January, 1963

The Meaning of “Union”, Word From
Meade Layne, New Angles on Fire Walking

 

ONLY ONE MORE YEAR OF THE HUNA VISTAS is being planned. Please take note. It has become more and more difficult to keep the HUNA VISTAS going, and I may even have to space them out farther apart or even discontinue them before the year is out. So “please do not send Cigbo gifts for his work fund intended to carry over into the year 1964. It will be safer to send him a dollar every four months. He says, “MEOW! Be forewarned!”

WHAT I AM TRYING TO SAY TO YOU GOOD FRIENDS is that I feel change in the air for myself and the HRA work. I do not know what it is, but my Guidance is that I should try to run things in a more orderly manner and have a fixed time set at which, if I wished, I could again discontinue getting out these monthly bulletins. What I greatly desire to avoid is having, for some unforeseen reason, to stop making up and sending the Huna Vistas. There is no one to take over, like Riley Crabb did with the B.S.R.A. journal when Meade Layne had to give up. I am not ill. But I am getting old, and my contemporaries are falling on their faces all around me. I feel that if I can keep going for the year of 1963 with my end of our HRA work, and then neatly write “30” on the final issue of the Huna Vistas, I could then go on to writing books or booklets covering different angles of Huna research. Should some unforeseen happening cause me to stop in the midst of such a writing effort, no harm would be done and no one would write to ask why the H.V. had stopped when a gift had been sent to Cigbo covering several more issues. Because some of the HRAs may wish to keep in touch, I could again, as I did once before, send them a newsletter at times when I felt there was something to say. So, please send Cigbo gifts intended to be used up during the year 1963, if not sooner.

I ONCE HAD HOPED that someone like Riley Crabb could be found to take over the Huna Vistas from me at the proper time. But while Riley had a magazine with a regular subscription price set by way of membership of $5 the year in the B.S.R.A. and could also expect additional gifts to help out, our work and the H.V. run on a system which Cigbo describes as “Paw to mouth”. Many HRAs can send nothing for the work fund. Frequently the lists have to be cleaned and “deadwood” names dropped after a note of explanation. It takes me, working without help on production, a full ten days each month to write the H.V., cut the stencils, run the 10 pages on the mimeograph, gather them into sets of ten, fold them, address and stamp the envelopes which must also be printed, then stuff and seal. Much time is taken. keeping the addresses changed and recorded. Many move and send no new address, and the H.V. comes back, with its return having to be noted. In addition to the 10 days or more of actual production time, there is an ever increasing volume of correspondence for me to handle as best I can. The healing sessions of the TMHG work come twice a day, and also call for considerable correspondence. My “tinned” letters help, but the days are not long enough. My share of the small book selling business takes two trips to the post office on week days, and time for packing the books and billing the dealers who order them. In the few remaining hours there must be reading and study if the Huna Vistas are to contain material of value aside from the letters and reports. The other day one of the seasoned HRAs wrote saying I would not be hearing from him again, perhaps for a long time, as he was going into some important line of occult research and study work. He did not say just what he was into, but I believe he is off on some line of esoteric Masonry. He jolted me slightly (for my own good, unquestionably) by adding, “The Huna Vistas are not worth the paper they are written on, to me.”

