Faith

June 15, 1950

For Huna Research Associates
Covering the experimental approach to the use of Huna in HUNA and related religious and psychological fields.
From Max Freedom Long
P.O. Box 2867, Hollywood Station, Los Angeles 28, California, U.S.A.

NEWS AND COMMENT

The “Dianetics” pot is swiftly coming to a boil and I think that in a few more weeks we will begin to have an idea of whether it will work as well as claimed, or whether it will work less well.

Here in Los Angeles, one of our able HRAs has already had letters from the author of the book, L. Ron Hubbard, and has started to try out Dianetics, also to teach others who feel that they are not quite able to understand and use the new system after reading the book for themselves. This HRA gave an excellent talk on Dianetics before a gathering of over a hundred psychologists on June 10th, and when asked what evidence there might be that Hubbard had really had no failure in over 200 cases treated, replied that no proof was available at the moment but that he was quite willing to take the author’s word because of the excellent results he was already getting. (Wing Anderson was kind enough to take one of his new sleep suggestion tape recorders to the meeting and record the lecture and the questions and answers – then drop the machine off for me at the Study, where I could sit and listen to the recording while addressing the envelopes for this bulletin.)

Two other HRAs have already reported in on their first tests of the system and both believe they got results in their auditing efforts right from the first. Neither of these is a professional, but both are well versed in the methods and theories of this corner of the field. My own experiments in self-auditing have lagged because of lack of time, but I am gradually recovering memories connected with my early prayer life and hope to find and drain off some associated blockings of the path of prayer-actions.

The reaction of many professionals engaged in treating mental troubles, large or small, and in making the assorted methods and theories work, has been, as I predicted, one ranging from explosive to suspicious curiosity. They do not forget that often in the past, someone has announced a new method of psychological treatment which has worked for few except the inventor. Of course, there are a few who see a threat to their fat fees for protracted treatments. To make them still more upset, we see in Hubbard’s work a complete set of new terms and the strongest possible denial of the use of suggestion – with careful instructions given to help avoid even the unintentional use of anything distantly related to suggestion. With these precautions, there would have to be a complete new set of laws put through to prevent the layman from auditing his friends. We shall see shortly whether the system is one that will repay us as HRAs to take up more seriously. We must keep well in mind the fact that in Dianetics, as in most modern psycho-therapeutic theories, there is a nearly complete lack of consideration of the part played in our lives by spirits or other entities and forces dealt with in Psychic Science. Also, the determined ignoring of such things as the Aumakua, God, gods, guardian angels or highly evolved spirit entities, has crippled both research and practice.

FAITH

TWO LETTERS have arrived recently which have set me searching through Huna concepts and the words used by the kahunas, to get for us clearer ideas as to the part “faith” should play in our prayer-actions and lives. One letter reads, in part, “Huna is interesting, but too complicated. I am convinced that, did one live up to the Ten Commandments and was thus able to ask forgiveness of sins, was re-born, as the Bible states, then his prayers could be answered. Please discontinue my mailing of Kahuna literature.”

The gist of the second letter is that the writer is going “Back to Faith.” In her case, the faith as expounded in Judge Troward’s books in which he “based his teachings on the Bible, but had a highly intuitive interpretation of it.”

“Acceptance, and letting the joy and power of God-life flow through you is the CURE.” “I found Huna too mechanical – to the letter rather than to the God-Spirit. I am not trying to change your ways. You have a perfect right to search in that way. “I still expect perfect healing. I also seek instant healing power. I have studied Quimby with that in view. It comes very simply through spiritual realization. But for us intellectuals, that is a difficult path. It requires belief to the point of emotional acceptance.”

The point of view of each writer is important because many of us may feel much the same way. The first writer represents the usual Christian of the past twenty centuries. His formula is based on the modern version of Christian teachings. In it, there is neither room nor need for the discoveries of modern psychology, psychic science or Huna, the latter covering both of these branches.

The second point of view is more inclusive. It has the same basis, but is enlarged to accept an “intuitive interpretation” of the Bible teachings, and there is also room for such things as the idea of a “Universal Subconscious” which we can influence by our prayers as by suggestion of the hypnotic order, the thing influenced being unable to resist obeying the suggestion aimed at it. Again, however, psychic science was neglected and the part played in our lives by spirits, obsessions, multiple personality, etc. was overlooked.

We have seen that Huna deals with all the states of consciousness, not neglecting the living state of man or his state after death as a spirit. It gives much attention to abnormal conditions, especially of the “mind” of the Aunihipili, in or beyond physical life. This being the all-inclusive fact, we cannot by any means refuse, as Huna students, to accept the challenge when someone asks if Huna neglects FAITH.

