Huna and the Nature of the Soul
June 1, 1951
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 DISCUSSION TO GET IT STARTED
One of the local HRAs dropped into the Study recently and we fell to discussing the dusty theory of transmigration. That, for some absurd reason, led us on to speaking of transubstantiation and the changing of the elements of the Holy Communion to the body and blood of Christ. This brought us by one path or another to the subject of transmutation of elements.
Suddenly my friend looked at his watch, frowned, and said, “We’ve wasted ten minutes. What I dropped in for was to talk about Huna. We’ve known of transmigration in theory for perhaps three thousand years and have argued over transubstantiation and alchemy for almost two thousand, and it’s time we got on to something more promising.”
“What had you intended to ask about Huna?” I inquired.
He took off his glasses, inspected the lenses absently, and replaced them. “I hardly know how to put it…. It’s that matter of the two selves in Huna – the Aunihipili and the Auhane. Did the old na kahuna always have to say ‘my Aunihipili and my Auhane ‘ when they spoke of what we call our ‘soul’?”
I reached for my Hawaiian-English dictionaries, and looked to see what Hawaiian word the early missionaries had selected to use for our word “soul.” There it was on page 245 of my Andrews Dictionary. I read the translation aloud: “Ka`ho`a`ka: The spirit or soul of a person still living, supposed to be seen by (native) priests heuhane kakaola.”
“Of course,” I explained, “the word uhane was the standard one they used in translating the Bible into Hawaiian, and never for a moment did the missionary scholars suspect that the Aunihipili was another self and part of the ‘soul.’ They were living long before the subconscious was discovered.”
“But,” put in my friend, “does that word kahoaka have anything in it to signify more than two souls? How about the roots and their meanings?”
So we turned the dictionary leaves and hunted up the meanings of such roots as we could take from the word. From ka, hoa and aka, we were able to translate, “The, companion, and shadowy.” That centered our attention on the “companion,” and the only companion of a Auhane is a Aunihipili, for the Aumakua is not considered a companion in that sense. The native priests or na kahuna, were, it seems, well acquainted with what we moderns know as “astral travel.” If, using their psychic abilities, they saw one of the two “companion” selves out of the body and wandering about, they knew it for what it was and had a special name for it. If they saw both selves out in their aka bodies, the chances were that the person was dead.
The word kino`wai`lua was reserved for use to indicate the ghost of one deceased – translating literally, “body-water-two” or “a body of two waters.” With water symbolizing mana, we have a ghost of two bodies or selves, each using its own grade of vital force or having in place of a flesh body, one made of aka substance and mana, one such body for each of the two selves indicated in the word “two.”
Finishing with the roots of these words, we eventually got on to ka`ka`o`la which was given by Andrews in the dictionary as a second word for “soul.” The roots were kaka and ola. Kaka has the common meaning of “to beat, whip, or split as wood.” This seemed not applicable to the “soul.” However, there was another meaning, “fruits that grow in clusters, such as grapes….” This, added to the meaning of ola, which is “alive”, gave the meaning of the word as, “cluster-alive,” which, in symbols, is easily seen as a “cluster” of living units, possibly a Auhane in its aka body with a small charge of mana. If several such spirits were seen out on an astral traveling spree together, the word for them was oio, meaning, “a company of ghosts,” according to the maker of this early dictionary. (A word of no special significance to us and NOT indicating a self which is “alive” or in the flesh when not astral traveling.)
When, a little later, I accompanied my friend to his car, we were on to discussing the significance of the root that translated, “companion.” This same root, hoa, has also another meaning, an evident symbolic pointing toward the aka or shadowy thread that connects the Aunihipili and Auhane during life and when separated in astral travel. This meaning is, “To tie…. as with string or rope; to secure by tying or binding.” (In the alternate spelling of Aunihipili, or uhinipili, we have the root, hini, meaning “thin, or slender” which applies perfectly as a symbolic description and significator of the aka (aha) thread which Huna knows so well in its many functional uses, and which, in other systems, is known to a much lesser extent – the “Silver Cord.”
My friend summed it all up as he climbed into his car. “No matter which way you turn, na kahuna seem to make you accept the idea that we have two selves instead of one.” He stepped on the starter, winked solemnly at me, and said in a voice of gruff command, “Come on there Aunihipili! Shift that gear! You and I are an hour late!”