RECENTLY I INQUIRED of local mimeograph shops what figure they could give me on taking over my 10 days of production work, provided I wrote the copy and read proof. The best production price I could get was 45¢ per copy, including the printed envelopes and the stamps, with me to bring in the address stencils and Adresserette each month for the addressing. These letter shop people have to charge almost as much an hour for their work as a barber or carpenter, and have also to pay rent, to say nothing of expense and complications if they have to hire help. The situation, as can be seen, is  quite outside of commercial possibilities. Anyone willing to take over my work would have to work for the love of the work and live on Social Security or whatever other source of income might be provided. One thing is very certain, the H.V. is not worth 45¢ an issue to most of the HRAs. In fact, I get letter after letter letting the cat out of the bag that the H.V. hardly gets read at all, what with the dryness of its contents, the pressure of time, and the competition of brighter reading and television – all of which is as must be expected. Of course, one compensation for anyone who would take over the H.V. and produce it, would be that of having a soap box from which to expound pet ideas – an expounding of which I am frequently guilty. Production costs climb steadily for the H.V. also. Paper has more than doubled in price since the start of the old HRA Bulletin. Ink that once cost a dollar a pound, now costs three. The post office is now adding a cent to the cost of mailing a copy of the H.V., and when one is returned, it costs 80¢ to ransom it to see if a forwarding address has been given which can be used in an effort to locate the HRA. More and more stamps have to be scratched up for me by Cigbo to use in answering the letters which arrive asking about the HRA, many of them from foreign country writers who can be answered with a stamp cost ranging from 11¢ to 25¢, and no telling when Uncle Sam will elect to fight inflation again by adding more to foreign postage costs. When I am king – but perhaps we’d better skip that use of the HRA soap box. (Any mention of economics or politics is murder in HRA circles, I have found to my sorrow, and any mention of religion is equally as dangerous outside of our own little charmed circle. Try to explain Huna basics to a visiting Jehovah’s Witness bent on saving your soul from the burning, and you’ll see what I mean.)

IN THE MATTER OF THE “MYSTERY BOOKELT” which I mentioned in a recent H.V., and which I said I was making up on press and mimeograph in my spare time in order to have it on hand to send out in place of more Huna Vistas, should I fall on my face…….

I HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT TO MAKE. Some of the HRAs wrote to say they were perfectly willing to forgive me any issues of the H.V. which might be expected, but which failed to get made up, but that they did not want to wait until something happened to me (or to them) to have their copy of the booklet. A few wrote that they disliked the way I made a mystery of the title of the booklet, and that their curiosity was burning them …. SO, they wanted their copy NOW. (I must apologize for making a mystery of the booklet’s title. The truth is that I had not yet found a title for it, and even now, having rushed through the booklet so that it could be sent, I fear the title could have been better. It is, as you will see, The Will Levington Comfort Reconstruction Letters in the Light of Huna, Comment by Max Freedom Long. Pretty clumsy, you must admit.

AT ANY RATE, I will mail a copy of the booklet to all HRAs, when I mail this H.V., and hope that they will arrive together. Mailing will be done one jump ahead of Uncle Samuel’s upping of the old postage rates. A sheet sent with it will have more to tell you of the matter. I might add, however, that the reason for the use of the heavy gray paper is that it is the only kind found which will allow mimeographing on both sides with this black face typewriter.

IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE IN THE W.L.C. BOOKLET, I urge you to read the top two thirds of page 16, for there I have explained something that has just dawned on me – the real significance of the meaning of “union” in Yoga. That one page, in my mind, justifies the whole of the other 40. To me it seems that we have here the answer to the greatest mystery in Yoga, and that goes for modern Theosophy and its handling of Yoga as well. If you do not care to read the rest of the booklet, look up the address of your nearest Theosophical Society Lodge and send it to the president. He or she might be old enough to recall the Comfort Letters, and of sufficiently open mind to read page 16 twice, if you fold down the corner and mark in red pencil, “Very important new discovery!” Of course, in all honesty, we must admit that it is not a NEW discovery in any sense of the word. Kahunas of ancient times knew the real secret of “union” in contrast with the idea of “at onement” (which is quite another matter), and evidence accumulates rapidly in my recent studies of the older literature of Yoga, that shows how Huna was passed around from sage to sage in ancient times and carefully hidden in lands where it was preserved in the veiled writings.