Nothing is very complicated to one who has a ready understanding of it. It is only the lack of a complete understanding that makes a foreign language or a problem in addition and subtraction seem too complicated for daily use.

One trouble with our theology in the past two thousand years may have been that it was overly simplified to fit the needs of those who found the complications too great to bear. While I am, personally, distressed at having any of my good friends in HRA drop out of our ranks, I can see very clearly that the way ahead leads not back to simplification, but on to even greater complications – though also to a full understanding that makes for ease of grasp, use and teaching.

If anyone had asked me what the most complicated concept in all of the religions might be, I would probably have answered, “FAITH.”

FAITH is a thing we cannot define in clear and simple terms so that it can be understood readily and at once be generated. It is “blind, illogical, unreasonable and impossible to predict or obtain. It is NOT just ordinary belief – it is an emotional state which lies beyond the control of reason-from-facts.”

FAITH AS DISCUSSED IN THE BIBLE & OLD TESTAMENT

After the arrival of the two letters just mentioned, I went to the Bible and examined the Old Testament to find what could be learned about faith from it. I found in the concordance, one instance in which “faithless” was used, but with the sense of “disloyal.” I found the word “believe” used often and in the regular logical sense of the word. The Hebrews either believed the prophets or they did not. Faith, such as is met with countless times in the New Testament, was never a part of the older beliefs and teachings.

In the New Testament, “faith” appears as an invention peculiar to Christianity. It began as a reasonable “belief that Christ Jesus is the Son of God,” and in short order developed into something that fits well the quoted definition given above. We read, “Your faith has made you whole,” and we realize at once that this was not just the ordinary reasonable belief in the healing powers of God which had caused the instant healing. Something had been added – very decidedly. There was a new ingredient. But where did it come from?

A look at the dictionaries tells us that “faith” is a “Middle English” word. It was used to translate some other word in the Greek, Latin, Hebrew or other languages in which the Gospels were originally written. Greek and Latin were mostly used and we find in Latin the counterpart words “confidence” and “trust” (fidere), but NOT “belief,” which comes from a different set of roots even if given as a synonym. However, it was the Greek counterpart of the word that furnished the clue. This word, which must have been used in some of the oldest versions, exclusive of other or almost similar words, was “peithein” (as nearly as I can spell it in our alphabet), and it had the very surprising meaning of “TO PERSUADE,” which has the basic meaning of “to induce.” The words used to make the translation are of Latin origin, and we see that they change the original meaning slightly. Translation into English changed the original meaning still more. Make no mistake about it. To “believe” is NOT to “induce,” even if one can “induce” another to do something, sometimes, by causing belief in the need of the act.

Now, going back to the part played by “faith” in the New Testament as we read it, we begin to see that the PART PLAYED BY THE ALL-IMPORTANT THING, “FAITH”, was that of “PERSUADING” or “INDUCING” God to answer prayer. This makes sense. The entire purpose of Christianity was to get help in answer to prayer during life, and “salvation” (soteria in the Greek – meaning “a safe return”) after death. (To win this “salvation” one had first to believe that Jesus was divine and was able to grant salvation; second, one must “repent,” which in the Greek original was metanoia which simply means “a reflective turning of the mind.” See The Conquest of Fear by Basil King, page 45 and on.)

Because I have so often found in the roots of the words of the kahunas the explanation of lost or hidden meanings in the Gospels, I at once began to suspect that behind this early use of what we now try to understand under the term “faith”, there must be a hidden mechanism useful to “persuade” or “induce” the Higher Powers to give us answers to our prayers.

I had already made a quick search in the Old Testament and had failed to find any special methodology behind prayer. One just asked for what one wanted after making certain that one had lived up to the usual commands, had been purified, and perhaps had offered a sacrifice. In two hours of going through the books on Egypt that are in the Study, I failed to find even a single mention of “faith”, “belief”, “persuasion” or related words. It appeared that the Hebrews had not borrowed any slightest fragment of a “faith” concept from the Egyptians, who had given them so much. And, to go still further, it seemed that the Hebrews were strangers to “faith” in the sense of the word as it was used in the New Testament.

(I am encouraged here by a recent letter from HRA, Nell Barton, able student of Dallas, Texas, in which she wrote, “Please continue to give us more of the meanings of Huna words. That is the only way I will be able to get a full understanding of the foundation of what I consider one of the most important things the world has ever known.”)

