THE HUNA PRINCIPLES

THE HUNA PRINCIPLES

Serge Kahili King speaking from Kauai

Aloha! Greetings to you, and to this ocean and to this land, to this wind and to this sky! I want to share with you a part of the Hawaiian cultural heritage.

A very long time ago in the islands of the Pacific, there were wise men and women who looked at the world, who observed the patterns of nature, the behavior of animals and plants, human beings, and they came to some conclusions about life, about what life is all about, about how life works. And they gave a name to this knowledge. They called it Huna, Ka Huna, the secret, the inner knowledge, the hidden knowledge.

And from this knowledge they developed seven ideas, seven principles, and these are what I want to share with you. The people who did this, who practiced this knowledge, were called Kapua; nowadays we might call them Shaman. And they had a very special way of looking at life, of seeing.

1. IKE - our ideas create our reality.
2. KALA - there are no limits.
3. MAKIA - energy flows where attention goes.
4. MANAWA - now is the moment of power.
5. ALOHA - to love is to be happy with.
6. MANA - all power comes from within.
7. PONO - effectiveness is the measure of truth.

Now the first of these ideas in Hawaiian is called IKE (ee-kay). And the idea in English is The world is what you think it is. This life of ours is a dream, our dream, a dream that we share with other people, that we share with the earth; a dream that we also share with ourselves alone. It's a way of saying that this dream of our experience, this reality as we call it, comes from inside, comes from our thoughts, our ideas, our beliefs, our fears, our desires, our angers and our pleasures. That all of the ways that we think produces this experience of ours. That from night comes day,
from thought comes reality.

If we would change this reality, says this knowledge, this philosophy if you will, if we would change this reality, then we must change ourselves. And it is wasted energy to try to change the outer world alone, but if we would truly change the outer world we must go within and find that place within us which is creating the outer world, and change that. Change that idea, change that fear to hope, change that anger to love, change that belief in lack to a belief in abundance. This is IKE, working from within to create the outer. This is the most important of the ideas, and all of these ideas that we're going to talk about now come from this first one.

The next principle that comes from the first one is KALA. Kala, which says, There are no limits. Meaning that we are all connected. Each one of us is connected, mind and body, spirit and man, earth and plants and animals and clouds and sky and ocean. We are all one, we are all connected together.

Now Kala also says that separation is an illusion, but that because we can create our own reality with our thoughts, we sometimes create a sense, a belief in separation. And that as we believe we are separate, we create sickness. When the mind is separate from the body, when we think these two are separate, then in that way we create sickness. When the body, our body, ourselves are separate from the people around us, when we create that kind of separation in our thoughts and our feelings, then there is sickness in our relationships. When we feel we are separate from the earth, that the earth is a thing outside of us, then we get sick, and so does the earth. But Kala says that there is really, underneath all of that sense of separation, a real oneness. And that if we can get rid of those ideas and feelings and acts and behaviors and thoughts of separation, that oneness comes together. That connection is made again, we become healthy and whole within ourselves and with the world around us. This is Kala -- it is a way of creating that connection again, a freeing up.

You've probably seen in Hawaii, a gesture they do which says, 'Hang Loose!' And the meaning is very clear, it means that when you get uptight, when you create tension, then you create separation. So when you hang loose, when you relax, when you allow things to flow, you are healthier, relationships with everything are better, and a very interesting thing happens. When you are relaxed and flowing with things, it is easier to change them. So Kala is not saying that you must accept things the way they are, forever, without changing; it says that when you relax with them, you can change them easier. That's Kala.

The third idea that these wise people discovered was called MAKIA (mah-kee-ah). Makia, that Energy flows where attention goes. Wherever there is a flow of energy and attention, events are created. And wherever you direct your attention, and keep it directed in that way, to an object or to an idea, then the flow of energy carries. And according to the nature of your thoughts, that's the return flow that you get. So that if you're putting out and thinking very positive thoughts about the world around you, then positive energy flows back. And that when you are putting out and thinking negative thoughts about the world around you, then negative energy flows back, negative results come into your life. If you are putting our thoughts of abundance, and keeping that consistently, not just once in a while, but thinking that way, then abundance flows into your life. If you are thinking thoughts of happiness and joy, consistently, then to that degree happiness and joy flow back into your life. And where you focus on fear and anger, then you have fear and anger in your life. Where you focus on violence and upsetting and illness, then violence and upsetting and illness flow into your life.

You have the ability, the wonderful skill, says this knowledge, of deciding how you are going to focus your thoughts, your energy, your attention, and thereby change what is flowing back into your life. So all of these principles of this knowledge, starting from the first one, are telling you how to make the changes from within that will make the changes from outside.