SPEAKING OF THEOSOPHY,  may I say that I still look upon it, fractured as it is and surviving in opposed cults, as one of the few organizations in which we who work with the reconstruction of Huna might eventually get recognition for what we have found. The founders of the T.S. were careful to state that the Society was formed to foster the study of the occult and metaphysical as well as to promote the formation of the Brotherhood of Man. Huna has already been given a tolerant (even if rather critical) notice by the gentlemen who have edited, in the past several years, the excellent news letter put out for Peace Lodge of the Theosophical Society (Adyar), and which may be addressed at 32 Chapel St., Hyde, Cheshire, England. This may sound less than important to you as you read, but in actuality it is of great importance. As some of us know, Huna contradicts many of the things believed by Theosophists. It insists on reshaping many of the ideas and concepts, all the way from reincarnation and karma to the “seven bodies” of man. At the moment it is on the verge of demanding a radical reconstruction in the Yogic beliefs as held by many Theosophists and probably by the modern Yoga practitioners. As a case in point, let me quote from page 13 of a recent issue of the journal mentioned above, which is named EIRENICON. (Issue No. 144)

“In the HUNA VISTAS (April 1962) Max Freedom Long writes: “‘We have found through our own and the race experience that we have to plan our lives as Auhanes, and do the best we can to make a go of things. However, we can legitimately ask for guidance and help from the Aumakua as long as we keep trying to move forward under our own power … We must not ask the Aumakua to do more than push when we have decided in what direction we should best steer the cart.”‘

“Is it not better to invite the Aumakua to steer whilst we supply the push?”

There! At least Huna got a bit of recognition as, well, something worthy of friendly challenge. The editor, Mr. T.H. Redfern, voices the general idea that the Aumakua could and possibly would, steer our lives if we asked it to do so and obeyed inspired directions. However, the getting of such guidance for every step we take does not work out in practice. Now and then we become aware of the way certain steps in our lives are being shaped – usually we realize that there was a hand taken behind the scenes after the event. We might say that 1% of the events in our lives are brought about because the Aumakua steered the cart. The other 99% appear to have been brought about by the Auhane, urged on by the desires of the Aunihipili, and the evolving by  learning process furthered, even when the learning is done the hard way. Back of the problem is the old question of to what extent the Aumakuas allow the lower pair of selves to exert their “free will” and progress under their own power. We teach a horse to pull a plow, but the horse never can learn in this way to invent a plow and use it in planting.

CONSIDER THIS INSTANCE when the 1% of Aumakua Guidance was, apparently, at work. One of my oldest friends, with whom I graduated from Normal School in Los Angeles in 1916, told me in a letter not long ago just how he happened to be used to change the whole course of my life so that I went to Hawaii – there to do the job of digging into the vanishing Huna lore to recover it. He is a psychic by natural gift and has long sensed commands and followed them at rare intervals. In this case he wanted badly to find someone to take over his teaching assignment in Hawaii. As he was walking down a street in Los Angeles one evening, (let me use his letter here), “something much like a voice, told me to stroll about a bit and that I would meet someone who would take my place and go to Hawaii. What a good thing it was for me that I heeded this voice. It was, I dare say, destiny for you as well as for me. I have (he adds) had several similar experiences throughout the years and now realize that it was some other force or entity speaking through me – not myself at all. How little we do know at times. Seems to take the years ahead to finally make us wake up and see these things ……..

WHAT, THEN, SHOULD WE DO? I confess that I have not as yet found the foolproof answer. What I am doing these days is to plan as carefully as possible, then pray hard and often for Help and Guidance as I move ahead. My past experience has convinced me that if I keep on the move, the Aumakua will manipulate circumstances on the other side to nudge me into the right path or block a wrong path and force me to leave it. I watch for inspiration and then question what seems at the time it comes to be a properly inspired idea. I have learned from experience that I cannot get the Aumakua to tell me through the pendulum (in the hands of my Aunihipili) what do do. The ice is very thin in these places, and if one does not walk with great care and suspicious circumspection, one may get a chilly soaking.