If you have your copy of SSBM handy, check pages 398 and 399 at this point. If not, go ahead.

In the Hawaiian words used by the kahunas of Hawaii, there is found a strange word, lele, which has the meaning of “making something fly” and refers to the “flying” of the prayer, once it is made in the Huna way, to the Aumakua (or, any “god” in modern translations). That is a part of the mechanism of prayer-actions, a mechanism involving the making of the mental image of the desired condition, and the sending of the image on a flow of surplus mana to the Aumakua. This word has no relation to the word for “believe,” which is mana`o`io, meaning “thought to be real.” Nor has it any relation to the words which might be translated as “to persuade” or “to induce.”

Now we come to the Huna concept that throws light on the mystery of the strange third-hand-by-translation word “faith.” The word in Hawaiian which translates perfectly into the “faith” of the kahunas, which was a logical and reasoning confidence, is pau`lele, or “to complete or finish” plus “making something fly.” In the pages of SSBM in which this word was mentioned, particularly on page 400, I gave the meaning of pau`lele and the implication that if one had the confidence that the prayer had been correctly made and delivered, one would then stop praying – stop making his “prayers” and sending them “flying upward.” Yes, that can be called “faith.” I will admit that, but the point that stands out is the fact that it is the whole ritual mechanism of prayer that is important, and NOT THE FAITH OR CONFIDENCE which one may have later. Of course, if one does not BELIEVE that a properly made prayer can be sent effectively to the Aumakua, [it] will not do its part in the undertaking. (It must obey the order to accumulate mana, to make telepathic contact with the Aumakua and to carry the mental image of the desired conditions, with the mana flow, to the Aumakua to be grown as a “seed” into a future reality.)

In the New Testament we come upon another veiled statement that takes on fresh significance in the light of Huna and what has just been said. We read, “Faith without works is dead.” Knowing the possibility that a Huna meaning is hidden under the third-hand translation, we have but to examine the Hawaiian word for “work.” It is ha na. The “works” which go with the exercise of “faith” seem to be such things as hana mana which means “to cause a miracle.” So, the implication is to be seen that the prayer-action, performed in the ritual way (“faith”) is “dead” or “misses the mark,” as the kahunas used to say, if it fails to produce some form of “miracle” – to get an “answer” (which is the “works”). (The root ha in ha na, “to work,” has the meaning of “strong breathing” such as accompanies aroused emotions, and which seems to be connected with the idea of accumulating a surcharge of mana. The root has also the significant meaning of “a trough or pipe for water (symbol of mana) to run through,” which connects us with the meaning of sending the accumulated mana to the Aumakua along the “pipe” or aka thread of contact. In the lore of India we come upon a similar symbolism in which the pranic force flows through tubes.

In a letter which reached me last month, the point was raised that prayers made in the Christian way are often answered. This is an important point. It is not difficult to see that in a prayer of this kind the Huna mechanism may easily be used, even if unwittingly. We all have mana in the body and aka while we are alive. We all make a mental picture of the conditions which we pray to have given as the answer to prayer. We all reach out mentally and emotionally to the Higher Being to whom we pray, and often with a fine rising of emotional force, which is an excellent indication that the Aunihipili is aware of its part of the job and is doing its best to get the mana and mental image to the Aumakua. The Aunihipili seems to have an instinctive awareness of the presence of the Aumakua and to know how to make the telepathic contact (if not blocked by fixations). It cannot think without using mana, and emotions are accompanied by an automatic manufacturing of extra mana. Thus we see that, under proper conditions, a prayer automatically is made after the Huna method from start to finish.

A friend recently wrote to tell me of a long investigation which he has made of healing as done in modern Christian churches, usually by traveling evangelists. He had followed up the seeming miraculous healings and had learned that the majority of them did not last. In terms of Huna or modern psychology we say that the fixations causing the psychosomatic troubles were not entirely drained off, even if temporarily raised by the healing ritual and response. Later, the familiar surroundings or circumstances almost invariably “trigger” the old fixation and undo the healing work. The kahunas were at pains to order their patients never to dwell upon or even remember the condition once it had been changed for the better.

If, by long chance, all the necessary steps in the prayer-actions are automatically taken, regardless of Huna, then, and only then, can the “complications” be ignored. While it is possible – even probable – that if we can make use of the High Magic, instead of the low magic which depends on handling mana, thought-forms, fixations and the like, we may at the same time get the Aumakua to clear away the fixations or whatever stands in the way of the swift answer to the prayer. A visiting HRA recently told of her experience over the years and of how she has learned to “raise her vibration” or by some inner gesture of mind (combined Aunihipili and Auhane) reach up and touch the “Supreme,” getting splendid healing results when the patient was such that he or she could be helped.

