Methods of Salvation

September 1, 1952

THE GREATEST SINGLE DISCOVERY OF ALL TIME

[This] would be a workable way by which men could be saved from all the things which afflict them in the course of life. Illness, helplessness caused by illness, accident or age or even that caused by being born defective mentally or physically, the burden of unhappiness caused by broken hopes, failures in accomplishing aims or ambitions, lack of love, understanding, sympathy or an outlet for natural creative urges, troubles caused by the deeds or the failures of loved ones, of others, of one’s nation or of the races of the earth, failure to be able to live normally on the level of the body, mind or Aumakua – salvation from all these things – a salvation that would allow a man to live normally and happily, safely and sanely, and to progress in evolutionary growth toward whatever is intended that he eventually become.

Science offers the idea that man evolves as a mass, not as an individual. You and I cannot be saved from the ills of life, but, through evolution, mankind may at last learn to live in an ideal way and in complete control of environment and social conditions. At present, there is no reward for efforts to better the conditions of living in any future existence. This is the doctrine of “now or never.”

The KARMA-REINCARNATION offer of salvation from worldly ills is one in which, if the individual does not do certain things, he must suffer blindly through almost countless incarnations, wearing out or paying off the karmic debts of past lives even while creating more unpleasant karma in the process. This endless living and suffering, however, can be avoided. The plan of salvation is to live so that no bad deed is done, and also that one eventually becomes entirely without desire for anything of any nature, even the desire to attain the escape from having to live. All that was promised was extinction as an individual having awareness of oneself. One passed back to formlessness and gave up individuality as a drop of water returns to the sea. The philosophy offered no satisfactory reason for passing the drop of water through the endless cycle before returning to the sea from which it came except that in some vague way the sea itself profited by the adventure and life cycle and sufferings of the drops of water separated from it. The way of salvation under this system did not lead to normal, happy and progressive living for the individual, the family or the tribe. It is self-evident that something is lacking.

The HEAVEN OR HELL offer made by the less developed religionists of various races, was not an escape from the ills of life here, but hereafter in some heaven or happy hunting ground or realm of spirit life. One gained what help one could for present ills by praying, but one earned the salvation of the afterlife by proper conduct. Failure to live properly, according to the ideals of the time and place, resulted in failure to attain the happy condition after physical death. This plan offered normal and kindly living as a means of salvation at the end of one life.

The ANCIENT HUNA offer and innovation, the origin of which is lost in the dim past, may be considered as something inclusive of all the other offers or systems through which salvation here and hereafter may be obtained by the individual. Huna taught evolution of each of the three human selves individually and progressively and in association with other selves to make the man. The Aunihipili came up from the animal level and evolved to be a Auhane and then a Aumakua. After that it was thought possible that it kept on evolving, but by a process of uniting to produce ever larger, wiser and more powerful group unit. Life was not looked upon as a torture and a thing to be escaped from at all costs and with all possible speed, even at the expense of giving up all normal life activities and pleasures and aims.

The carry-over of karma from the past life, by any or all of the three selves of the man, was not dependent on records kept by Lords of Karma and Laws of Karma enforced by them. The kahunas had no word for “karma” as used in the Indian sense. The idea was replaced by the belief that the sin-fixation-tangles, which included our attachment to “eating companions” or semi-obsessing spirits or aka shells of our past selves in past lives, cause us to think incorrectly and therefore, to act incorrectly – prevent us from living normally and happily.

THE AKA SHELL idea has been retained and described better in India than in Polynesia. In Theosophy we find it as the “astral shell” of this or that dead thing, be it a thought or a person. It is considered to be something, however, which can be re-animated by contact with the living, and which can then influence them to good or bad deeds or thoughts. The Huna concept is that all things are first created as aka forms or structures by a creative act of consciousness on an appropriate level, be it that of the Aunihipili, Auhane or Aumakua. The exact mechanism involved at this point is still not fully understood. We do not know whether the kahunas believed that the aka bodies of the three selves are brought along to encase the baby body by degrees from birth to adolescence, or whether new aka bodies are formed and the old ones left as more or less permanent molds floating about, but connected by aka threads to the new body. Two things might be possible. We might be reborn into the same aka body or, as seems more probable, there might be an attraction to the new body of the old aka shells.