THE QUEST FOR MEADE LAYNE PROGRESSES, with the same psychic HRA as before again reporting. I quote:

“Dear Max:
All morning my forces have been telling me to write to you, and now they say, ‘First a message from Meade Layne. He has been standing in readiness for a long time.’ (The message to me follows. mfl)

“Hello, old friend, long time no see!
How long has it been you’ve waited for me
To give you a message through extended hands?
Do you know what a tax upon Spirit the law demands?
Sufferings, grief, earthliness must go.
Oh, I know, I’ve told you so.
In our searchings how many times we have erred,
But something came up – our ego was spared!
Many thoughts you out-pictured to me,
(I was a little too blinded to see)
The symbols you gave now stand me in good stead,
They aren’t so far over my head.
My ideas were sound, too, believe it or not.
I had to make use of them while they were hot.
So here is my greeting, More power to you,
My hand is outstretched, our friendship is true.
Meade

(The letter continues:) “Well, well! That came with a flood of emotion I felt joy, love and tears. He is still standing off at one side – nice looking man, smiling and looking pleased. I haven’t seen him as clearly as I’d like, but I did get a glimpse of him. Did he write poetry? He must have to give a message like that ……….

I COMMENT: Indeed, Meade Layne was a man who wrote poetry, and of the best. Short verses like the above seem evidential enough to justify the assumption that he has managed to make contact from the other side. What he says about my ideas drawn from Huna, and his own drawn from many sources, is convincing, for in life we sometimes discussed and compared ideas and while he looked upon Huna, as I was putting it back together, as something of great interest and probable value, he was never willing to give up his beliefs for those of kahunas. On my part, I was unwilling to accept many things which he felt true enough – he believed largely in what the communicating spirits of Mark Probert had to say about many things. All in all, his message, given in verse, and with its contents as they are, has to me the feel of authenticity. I am not discounting the fact that spirits very often oblige the living by pretending to be a departed friend or loved one, and doing a very good job of it . But one thing that still puzzles me is the fact that, after the years in which he was the leading questioner, expounder and hopeful philosopher at the Probert seances, he should not have come through Mark with his message. Soon after Meade passed, I had expected Yada or one of the several other spirit guides of Mark to mention Meade’s transition and give some word of him. But, so far as I have been able to learn, not a word came, through. There is just a small possibility that Mark did not wish such a message to come through him, I feel.

COMPARE MEADE LAYNE’S WORK AT ITS BEST, with the message given above. He was a strange man, sensitive, penetrating, usually unsmiling, but with silent laughter held tightly within lest he offend as he observed you and listened to your ideas. The laughter came out when he was at his best, slightly sardonic, and using a pen tipped with a bit of fire. The following verses were written as a response to the words of Democritus of Abdera, Submit to Necessity with a joyous heart. The poem is taken from a small book of verses published in 1947.

REMEMBER ME FOR LAUGHTER

Remember me for laughter, my companions,
Now that small learning ends its shadow play;

Not over much for love, which lives always,
Nor gain of useless guerdons which outlast

Only the change of morn to evening gray,
With all our foolish fancies then outcast.
Remember me for laughter, for the gay
Acceptances of pleasure, and half jest
Wherewith one fronts down sorrow unconfessed

And blunts the sharpening darts of Destiny.
Yea, for the spirit of God’s Comedy
Hold me in memory a little time,
And for these motley harlequins of rhyme.
Some go with banners marching, some sublime.

With metaphysic mysteries, or Grace
Of the wise Nine in secret dwelling place,
But here there’s no such virtue, only this,
That I was touched somehow with lasting kiss

Of Life’s inconsequence and God’s desires.
Remember me for this when spirit tires
Within you, and drums invite no more
To festivals or wars

HAPPY NEW YEAR, MEADE! We’ll be listening, and hoping that you may find for us the answers to the many questions you put to The Yada and others.