There is a fourth idea, called MANAWA (man-ah-wah). Manawa is the idea that Now is the moment of power. This moment, right here. That there is no power in the past, no power in the future. That the past has no power over you either. That you are the one that has power right in this moment to change what you think, and then the past, and the effects of the past, fail to hold you. You walk forward in life from moment to moment with ideas about yourself and about the past. And it is those ideas, in every given moment, that create your reality. If there is beauty in your life, as we have beauty in these Hawaiian Islands, then you are creating that beauty now. Says this idea, you increase that beauty by enjoying and appreciating that beauty now. If you stop appreciating that beauty, if you start losing your sense of beauty, then so does the land around you lose its beauty, as we have seen happens some places on this earth of ours. But the more you appreciate, take pleasure in the moment, the more you strengthen that, the more you increase that.

So it is not what you've been, but what you are, that makes what you have in any given moment. And the future, as well, does not lie in front of you, waiting for you to move forward and bump into it. The future is created in every present moment by the seeds of thought that you plant now. Sometimes we have weeds from the past, but we can pull those up now, and plant new seeds, and create a new future. So says this knowledge. As we go along, new seeds are planted, and if we decide that we don't like, at some moment, what these seeds have produced, then at any time, we can pull them up and plant new seeds. So it is every moment that we have our power, and there is power in everything else too, in every present moment.

One of the most wonderful ideas of this knowledge comes in a word that you've already heard, which is ALOHA. Aloha, which is so often taken to mean hello and good-bye. And it is used that way. We speak of the spirit of aloha which is so often taken to mean friendship. And it is friendship. But it is more. More than friendship, more than hello and good-bye, Aloha means love. Pure and simple, this is the meaning of that beautiful word. Love.

And even deeper within the word is the meaning of love, which is To be happy with. To be happy with something or someone, this is the great discovery, the most marvelous secret of this knowledge that was discovered by these people. That to love is to be happy with. To the degree that you are happy with yourself, with other people, with the world around you, you are in love. And love is being expressed, and love is flowing. But to the degree that you are criticizing, to the degree that you have anger, are not pleased with, do not like things in people around you, you reduce and diminish love. So that love has nothing to do with pain. Love has nothing to do with hurting people or being hurt. Love is the happiness in any relationship. Love is the happiness and the joy and the friendship and the pleasure in any relationship. Because to love is to be happy with.

The sixth principle is MANA. Mana is a word that has been often misunderstood, taken to mean energy alone. But Mana is an idea that means power, divine power, creative power. The concept of Mana is that there is once source of all power, and that source flows through each one of us. Not only us as human beings, but through the earth itself, through every stone, through every tree, through every cloud. Mana is the inner power that give every thing its own creativity. Mana is the power of the waves, of the sea to come up and kiss the shore. Mana is the power of the wind to carry the clouds and the birds, and blow across the lands and the ocean. Mana is the power of a stone to be strong and and stable. Mana is the power of human beings to be creative, in their own unique way. Mana is that source of power within each person, within each thing in this universe.

Now, most important from this comes the further idea that All power comes from within. This is the principle, meaning that there is no power outside of you that has any power over you. That all the power for your existence comes from that one source through you. That whenever we think that something else has power, whether it is nature, or whether it is another person, whether it is spirit, whatever it is that we think has more power over our lives than we do, all we are doing, according to this knowledge, is diminishing our own power, holding it back, holding it down. And in a very strange way pretending not to have the power we really have.

Now Mana is a power to do something, to be creative, not a power over. So it is that inner power within each thing, within each person to be itself, and to be itself to its utmost potential. Now the more we allow ourselves to experience that power, to feel it, to use it, to claim it, then we have that power to make ourselves match our highest potential.

There is a seventh principle, called PONO, and it says that Effectiveness is the of truth. That there is always another way to do anything. That we are never really stuck in one way, that there is no one way for anything. That there is no one truth, that there is no one method, one technique, one kind of medicine, one way to heal, one way to be happy, that there is only one person with whom you can be happy. There are many, many ways to achieve your goals, to be happy, to enjoy life, to fulfill it. This is Pono. That there is always another way to do anything.

The idea continues with the idea that plans are not sacred. Your purpose might be sacred, but the way you achieve that purpose is not. If you want to achieve a given purpose, however, you must use the means suitable to that purpose. If you want to create peace, then you must create peaceful means. For you will never get peace with violence. From violence you will only get more violence, until someday people may tire of the violence and get together and use peaceful means to create peace. But if you start out with peace in your heart, with a love of peace, says this knowledge, then you will move toward peace in your life. A very, very practical truth this one is. A very practical way of living, with yourself, and with other people.

These are the principles of this knowledge. Practiced by the Kapua, this knowledge called Kahuna, this knowledge that comes from these islands and others like them in the Pacific. Here is wisdom to share. And if you would share this, if you would use this, take any part of it that you choose, that you like, and apply and use it in your own life.

This is the end of my story. May you be blessed with peace and love, power and wisdom. Aloha!

"From the faraway, nearby." - Georgia O'Keefe