I returned to my Study with my mind turning slowly on the matter of the many words used by na kahuna to describe, in some very particular way, some special state or condition of the Aunihipili or Auhane when outside the physical body. At my desk, I searched old notes for still another such word, and soon found it.
This word is ha`ili`aka, meaning “ghost or spirit” according to the dictionary. The literal translation from the roots, is “a trough through which to run water (symbol of mana), a skin, and something shadowy” (our usual aka body which a self inhabits as a ghost or spirit). This word might have been used for a normal spirit made up of two selves, but the stress is made to fall on its ability to convey mana in its aka body as water is conveyed by a trough. The idea of a “skin” may indicate that the mana is not made to flow onto another spirit, but is kept and used to fill the aka body of the Aunihipili of the spirit as water fills a skin. The ancient na kahuna were clever at hiding symbolic meanings in words.
One can almost picture the original na kahuna, ages ago, striving to make up words which (1) would be used in common conversation and so not be lost, (2) which would, in the roots, contain symbolic and secret information which would be carried on down to posterity for the benefit of those to come who would need this information.
That the words survived, we know. We also see that the outer or esoteric meanings of words and phrases survived and were used as such in conversation and writing in non-Huna circles and lands. Christianity and its literature is filled with the words and phrases which have the outer and inner meanings.
HRA Alice Harrison said in a letter to me, “To me the aka thread or cord between us and the Aumakua, is the Biblical ‘straight and narrow path.’ I find so much in Huna that fits my inner interpretation of the Bible.”
The “path” was a symbol, in Huna, of the aka thread of contact between the Aunihipili and the Aumakua. (Ala: “A path; to rise up, to excite to action, as the mind.” Note that the symbol of ‘up’ was used to indicate all sending of mana and thought-forms in prayer-actions from the Aunihipili – at the instigation of the Auhane – to the Aumakua. Nearly all of the great religions have the same idea of ‘up’ in placing their heaven and the bright spirits who inhabit them. Only here and there may be found a concept of a heaven which remains on the good earth, but which is removed in the matter of distance to some special region.)
The “Wide Path” is always the easy one to follow in sacred writings, and is said to lead to bad ends. (Ala`nui: “great path”) On the other hand, the narrow and small path led to a good end but was difficult to find and to follow. In Christianity it has been taught that the difficulty is caused by our slowness to give up sinful living. That makes sense, but vague sense when the symbol of a narrow path is considered. Not so, however, if we turn to Huna.
In Huna the “path” is “straight” which is pololei, and means “moral straightness” as in Christianity. The “strait” and the “narrow,” on the other hand, take on special symbolic significance. The word ha`iki carries for us the special meaning of this “narrow path.” Its roots give us, literally, ha: “trough to convey water (the mana flow); and iki: “small.” So, we have in the “small trough to carry water,” the tiny aka thread carrying mana “up” to the Aumakua to empower it to act for us on this earthy level in answer to our prayers.
Na kahuna tell us with care in their many symbols, that the aka body of any of the three “selves” can be filled with mana. We have just seen this secret information as it was hidden in the word for “spirit” which indicated the aka body as a water skin, filled with mana to be used in some way.
Our progress in our studies in Huna and its uses depends on such evidence as these roots provide. The “wide and easy path” is to accept the outer doctrine found in Polynesia from Easter Island to New Zealand – the doctrine that mana is some personal form of power which is handed down from parent to child along with standing and authority…. Or, that the aka or aha thread is NOT to convey mana, but to remind us of the umbilical cord connecting all with ancestors.
Whither goes our Huna research? HRA Winogene Savage, whose books on religion have been reviewed in the Bulletin, has been considering the problem of what we should take up next to further the Huna studies and experimental tests. Here are parts from her letter.
“It seems to me that Huna urgently needs a number of students with clairvoyant faculties well developed, to check, correct, fill in missing links, for a complete miracle-working philosophy.
“The teachings of Theosophy, including reincarnation, karma that carries over a series of lives, and other more complex keys, are all verified by many, many sensitives who actually see back into Egyptian, and even Atlantean incarnations of their past.