NEW ANGLES ON FIRE WALKING

New angles on fire walking keep coming slowly. Those of you who have had the pleasure of reading the book by HRAs George and Helen Sandwith, THE MIRACLE HUNTERS, will remember the very fine description of the fire walking done by Hindus in Fiji – the several days of ritual cleansing and preparation, the actual fire walking and the healing rite conducted by the priest of the local temple of the Goddess Marianna, the latter being worshiped in connection with the fire walking and healing as well as in simpler rituals. I had arranged with the Sandwiths for permission to reprint this material in a book which I had been planning to bring our Huna books up to date, but now a strange thing has happened. The Sandwiths are very psychic, and recently I had a letter from them saying that an unmistakable message had been received by them that the Goddess did not approve of allowing the material to be included in my proposed book. From past experience, especially had through messages passed on to them via the spirit attached to their very old Ethiopian ikon, they have learned to pay careful attention to such warnings. On my part I am quite willing to share the warning, even if the reasons behind it are not clear. I can only guess that we have in this peculiar sequence of events more evidence that entities of a higher level are involved in giving the protection from heat in the fire walks. In Polynesia the “Woman of the Sky” was invoked to give protection, but no ritual cleansing was needed, only certain set observances of ways of making ready the stones and fire pit, and correct chanting of invocations. (No healing was connected with the rite in Polynesia, so far as I know.)

ANOTHER ANGLE COMES FROM YOGA STUDIES which I have been making. In the book of W.Y. Evans Wentz, Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines (Oxford University Press, 1935) (Given to me as a gift with other books by the same famous author by HRA George Stone, of Wales), the REVERSE ANGLE of fire immunity is discussed at considerable length – pages 156 to 161. Under heading of, “The Doctrine of the Psychic Heat.” Here we learn that part of the esoteric or Mahayana teaching of early Buddhism, best known in Tibet, is almost pure Yoga in that the system teaches control of the mind, and through such control, the ability to use “prana” and related forces for supranormal works.

Tantric Yoga in Tibet took the form of India’s Kundalini Yoga, but developed its own elements. The ability to create bodily heat by an action of mind and with breath manipulation, resulting in the changing of the sex fluids in the body into a type of fuel which was then burned to make heat, was called Tummo in Tibet. The prana was supposed to exist in unlimited quantities in the atmosphere and it could be drawn in and stored in the body, then as the writer explains “employed to transmute the generative fluid into a subtle fiery energy whereby a psycho physical heat is produced internally and made to circulate through the nerve channels of the psychic nervous system ….

…. According to the texts, in practicing the art of Tummo the yogin must employ very elaborate visualizations, meditations, postures, breathings, directing of thought, training of the psychic nerve system, and physical exercises. A lengthy probationary period (under a guru) is usually necessary before the yogin can arrive at any assurance of success. At the outset, he must accustom himself to the minimum of clothing and avoid, as far as possible, resorting to fire for warming the body. It is by their never wearing furs or woollen garments or seeking artificial external heat that the masters of the art are recognized…..

“As progress is made in this science of yogically conserving and directing the physical, mental and psychic energy of the human organism the hermit yogin gradually develops the psycho-physical warmth. The rule is that (in final tests of ability) the yogin must have dried at least three of the wet sheets (dipped in ice water and laid on his shoulders as he sits on a freezing night in the wind, unclothed, beside a lake in the highlands of Tibet) in order to wear the insignia of proficiency in Tummo, namely, the single white cotton shirt or robe, on account of which he comes to be called, in Tibetan, a Repa, meaning, ‘Cotton Clad One’. Mila Repa (famous early teacher of yoga and writer of texts) as his name indicates, mastered the art of Tummo under the guidance of his guru, Marpa.” (About 1, 000 years ago.)

In the Tantric Yoga practices, one may learn from various books, the Goddess Kundalini (known under several names in various places and schools) is invoked to assist in working with the prana and sex energies. The invocation of a Goddess of a higher level of being is, in actuality, the only thing which the fire walkers and the cold resisters have in common. In Polynesia no accumulation of mana is consciously made to match the accumulation of prana in Tibet, as just mentioned. The Sandwiths saw no exercises indicating an effort to accumulate prana in the preparations made by the fire walkers in Fiji. For this reason it would seem less than necessary to belabor the theories of Tummo at this point.

