Huna is Hawaiian

QUESTION: I love Huna, but lately I've come across several writers who say that Huna is not Hawaiian and that the ancients never practiced any form of it. What's the scoop?

ANSWER: Well, there's good news and there's bad news. The good news is that Huna was practiced by the ancient Hawaiians (please read my article "Huna and Hawaiians" at http://www.huna.org/html/hunahaw.html). The bad news is that Max Long's version of Huna was not practiced by the ancient Hawaiians. He created a very good system based on Hawaiian words from a nineteenth century dictionary - the only one available at the time - combined with ideas from psychology and theosophy. At the time he was here it was against the law to be a kahuna or call oneself a kahuna, so he was never able to learn from Hawaiians directly. In spite of that, his system is workable and has helped many people.

Unexpected Happiness

QUESTION: Since taking your course I feel little increments of happiness and I am grateful. But what makes happiness suddenly seep in? Is it a decision? I don't remember being able to make that decision.

ANSWER: Some people like to say that happiness is a choice, and to some extent that's true, but every so often feelings of happiness catch us by surprise. I believe that this happens when - for whatever reason - we are in total harmony with ourselves and our environment. If it does happen, treat it like a beautiful sunset, without regretting its passage, but appreciating the fact that it happened.

When the teacher is ready the student appears

QUESTION: I was working as a theatre director in London, with a particular passion for  actor training and craft. Actors aren't treated so well, and constantly  under scrutiny and judgement, so there was always a sense of undoing that injustice in my work and restoring their sense of creative power and bringing  them back to their bodies. However I started to feel incapable of doing this. It's like I realised the scale of the problem, that this wasn't just about actors, this was also about me and a lot of the world. I felt like an ill  equipped fraud trying to get the actors to be 'present', purifying where they were reacting from, and removing ego from the rehearsal room when I was truly as  egotistical and in my mind as any of the worst of them. Years later I still do not feel ready to teach people what I know to be good when I have not yet achieved the state I am trying to help them reach. Do you have any advice?

ANSWER: The core concept is this: if you wait until you have fully resolved all the issues that you are trying to help others resolve, you will never be in a position to help others at all. Think about the fact that acting coaches and directors are not required to be Oscar winners in order to teach and direct, any more than sports coaches must be as good as the athletes they train. In order for there to be good teachers and guides for helping to make the world a better place, there have to be people willing to be imperfect, willing to risk mistakes, and willing to help. You can always teach what you know to be good, even before you have mastered it yourself. And, because of free will, after you have shared what you know, you cannot be responsible for how - or even whether - it will be used by your students.

Senseless Violence?

QUESTION: In your book, "Urban Shaman," you say that everything that happens has a good purpose. I can understand that natural disasters can have the purpose of attracting our attention to certain parts of the world and their problems, but what about parents who kill their children and those who shoot or blow up innocent people? What could be the good reasons for this kind of violence that seems to be growing?

ANSWER: If you study history, you will discover that it is not the violence that is growing, but the news coverage of such events.

Nevertheless, you do pose one of the most difficult questions to answer. The simple fact is that there is no way for us to know.

When events happen, good or bad, we have the choice of assuming that they are meaningless, that they are accidental, or that they have some larger purpose that we are not aware of. The effects of assuming the first one tends to be anger, frustration, helplessness,
fear, depression and despair, none of which do anyone any good. The effects of the second one tend to be fear, sadness, sympathy, compassion, and healing. The effects of the last one tend to be the same as the previous one without the fear. No one knows the "real" answer, if there is one. In Huna, when there is no clear answer to a particular question, we choose the assumptions that provide the most benefit.

Communicating with the land

QUESTION: In a Huna lecture you mentioned the possibility of learning from the land. I'm not sure I fully understand how to achieve it. Should I work with the stones, touch the trees, walk barefoot ? What would you suggest to be the most appropriate way to communicate with the land ?

ANSWER: You don't have to walk barefoot to learn from the land. All you have to do is combine knowledge and feeling. Learn all you can intellectually about the land, practice awareness of the land with all your senses, practice talking to it and listening to it as if it
were alive, and practice imagining how you could apply what you learn to other areas of life. Then apply it.

Dealing with a history of abuse

QUESTION: I am excited to learn about Dynamind (DMT) because my brothers, sister, and I have a history of abuse. (My sister and I both have endured mental, physical, and sexual abuse). How can DMT help us in moving forward with our lives?  We are all somewhat 'stuck' and it seems as if every time something good comes into our lives it is either "hurt" or damaged".  How can we live a happily abundant life in spite of the pain we endured as children?

ANSWER: With Dynamind you can change your emotional feelings and reactions to the history of abuse by working with each memory you can handle. As the feelings of fear and anger are relieved, along with their accompanying physical sensations, you will find yourself becoming more and more free of the past and able to create a new and better future. (for info on Dynamind see http://www.alohainternational.org/html/dynamind.pdf).

QUESTION: How can I get rid of my depression?

ANSWER: Depression is not something that you get rid of, because it is not a "thing" that's inside you, it's a behavior and the feeling that results from that behavior.

Depression is a state of helpless anger. Natural anger is an attempt gather energy and focus on changing something that a person doesn't like. Although it can be useful at times when it's applied briefly, anger requires tension and that makes it less efficient that other ways of solving problems.

Depression enters in for some people when there is anger, but, in the mind of the person concerned, no way to use that energy to solve a problem. Some part of the person decides that something that needs changing can't be changed. This creates a feeling of helplessness, which results in suppressing the anger, which leads to the feeling of depression. When the feelings of helplessness and anger are strong enough, this can lead to feeling depressed about everything. Further complications can be thoughts of suicide, emotional withdrawal from life, and various forms of autism.

Excessive tension is the key element, so the first step toward healing is tension relief. This is why there has been so much success with walking, exercise, and reduced sleep combined with physical activity as treatments. Massage would seem to be very helpful, but it must be noted that if you only relieve the tension there is the underlying anger to deal with. Mind-Body techniques like EFT, Psych-K, and Dynamind can be very helpful. And some people heal themselves by simply changing their mind about being helpless and taking some positive action toward solving the problem.