In either case we must look for some way in which the kahunas accounted for the fact that memories – which must also reside in aka bodies awaiting the addition of mana to revive them – are often carried over from past lives and often play a part in our lives under the disguise of fixation-complex-obsession-sins. Old emotions, fears, hopes and talents seem to be carried along. (See the book, Perceptive Healing by Dr. R. Connell and Geraldine Cummins in which they found many fixations due to events in past lives of patients and were able to heal them by removing or rationalizing the fixation-emotion carry-overs.)

We attract aka shells with their memories and revitalize them with mana so that they again function in some way. We attract them only because like attracts like and we respond to the suggestions and emotions in the old memories for no other reason than that we have not yet evolved past that kind of action and reaction. Failure to respond draws the mana out of the shell and renders it dead again. (Thanks to new HRA Dave Dobbs of the Fairhope, Ala., group which has developed its own brand of Dianetics. Mr. Dobbs writes that in the work he has been doing and watching others do, there is a very real danger of attracting entities to the one being treated if the entities and the preclear are in “agreement” or have leanings in the same direction in the matter of actions and reactions.) The “split personalities” and obsessing spirits may be our own aka from the past, it would seem, or we may attract others to us through “agreement” or likeness of traits. If our old shells should contain a preponderance of good impulses and memories which stir our emotions, we might reap good “karma” in a manner of speaking, from them. If, on the other hand, the shells contained memories of evil, they might well be the “tempters” and “devils” who belong in the “sin-fixation-obsession” classification of Huna as we find it in Polynesia and in both parts of the Bible.

THE WAY OF SALVATION OF HUNA, as we unearth it from the words used by the kahunas and in what we can learn of their practices and beliefs, is now being made much clearer and more definite by a study of the Huna hidden in codes and symbols in both the Old and New Testaments. Here seems to lie the GREAT DISCOVERY – a practical way and a fairly easy way to obtain all the salvation that is possible. The method can be traced through the maze of words and meanings which still cover the ancient “Secret,” only if we keep constantly in mind the fact that anything which seems to suggest a departure from the good or the normal in living can be nothing other than a blind lead and false clue.

At this point in our HRA research I feel sure that there has been no mistake as to the basic points. These are, (1) make amends for past hurts done others, (2) change the attitude held toward life and live the hurtless and helpful life.

But, in order to bring ourselves to live the good, normal and helpful life, it is necessary that we become masters of ourselves, our moods, emotions, urges and impulses – all those things which come from the fixation-obsession-sin sources and causes. The heart of the great secret of salvation lies right here. The reason we fail dismally – and have so failed for so many centuries – is that the secret of the necessity of removing the fixations has been lost under an increasing accumulation of dogmas. The method of removing the fixations has been lost in the same way.

After making amends in kind or in general and impersonal good deeds, contact must be made with the Aumakua along the aka cord, and mana must be given to it with the request that the fixation obsession-sin units be removed from us. If the fixations block the aka cord “path” and contact cannot be made with the Aumakua, the help of someone who has an open contact is necessary in order that contact can be established for one, mana sent and the prayer-picture presented to ask to have the “stumbling blocks” moved and the crooked path made straight or opened. As the fixations are removed, the task of living the good and helpful and normal life becomes increasingly easy – not before.

The cleansing may take some time. It will need repeating on a smaller scale at frequent intervals to retain the cleansed condition of normalcy and to allow the Aumukua to have its proper part in living the life day by day. There is no demand for asceticism, seclusion, celibacy, or the giving up of all desire and ambition. (If there is fasting and “giving until it hurts” in coin or service, this should be for the purpose of impressing the Aunihipili that complete amends have been made for past hurts done others.)

THE HUNA CULT OF SECRECY

[This] was one of those amazing and inexplicable contradictions which gives us the picture of initiates who knew and used and greatly valued a system of knowledge, and which they desired above all else to see known and put to use by all men, but which they were impelled for some strange and all pervading reason to keep secret and hide under a mass of misleading information, outer forms, rituals and entirely useless dogmas. The initiate prophets constantly stormed and threatened in their efforts to force the early Jews to conform to the outer beliefs and rites, but undoubtedly reserved the inner Secret for the small number of initiates. The same must be said of Jesus, even though he instructed his initiate disciples to go out and preach his teachings to all the world. For the present we can only leave this strange anomaly to wait while we work to bring to light the “pearls of great price” which were so valued and so hidden lest they be cast at random before whatever grade of human being the term “swine” may have indicated at that early day.

