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.

Acceptance

QUESTION: I listen to teachings that tell me to accept whatever happens and just get on with my life, but I don't understand. How can I accept something that causes me emotional or physical pain?

ANSWER: The problem with "accepting" something is due to the many meanings given to this word in English. Most problematic is the meaning of "to tolerate or submit to something unpleasant or undesired." Adding to the problem is the meaning of "to receive something as adequate, valid, or suitable." And an unspoken, but extremely common meaning given to this word is "to let something you don't like hang around forever."

Naturally, these meanings make the idea of acceptance sound like stupidity. Who in their right mind would want to do that, unless you "accept" a philosophy of predestination or unchangeable fate.

So, why would a teacher (me, for instance) recommend that you accept whatever happens and move on? This is based on another meaning of the word: "to take upon oneself a responsibility or liability." This does not mean to take responsibility for it happening, it means taking responsibility for doing something about it.

Some people prefer to use the word "acknowledge" instead of "accept," but the implication is different. You can acknowledge something without doing anything about it, but if you accept it in the meaning just given, doing something about it is the next related step.

There are two things you can do about something, once you have accepted its existence:

1. Consciously change the situation, if you can. You cannot control any situation, but you can always change something about the situation You may not be able to change the whole thing, but the more knowledge, skill, energy and persistence you can bring to bear on it, the more effective your efforts will be.

2. Conscious change yourself. This means to stop resisting the situation (ongoing emotional or physical resistance makes anything harder to change), get centered in the present moment, and keep a focus on what you want, instead of on what you don't want. To the degree you can do this, magic happens. In other words, situations have a very strong tendency to change themselves when you stop resisting them and hold a positive focus of intent or desire.

Drugs and Spirituality

QUESTION: Do you have any information on the Huna point of view about drugs, and the spiritual advantanges and disadvantages of using them?

ANSWER: We do not have any published material related to your questions, but I can give you a brief answer.

First of all, we must define what we mean by the word, "spiritual," since many people are confused about that. For the purposes of this reply, let us call it "a desirable state of heightened conscious awareness and body functioning which is characterized by a loving communication with one's self and one's environment."

Using this definition, drugs can be either advantageous or disadvantageous, depending on

a) whether they are of the earth or synthesized

b) the amount taken

c) the circumstances under which they are taken

d) the attitudes and expectations of the person taking them.

Drugs of any kind (including caffeine and alcohol), as well as more potent natural sources like peyote and marijuana, are spiritually disadvantageous whenever they lower awareness, interfere with body functioning, and/or decrease one's sense of loving communication. I would also add, whenever they increase one's sense of powerlessness or exaggerate one's sense of power over the environment. Both of these, however, are the result of lowered or restricted awareness.

The most potentially disadvantageous drugs are the synthesized ones (LSD, etc.) taken in large doses, with or without supervision. Two reasons for this are that the body is not equipped to assimilate them properly, and the conscious mind is forced to deal with aspects of the self that it is not prepared to handle, yet it must deal with them until the drug has worn off. Even a "good trip" in such a case will have deleterious after effects on the body and the mind. "Large doses," of course, is a subjective phrase that only makes sense in relation to a particular individual.

In small, controlled amounts in the right setting and under the careful supervision of one who is already spiritually aware, many kinds of drugs can be used to help spiritual and psychic development. This has been the case through many ages in many cultures. However, under these conditions drugs are used as an intermediary tool, which is discarded as soon as the trainee or apprentice is able to reach the same states without their help.

What is most unfortunate at the present time is the careless and overabundant used of a wide array of drugs for recreation, for escape, for no more than symptom relief, or simply out of habit. Such use is definitely spiritually disadvantageous, under our definition, for the people involved. To cite one example, coffee in small amounts has the potential for heightening awareness and body function in a way that could help spiritual and psychic development, but when drunk excessively it has the opposite effect.

Significantly, from my personal experience, I can let you know that neither Korean, Mongolian, nor Hawaiian shamans have found it necessary to use drugs to develop their shamanic abilities. As we say in Huna, there is always another way to do anything. While drugs of different kinds may possibly help spiritual development, they are not needed and they can even get in the way.