As I see it, FAITH has three sides, perhaps more. There is the side seen by the Aunihipili. This is the unreasoning confidence and belief in the loving attitude of a Higher Being toward the Aunihipili. It is an animal and emotional reaction similar to the dog’s when it becomes confident that its master loves it and may be fully trusted to help instead of harm it. If the dogs tail is trodden upon, there is a yelp, but the faith in the master remains firm. There can still be this same faith, even when the dog has misbehaved and has hidden under the bed instead of racing to greet his home-coming master. In this, the Aunihipili is the same. If it has a sense of guilt, it reacts the same way and our prayers remain hidden with it under the bed until all is forgiven.

The FAITH of the Auhane is based on logic and reason. It is belief based on accepted information or experience. It is a cold and emotionless thing. It cannot overlook the fact that some of our prayers have not been answered and so must try to find a logical excuse for the failure.

The third FAITH stands in the realm of the Aumakuaswhich we can sometimes touch or sense, but which is beyond the reach of the mental powers of the Aunihipili and Auhane. The emotions of the Aunihipili will not give one that deep, clear and complete dog-like trust and confidence in the Aumakua or God or whatever we wish to call the Higher Being to whom we pray. No effort of reason will convince the Auhane with a conviction that may not change with success or failure of prayer. The Auhane backslides habitually.

To obtain the third kind of FAITH, we need to rise above the physical senses of the Aunihipili and the logic of the Auhane. In Zen “realization” I have had the usual experience of actually becoming a part of the strange, basic pattern substance-conditions of what I take to be the level of conscious being just above our own – the level on which and in which the Aumakua lives and has its being. This experience is, in a small way, like sensing light or sound, but the difference is that, on the physical level, the light and sound are things outside of us. They are recorded by eyes and ears. In the state of realization, one becomes a part of light or of sound, and the experience is one so far surpassing ordinary sensing that it has all the earmarks of being the exercise of a third and higher way of super-sensing and super-experiencing.

Once having BECOME a part of the vast whole of light, one returns to the normal condition carrying a memory of the experience – a memory of a strange nature that gives utter and unchanging CONVICTION that there is that other and higher form or degree of basic light and that one has ACTUALLY BEEN PART OF IT. This [is] the third level of FAITH. It admits of no slightest change or doubt thereafter. Having once actually been a part of a thing makes the reality of the thing itself beyond all question. To have been for a time a part of the Aumakua, would undoubtedly give complete belief in its reality ever after. I have only touched in this way the things of this level in their form as basic patterns and perfections as of abstract ideals, but some seem to have touched the Aumakua and come back KNOWING its personality and utter trustworthiness – the latter characteristic apparently being the most impressive since Huna was first found. It may be, of course, that one touches its aspects rather than personality. In a recent bulletin I gave you part of the letter of HRA Sherman Peticolas telling of entering a downpouring of white light after chanted prayer.

The secret doctrines of all religious lore deal largely with the various ways and means by which one may become “one with God” for a moment or, after death, for eternity. All meditation and much fasting and prayer aim at the same end of “becoming one with.” It is apparent in the little we know of the old Mysteries of the Mediterranean Basin civilizations. It is the central theme of Yoga teachings concerning the attainment of “union.” If anything in the historicity of the New Testament is true, it is the claim of the man Jesus that he had attained this union with “the Father” and that he urged a similar union upon his followers.

MEDITATION & CONTEMPLATION

The kahunas have a surprising number of words for meditation, contemplation, reflection and concentration. It is evident that the act generalized under the term noo noo (“to search” plus “to think”) was one well planned to allow the kahuna to become one with the Aumakua. The Aumakua was the “parental spirit” or “Father,” the inclusion by absorption of the feminine half of the “parent” being accepted and still symbolically left as a thing still not final. Of one thing we can be sure, and this is that the Father was not the Old Testament Javeh which comes to us in translation as Jehovah.