Note: “swine” was puaa in the language of kahunas – a language that they must all have known to some extent. This word, as with so many used to reveal and at the same time to conceal by kahunas, has alternate meanings that unmistakably point to the fixation-obsessions which must be removed. The meanings of “fine and thin like a spider’s web” give the symbol of the tangle of aka threads which bind together the un-rationalized memories which are fixations. “To flee, as a child from its parents, to avoid punishment” is so direct a pointer toward the conduct of the Aunihipili when harboring a guilt complex, that the next meaning, “an unclean bird,” (check unclean animal or swine), can be accepted in its Huna symbol meaning of an evil spirit. All spirits were “birds,” good or bad according to their nature. Next we recall that the evil spirits which were cast out of the madman by Jesus were allowed to enter a herd of swine, which herd then rushed into the sea – large mana supply – and all were destroyed. We may ask if this indicates that all fixations or evil spirits in the madman were destroyed utterly or simply transferred to some more suitable hosts? Could it be that the pearls of Huna were considered too sacred to reveal to those badly laden with evil spirit fixations? This could hardly be. The madman was healed. Perhaps it is the man who has had his fixations and evil spirits removed who is to be allowed to see the pearls when cleansed and made ready – not before.

Further note: One can hardly escape the startling conclusion that the parable of the pearls and the story of the evil spirits and the swine may, in combination as given above, contain the actual reason for the long-preserved secrecy in which Huna truths were held. It is evident that the person most bedeviled by his fixation-obsessions is the most incapable of receiving the pearls. He wants very much to be let alone – allowed to continue as he now is. It may well be that only the individuals who have evolved sufficiently to glimpse the better life and reach out, willing and ready to try to grasp it, can be given the pearls. And still, it would seem from the accounts in question that some could be healed of at least the obsessions, whether they tried to resist or not, and then they may have become worthy candidates for further teaching, cleansing and ministrations.

Then, as Dr. Brunler demonstrated by the Biometric pattern tests of many criminals, there may be “devils” or men who are naturally or predominantly wicked and bad – with or without benefit of fixations or obsessions – for whom little or nothing can be done even should they, by some long chance, come to desire to reform and swing over completely from destructiveness to constructiveness.

PROVING THE FACTS OF THE LIFE AND CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS

[Proving these facts] by constant references to the prophecies of the Old Testament has appeared to many students as a possible effort on the part of the writers of the New Testament to convince the Jews of the verity of the claims made by and for Jesus. When we see that this was, primarily, a hooking up of the Old Testament Huna passages with the Huna that was being lived out by Jesus years later, the matter is seen in a very different light.

Knowing Huna, and the things the symbols and codes stood for, it now becomes possible to begin the work of sorting the genuine teachings out from the spurious ones which not only changed the outer meanings but added false dogmas. Paul, who never knew Jesus, was largely responsible for the modern version of the dogmas surrounding the point upon which most of the reactionary churches rest their teachings concerning the blood atonement of Jesus, by his death on the cross, for the sins of all who would accept the belief in the atonement.

We have seen Paul’s position in this matter described in the conclusions of one missionary Bible student, as given serially in the HRA Bulletins Nos. 82, 83 and 84, and are now ready to look into the central dogma or truth of Christianity from the point of view of Huna. The question can now be put rather simply and directly.

WERE THE EXTERNAL FACTS OF THE DEATH OF JESUS THE WHOLE OF THE TRUTH? Or were these facts the outer dogmas which covered the real truth which lay in hidden Huna elements? Could it be literally possible that the shedding of the blood of Jesus could pay the debt owed to God by humanity because of their sins? If this shedding of blood was symbolic and not a literal and factual thing, then what was the nature of the hidden fact which was symbolized?

First let us see what Paul taught. Later we will examine in the light of Huna what Jesus was reported to have said by the writers of the Four Gospels – supposedly all having been initiated or given the “strong meat” truths reserved for certain ones by Jesus.