“I have known personally, several who have traced various past lives that check, and fit in with events and circumstances today. Flower Newhouse, who remembers clearly even back to Egypt, and whose instructions come directly from past teachings or from Teachers today, traces MANY present day causes in the lives of those who come to her for help back to previous incarnations which cast dark shadows on present lives.
“If reincarnation is a fact in Being, how can any psychoanalysis going back only to this life-conception, really dig out those hidden causes? One can search and study until doomsday, but without the whole picture – as it affects us – will the premises be adequate to meet the problem confronting us everywhere? And will the very best of cures be complete and permanent if causes do go far back, and still remain?
“I have always been ‘regusted’ (sic) with Freudian philosophy. It actually leads nowhere. It is just as far around to go by that path as to go by the accredited path that leads to KNOWING.
“And giving ‘George’ or ‘Pansy’ so much importance in developing technique is, in my opinion, traveling on the road that leads nowhere. I have seen them running the show with the minimum of conscious direction, and what a mess they made! I have never been able to fit the Aunihipili into an accurate place in my philosophy, tho I often tell my ‘George’ to find things for me and of course he does.
“Our consciousness resembles the iceberg in that the subconscious is like the mass below water level and supports the conscious which is like the visible part. It is all the same stuff, but is functioning differently, and is floating in the Great Sea (of consciousness?) of which it is made – differing only in form, but not in substance – ‘God,’ in my appraisal.
“Probably na kahuna saw far into the past, and so could deal with causes (in past incarnations). But I believe the TEACHINGS are available in today’s releases, are more advanced, and are more applicable to today’s problems. In fact, I believe it is being released in a number of forms, to satisfy all students who are willing to search and study. Out of each type of teaching we will glean kernels that will eventually complete the picture, and in that process, clear away all barriers – complexes and blocks and such – without giving them extra attention. And we will come to see and hear and know with veritable ‘cosmic consciousness,’ which seems to me to be the ultimate purpose of earth-living.
“Huna papers have given clues that apply to any philosophy, but it seems to me that Robin Hood’s barn has a pretty well packed Path around it! I’ve been having to take a divergent path, since I so often disagree.”
Sent with Mrs. Savage’s letter was an announcement of a lecture to be given by Flower A. Newhouse, and I take it that this is a suggestion that we might do well to turn to this lecturer for information instead of continuing our present approach to Huna. The lecture is titled “Unveiling the Mysteries of Creative Prayer,” and concerning the subject, I read: “Behind the visible range of man’s activities lies the perceptible field of his thoughts. Within this field PRAYERS ARE VISIBLE!
“What prayers look like, how they act, and to what extent they answer their own requests will be disclosed by this lecture. Mrs. Newhouse will also analyze the inner reasons why some prayers are not answered. She will describe the difference in the appearance of the kind of prayers which are ineffective from those which are vital.
“Everyone who hears this lecture will not only better understand the mechanics of prayer thought-waves, but will be more intelligently able to pray effectively and wisely.”
Comment on the letter above. HRA Winogene Savage is one of our most steadfast friends in HRA. She has been with us from the earliest days, and has led a Huna group. She is one of Cigbo’s most generous friends. More than that, she calls the play for all HRAs whose brain radiations on the Bovis Biometer measure around 320 degrees. What she has to say is always said frankly and in the utmost sincerity, and must be taken in the spirit in which it is given.
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME
All roads lead to Rome, in Huna as in other matters in the field of the psycho-religions. It is as if we who are HRAs were seated in a very large circle, each viewing Huna from a particular angle and in a special light – a light of experience and study, of needs and individual approach.
We cannot all leap over the tangled field of mechanics found in Huna, as Mrs. Savage is able to do. Many of us must plod along examining the manas, the three selves, the fixations, the aka threads and all that. Our faith in the veracity and correct “seeing” of noted psychics may have long since soured. The long view back through incarnations may have been cut short by the contradictory “seeings” of the psychics we have known – or we may have been thrown back from the speculative section of the field by something inside us which refuses to accept the statements of Teachers at face value.