In the older religions we constantly find the teaching that a man becomes what he thinks. This idea would fail to make full sense were it not for the knowledge that this form of “becoming” is the “union” with the basic elements or even the Aumakuas on the higher level of being. After meditating with a “searching by thought” on straightness or light, one does not see or sense these things as we would on this level. One suddenly finds himself BECOME part or the basic and abstract pattern reality which is utter straightness and complete light without there being any physical thing to be straight or to be lighted. With the kahunas, the word ku was used for “become.” It has two distinct meanings, both symbols of the steps taken in such realization, (1) “to rise up” as from a prone position, and (2) “to stand.” The symbol meanings show the process of reaching “up” for the contact with the Aumakua level. And, once this is reached, one “becomes” or stands in with the things of that level as a part of them. (This is called “standing in line” and is found in the prayer Hewahewa delivered before the missionaries upon their arrival in Hawaii.) Another meaning of ku (it has over 20 variations), is “to be like or to resemble.” Another is “to reach from one place to another.” Another, “to be placed or set in a state or condition.”

A place for meditation, as a mountain top, was called ku`a noo. Note the combination of the ku and noo roots with the idea of “going up” in the symbol of “mountain top.” “Up” is the symbol used constantly to show the progressive steps of growth from Aunihipili to Auhane and Aumakua. It is not indicative of “place.” The “God within” concept is perhaps more accurate in indicating an interblending of “planes” of consciousness. However, in Realization it might be more exact to say “Man within God” to describe the “becoming one” state that results in a complete and lasting faith, knowing or conviction of Aumakua reality.

To attain the new state of faith through Realization undoubtedly demands that we keep “searching” and “thinking” – keep meditating – with the aim of drawing closer and closer to the Aumakua until we come to the point of experiencing the moments of “becoming one” with the Aumakua. A word for “faith” in Hawaiian is mana`o`io, in which mana`o means to think by using mana to handle our memories, plus the root io or “real.” That is true knowledge. It is the real “faith.”

In the Zen training to attain Realization, the student is given questions (koans) which cannot be answered through reasoning. He is taught to ponder the question until he gets from the Aumakua the answer, which is a realization of the “REAL” and enduring and perfect basic pattern after which our physical things are made in a very clumsy and imperfect way. The student knows how to use memory and reason already. What he is set to learn is to use the innate ability of the Aunihipili to make a complete contact with the Aumakua and to merge with it. This merging or “becoming one with” is an act quite apart from any use of the mental powers. We say that it is a use of intuition, but even that is a poor name for the final rising to touch and become a part of the Aumakua – being able for the moment to see and sense and KNOW, as through ITS superior powers of sensing.

Remember the story of Psyche and Amor, the human and her lover who was a god? The Greeks gave us in this story the same information to be found in Zen. Psyche felt the presence of her divine lover nightly, heard his voice intuitively, and was happy. Curiosity impelled her to light her lamp (intellectual power) in order to get to see her lover, but Amor vanished instantly. He could not be found in the realm of human reason or the limbo of emotions. Only her love for him could aid her search. It attracted her to him in the end and she became “one with” Amor permanently, thus knowing him as one with herself – leaving nothing to be seen by the light of intellect.

This highest of the three forms of believing or FAITH is gained by “becoming one” with the Aumakua. The sages have spoken of the universal law of attraction and have told the secret of it. It is that a man becomes what he thinks and draws nearer and nearer to the thing he loves. Our meditations should be powered by our deep love of the Aumakua and by the “searching-thinking” of the kahunas. If the intellect is steadily pushed aside, the way opens and the mystic attraction grows. One day, when relaxed, or one night when half awake, one suddenly finds himself “placed in the new condition” (ku) and thereafter the faith is a knowing of the REAL beyond all logical knowing. That HIGH FAITH is undoubtedly the “knowing” that makes possible the instant healing of High Magic. It is the bright goal. It is the ultimate “gift” and it is for each of us when and if we are ready to make the efforts needed to claim it. With it, one does the “works” – hana mana – the miracles. Without it, one must be patient and keep on using the low magic.

The low magic demands belief of the reasoning Auhane and faith of the lowest or animal-emotional level on the part of the Aunihipili. Fortunately, unless badly blocked by fixations of doubt or guilt, or unless the day has been spoiled by emotional upsets, the Aunihipili will have the happy faith that is intuitive in it and will obey and make contact with the Aumakua when we desire to pray. One of our modern mystics wrote after long study, “The animals all will to God.” The Aunihipili is an animal spirit in an animal body. We Auhanes are only guests in its house – loved guests upon whose guidance and superior mental powers the Aunihipili gladly depends. If we do all we can to live without hurt, and to open and keep open the path of the Aunihipili to the Aumakua, it will “Will to God” for us and make for us the contact we cannot make. The law of attraction is its also – on its own level. Meantime, we are given time in this way to make our way through love and “searching-thinking” to the Aumakua levels – there first to find the basic straightnesses and light, and when the time ripe, the “Union” of “becoming one with.” MFL