Paul elaborated his doctrines in Romans (See Chapters 5 and 6), teaching that because Adam sinned, his sin was shared by all mankind. But the death of Jesus brought about justification “by his blood” for all who would accept that atonement or redemption.

In Hebrews 9:12-28 (said in the account to have been written by Paul, but the authenticity of authorship questioned by many modern students) the doctrine is advanced that the covenant of the Old Testament had “decayed” and was no longer in force. This covenant was supposedly an agreement between God and the followers of Moses, to the effect that if men did certain things in a certain way, God would do certain things for them, especially would sins be forgiven if blood sacrifices were made and rituals observed. Paul argued that the blood shed by Jesus served the same purpose as the blood of the sacrificed animals. In verse 22 we read: “And almost all things are by law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.” Jesus is then described as a high priest, not entering the holy place once a year with the blood of others but, “now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” A new note was stressed in that the word “covenant” was replaced by “testament.”

Going back to verse 16, we read: “For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.” This argument is followed by telling how Moses had sprinkled the blood of calves and goats “with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop” over the book and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you.” In the Old Testament, Exodus 24:7-8, Moses is made to say, “Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.”

This presents accurately enough the modern churchly dogma of the old and of the conservative churches. That it is the outer covering of a deeper truth hidden in symbols is to be seen when we examine the idea of the blood sacrifice in terms of Huna and consider the words attributed to Jesus in the Four Gospels which give accounts of the rite of the Last Supper or Communion – which later, survived as the Mass, in which the dogma is that the bread and wine are changed to the actual flesh and blood of Jesus and are offered as a fresh sacrificial act of atonement, or as a reenactment of the original rite which, it must be remembered, was not an actual shedding of blood but a symbolic act.

THE NEW COVENANT, TO BE GIVEN BY A COMING “ANOINTED ONE” was foretold by Jeremiah, who says (31:9 & 31): ” … I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble, for I am a father to Israel.” (Note the Huna symbols of mana in the waters, of the aka cord leading to the Aumukua in the “Straight way,” and of the sin-fixation-obsession in the “stumbling blocks” which the “father” or Aumukua is promising that he will remove.) “And their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all.” (31:) “Behold, the days come sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and the house of Judah (33:) I will put my law in their inward parts, and will write it in their hearts for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them for I will forgive their iniquity and will remember their sin no more. (40:) And the whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes…. ….shall be holy unto the Lord; it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more forever.” (Note that the new covenant is one in which the prophet does not mention blood sacrifice, just as no mention of it was made by Isaiah. The “dead bodies and ashes” are the Huna symbols of the fixation-obsessions which the “Lord” Aumukua has removed, and which he promises here shall not be revived to necessitate another removal.)

Isaiah (53:3 on) gives us this: “He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid, as it were our faces from him; Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed (11) …by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he will bear their iniquities.” (And 59:20:) “And the Redeemer shall come to Zion and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord. As for me, this is my covenant with them… My spirit which is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed…”

The “word” and the “word of thy mouth” which is met with in Bible passages, is very significant in that it is a Huna symbol of the working of the Aumukua with the Aunihipilis. In Hawaii I studied some phases of Huna under a man who had been taught parts of the “Secret” by the grandmother of his Hawaiian wife. This old lady was a kahuna whose work was healing, and she explained that she belonged to the highest grade of kahunas, those who were able to “speak for the god” – to become one with the Aumukua and act in conscious unison with it, voicing the words to match the thought-forms of the healed condition as they were made, and as they were used to serve as molds as the healed condition replaced the injured condition. My friend has seen broken bones healed in a matter of a minute or so as the old kahuna touched the injured part and spoke “for the god” the words affirming the healed condition as being there and as being complete.

To understand the Huna in the Bible, we must keep in mind the ancient “speaking for the god” custom of the highest grades of kahunas. The prophets and the healers belonged to this class, and as Jesus was both prophet and healer, he “spoke as one having authority, sometimes speaking as the Aumukua in his teaching. Once we understand this typical Huna characteristic of all the Biblical kahunas, we can watch for things said as from the point of view of (1) the Aunihipilis or man, and (2) the Aumukua working in and through Aunihipilis.