Dr. Oscar Brunler has done us a very great service in his discovery of brain radiations and in the classification of types of mental action and reaction. (In which work his wife, Dr. Calver, has done a great Service of study and classification as well.) From this work, we learn that each of us is gifted in some special way as we approach the study of the psycho-religious field. Once we see that, we realize that we are all headed in exactly the same direction but are, because of our mental individualities, stressing certain items of information and depending on certain sources of information fitted to our way of reasoning, sensing and feeling. HRA Mrs. Savage finds in the Bulletins many things from my pen which she does not accept because they do not agree with her view of things, or because she may consider them incorrect as relates to Huna. In this she is in excellent and honored company. Our experts on the Hawaiian language and Hawaiian lore in general, Charles W. Kenn, F. H. F. and HRA, as well as HRA Theodore Kelsey, disagree with my opinions on many points, and always for very excellent reasons of their own, if not equally impressive reasons from where I stand looking at the central LIGHT furnished by Huna.
Going back to the clairvoyants, and taking Flower Newhouse and what she “sees” as an example, I know that a number of the HRAs are rather completely convinced that her psychic vision gives her the correct information on matters. On the other hand, my type of mentation, as measured by the biometer, causes me to compare her findings and her statements as to the meaning of them, with similar findings and statements accumulating down the years, especially in the past century since psychism escaped the era of witch-burning. Just because I come to an approach of comparisons, and turn away with empty hands because no two famous psychics agree on facts, Teachers or final goals of living, is no reason why others may not be able to fasten to the findings and decisions of one psychic leader of a group and come away with hands full to overflowing.
Perhaps the greatest feather in the cap of our HRA organization is the very fact that we CAN work together despite the divergent points of view which we as individuals represent. True, a few HRAs have been unable to bear failure to bend the rest of us to their point of view, and have resigned, but, on the whole, we have demonstrated the finest tolerance I have ever had the privilege of seeing exerted in such a mixed group. I am often sinfully proud of some HRA whose newly arrived letter takes the scalp off both myself and some real or postulated angle of Huna. It shows that we are a fully alive investigational group and not a somnolent congregation which is content to let one person stand as the last word in authority on every question. If we can keep together, even if in each other’s hair betimes, and keep battling forward, each on his own line, but with Huna always kept in sight, we will, by the very nature of things, make steady progress toward something factual, and, what is more, practical.
No matter whether we accept reincarnation as a matter of a few or of a great many lives, or karma hangovers from life to life, or Cosmic Consciousness as a final goal of growth, we will be safe to keep before us the short-range aims which are peculiar to Huna – Huna being the thing that has brought us together as an investigational group. We can watch for ways and means of healing ourselves or others, and everything can be grist for our mill, be it the manas, the akas, the aka threads, the three selves, the fixations, or what not. The most important facts, once we discover them and put them to use, will invariably be translated by each of us in his own terms. However, it is warming to remember that no matter how we may differ on other angles, there is one set of simple verities which we always share: the verity that each slow and often painful forward step of growth is based on love and Service – even if very scant and meager. Failing that, if progress through love and Service is beyond the embittered reach of some, there is always that great Huna rock upon which rests a sure salvation – the rock of the ancient doctrine of “NON-HURT.”
Hard as it may be, we can slowly arrive at hurtlessness in acts and thoughts. That accomplished, even in part, and with resolves battered and broken each day, love and Service will open the door and come in softly. How we help is not as important, nor is why we help, as is the fact that we DO help. A kindly deed is a blessed help, a very sharing of oneself. But there may be a companion Service if we only sit beside the road, silently wish blessed good to each passer-by.
One of the basic processes to be learned in the tiny world surrounding us close at hand, is that of drawing people and things to us instead of pushing them away. There is a mystical something about it. I look out of my Study window and see a stranger on the street. But if I wish him blessed good, something bright and shining happens – he is no longer a stranger, but a friend. I have drawn him to me. The same thing happens in my garden. Today I discovered a nest in the center of my prized bush which provides red berries and green leaves for Christmas. In it were four small strangers – who remained strangers as they huddled low to keep out of sight while mother mockingbird ranged afield for food. I smiled and prayed them a little blessing, and as I did so, they lost their fear and rose up mightily, presenting four of the most amazingly wide little yellow mouths I have ever had the pleasure to see. The mystical something had worked silently and swiftly behind the scenes. Suddenly those four little birds were MINE. The things we reach out to and touch with love become miraculously our very own. We add ourselves to them and there is a flow and a uniting. Strength and warmth is augmented. A sense of peace and wellbeing arises. Again the lesson is learned that cooperation is the law, not separation and antagonism.
