine to create what we think of as life. The Huna Masters, unrelated to our current beliefs, created a set of natural techniques which they used to transform negative and destructive energies that cause illness into positive energies which generate wellness. Unlike the Western world, Huna recognizes that any distortion of our life-force energy, any negative thoughts, faulty beliefs or unresolved conflicts can create imbalances and the disruption of our internal and external harmony and in doing so can, and often does, lead to illness. The Huna Master also recognizes that the human mind has both the power to create illness and also the power to heal. Huna offers physical, mental, emotional and spiritual techniques and processes which can help us live a wholesome, healthy and happy life and to better understand the Intelligent Universe in which we live.
Huna, directly and indirectly, tells us that illness is ultimately the result of our own faulty thoughts, deeds and actions which can subvert our body, mind and Spirit. Recently, Western science-based researchers have demonstrated this phenomenon showing that thought has both positive and negative effects on our immune system, our health, and our overall well-being. They have even discovered that thought can change our genetic expression (epigenetics). Huna tells us that we are what we think and believe and that we can change our life by changing what we believe and think.
We are what we think and what we believe, and we can change our life by changing what we believe and think. In order to do this, the Huna Master uses a process called Huna Prayer, a powerful and sophisticated modality for changing both ourselves and the world around us. Huna prayer operates through our Higher Self which according to Huna beliefs has the power to change the process of time and the fabric of the Universe.
At the root of Huna is a deep understanding of the true nature of the Intelligent Universe we live in. Spirit is the life-force energy which operates this Intelligent Universe. Individually, we are made up of three spirits, each of which are at different levels of maturity and wisdom. We could not be human without the interplay and cooperation of these three spirits. (Lower animals, according to the Huna Master have only one, or at best only two, of these spirits animating them.)
When we are unaware, we are vulnerable. We are enlightened when we have, in one way or another, recognized that these three spirits are operating within us. When we are fully evolved, we have not only recognized that these three spirits are operating within in us, but we have learned and mastered how to get them to work for us and for our enlightenment and evolution.