The problem of understanding then becomes one of deciding  what is said or done by the lower man alone or in the “speaking for the god” or Aumakua. (Aum`akua, or “god” in which the  akua root is “a god” or higher being.) Jesus explained, “I and the Father are one,” and “Not I, but the Father within, doeth the works.”

The events of the Last Supper period review the teachings and present them in the rite of the washing of the feet, one for another, as a means of removing fixations, then in the rite of the communion in which there was no blood shed, but in which such a sacrifice was the external meaning. By translating the accounts of what was said and done into the language of kahunas, and looking for the alternate meanings of the words and their roots, we can see clearly what Jesus was teaching – was restating as an ancient and enduring Huna truth – what PLAN OF SALVATION HE WAS REALLY OFFERING.

1. Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it and divided it with or amongst the disciples. He said, “This is my body. Take it and eat it. Kahunas had no word for bread, but the outer symbol of Biblical sacrifice was flesh and blood of animals. Jesus offered his own body or flesh, symbolically in the bread. “Flesh” is io, or i`o to signify the guttural break of a “k” sound left out, the ko root being used as koko, meaning “blood.” The connection between flesh and blood is close in the two words. We read in the Old Testament (Lev. 17:11), “For the life of the flesh is in the blood.” The blood was not to be “eaten” but was reserved as a sacrificial offering to God. The secret meaning of io lies in its alternate use to indicate “truth or the REAL.” In some Polynesian dialects it was “God.” From this we see that Jesus spoke as and for the Aumakua, and that it was not his physical body that was symbolized, but the very body of the Aumakua – its invisible body of real substance – itself.
2. Jesus took the cup of wine, blessed it and gave it to the disciples to drink, saying that, “This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” Fenton says in his translation, “the new Settlement,” and to make the rite conform to the prophesies, it must be a new covenant and, as a covenant obligates each party to it to do certain things in return for certain things done by the other, it must be a reciprocal action. Aunihipilis must do something. The Aumakua must do something.

The outer form of the symbol shows that blood, “the life of the flesh” or physical body, was to be offered by Aunihipilis to supply the Aumakua. The cup or basin held the blood in all sacrificial rites. “Cup” in Huna is ki`aha, the first part of the word meaning to squirt water with force, symbol of sending the mana to the Aumakua. The second part of the word is “cord,” symbol of the aka cord along which the mana or “blood” sacrificial gift is sent. The words for “to drink” and to “pour out or shed” as blood: symbol of the “fruit of the vine,” vine being the symbol of the aka cord carrying mana and thought-forms are formed from the same roots as used in “cup.” They are ki`aha`aha, the doubled aha still having the meaning of “cord.”

The Aumakua, after graduating to its high level of consciousness, stays on as the guide, savior and mentor of na two Aunihipili. It makes the supreme sacrifice after having won through to mastership, and stands by to suffer (as the prophets describe the suffering symbolically and as they fit the death on the cross) until Aunihipilis of the man are helped to “see the Light” – are at last SAVED by coming to desire to live the good life, making amends, and then being freed from the sin-fixation-obsession tangles that hold them back.

Blood is the red wine or mana. Low mana is offered to the Aumakua, and is returned as High Mana of greater power – the “cleansing blood of the spotless Lamb of God.” Koko is the Huna word for blood, and in its alternate meanings we are brought back to the “cup” symbol so that neither can be lost to our understanding. Koko also means the network of cords used by the kahuna people to carry their calabash containers, which were their cups and bowls. A net is made by knotting cords, and the knot in the aka cord is the fixation symbol, as found in all mention of nets and snares.

The entire rite, therefore, is one revolving around the Huna plan of SALVATION in which Aunihipilis supply low mana to the Aumakua and it, in turn, sends the High Mana to do away with the fixations, after which the man becomes able to work consciously with his Aumakua and so is able to receive help in coming to live the normal, happy, healthy and helpful life which is the goal of living no matter at which level of evolution the man may stand. It may possibly be that this goal represents the last step to be taken before graduation of each of the three selves to one grade higher. At any rate, it represents the greatest possible step which can be taken no matter what the standing of the individual. Atonement leads to the conscious, working union with the Aumakua. It involves the work of both parties to the covenant. The fixations must be removed.

That is what Huna tells us, over and over and over. MFL