LETTERS
Letters about the self-analysis method of of writing down our random thoughts…. Much interest has been shown in the new project of testing the “writing down” method learning what fixations and blocks may be in one’s Aunihipili or subconscious. Several HRAs are already working on the test, and others have sent in suggestions or statements from writings on the method or methods closely related to it.
HRA S.J.Z. of Chicago, reminds us of the controversy concerning the advisability of telling others what we write down if what we write concerns something we hope to gain or accomplish. Some hold that to tell others of a plan exhausts the power-drive of our desire to carry it through – and to write it down has some of the same effect. I would comment on that item by saying that while doing a self-analysis, with the probable loss of valued inhibitions, it is very important to confide plans to others and allow them to help prevent going off on a wild goose chase in one direction or another. A plan which will, in normal conditions, not stand talking over with a close friend is apt to be a poor one in any event.
S.J.Z. adds to this the observation that, “…this same dissipation (of desire-energy) is sometimes very helpful. When one is angry, worried, fearful, or distressed by continuing malignant thoughts, one is unable to perform one’s work … If it is inconvenient to talk about them to a sympathetic listener, one should spend fifteen minutes a day writing them out until they are gone. The writing is not to be read over, but is to be destroyed immediately … Fifteen minutes at a time of the writing-down work is sufficient. Do it every day. Don’t overdo it or the results may be too great for safe handling.”
Most HRAs will have been watching the astrological prediction made all through the past year. The “worst” failed to happen on May 20th and May 29th, to the effect that the astrological conditions on the 20th and 29th of May, just past, were very dangerous and that revolution at home or the break out of full scale World War III might come. (I am writing this at 10:30 P.M., May 29th.) As yet, the great danger seems to have been averted.
Much as I decry the claims of some groups, as in World War II, that they had, by “decreeing” sunk battleships and averted disasters on the grand scale, may I whisper the hopeful suggestion that our TMHG prayer-actions for world peace and sanity may have helped. We have no way to know how much we have helped, or even that we have helped at all, but let us continue and redouble our efforts in this direction.
THE WALL OF PROTECTION
The Wall of Protection work for the fighting men and their families … It has taken longer than was anticipated to get word back from the fighting fronts in Korea as to the reaction of the men in the services to the Open Letter which was part of Bulletin 51, and which has been distributed on a wider scale than was anticipated. The prayer hours are being kept up faithfully. I hope by next Bulletin to be able to report the reaction of the soldiers to the project.
REPORT ON DREAMS OF THE FUTURE PROJECT
I am happy to be able to report that dreams are still being sent in, the average indicates bettering conditions for the present, although the more distant future still seems filled with changes and disasters of various kinds.
Two HRAs mentioned the prediction of a strong quake in the San Francisco region on June 10th at 9:30 A.M, credited to one Greensdan. One suggested that we make counter prayer-actions in our TMHG periods (which I at once began to do). Another reported dreaming of standing in the street watching a clock. The hour of 9:30 passed safely and he awoke. He got the flash that the quake would not come as predicted.
About two weeks ago I had a dream of being cut off by a flood which was washing out a road on the upper side of a great dam. I needed badly to pass over the crumbling road to get home, and found a woman with a taxi who was willing to try to get me across. We raced along the road with the muddy water chewing off sections almost as we passed. Reaching the far side safely, I got out and looked down, only to see that the water was still and was clearing so rapidly that I could see well into the depths. Someone said that the gates in the dam had been closed and that they had held – that the danger was over and that the dam would stand. After paying the taxi driver $4, she asked for 20¢ more. I asked why that should be and she said, “Others may not charge that, but I do.” Upon awakening, I asked my Aunihipili, George, at once to give me the meaning of the dream and its symbols. In reply I got the flash that the major war dangers would be narrowly averted, that the dam would hold back Red aggression, that the muddied waters of world conditions would begin to clear, and that the 20¢ represented additional taxes and war costs.
Keep your reports coming on what you attempt on any project. MFL