We begin to see that we are confronted with the ability of an Aumakua type of entity to exert supranormal power to control heat, on the one hand where fire is walked upon or handled, and upon cold in cases where the body is to be protected from its contact. In addition to the earlier practices which we have been discussing we have the modern evidence accumulated in Psychical Research circles. In seances the heat or cold is well enough controlled by spirits (it is to be supposed) that physical objects can be reduced to a state of ectoplasmic or aka nothingness, taken long distances, and rematerialized as “apports”. Human bodies have been used as apports in what is called “Transportation”. Ice has been apported, also cooking food, as eggs frying in a skillet far too hot to touch. Flowers and small animals have been know to arrive very wet in the seance room, and the spirits performing the feats have explained through the medium that water was used to cool the things apported, otherwise they might be injured. Often the apported stones and coins arrive too hot to pick up at once. To a limited extent, the Aunihipili seems to be able to exert control over the bodily temperature. One of the common experiments in the use of hypnosis is that in which the subject is commanded to change the temperature of his hand – and who is able to do so, making it hot or cold on order.

The recent breakthrough in the Psychometric Analysis readings, in which we seem certainly to have been able to make readings at times of Aumakuas of individuals (here living but not as yet there living, for some unknown reason) helps very much in understanding the temperature control matter, particularly where it is met in the seance rooms. The spirits who perform works involving heat control are always very human and not at all like mysterious gods or goddesses. They seem to have little knowledge of just HOW they control beat or materialize, transport or dematerialize, this indicating that they must have close contact with their Aumakua, even if not too well aware of the fact, and that they are able to ask for help in producing apports and controlling heat and cold. In our P.A. readings we are now finding it possible to get separate readings for the three selves of individuals, and then the general degree reading for the man, as a functioning unit in which all three of the selves play a part. The Aumakua degree may be around 550, and that of the Auhane only 350, while the Aunihipili may range below 180. The reading for the team may be 380, showing that the Aumakua has pulled up the level of intelligence markedly. It becomes more and more evident that the Aumakua takes a far more active part in our lives on this level of “here living” than had been thought, and it also appears that on the “other side” the team work is very much more marked, at least in the case of spirits who come back to produce what we call “Physical Phenomena”. The Goddess of the fire walk may be part of the Great Company of Aumakuas responding in some way to the needs of groups of their earthy charges. But who can say?

CARE FOR A PASSAGE UPON WHICH TO PONDER? Then let me call your attention to this one by Buddha, to be found in The Book of the Great Decease, 11, 33, after the translation by T.W. Rhys David. It has the tide of SELF SALVATION. I quote: “Therefore, 0 Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves. Be ye a refuge to yourselves. Betake yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the Truth as a lamp. Hold fast to the Truth as a refuge. Look not for refuge to anyone besides yourselves.”

Now note in the passage the Huna symbolism pointing straight to the Aumakua. Here is veiled Huna. Remember how the kahuna, Jesus, said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Light.” Now Buddha speaks of the same Truth and he compares it to a lamp which gives light: the Light. All these code words stand for the Aumakua, which is La or Light, or la, the path, pointing to the aka cord which ties man to the Light at the upper end. These two aspects of LA make up the Truth, Oia, which it the grammatical third person, he or she or it – the third part of the man, the Aumakua which is a dual self, made by the union of a man and a woman who have graduated from the level of the Auhane to that of the Aumakua. In this short passage we have not a simple truth, but the Oio io, the great truth, the REAL and final truth of being. The goal of life is to come to know the nature of the three selves, and to learn to work as a perfect part of the team. There is no other refuge. Not until one learns to guide the Aunihipili and to work in harmony under the wiser Guidance of the dual Aumakua Father/Mother, can the next step in evolution be taken. To graduate and become a Aumakua is the sum total of reaching Nirvana or inheriting and entering the Kingdom of Heaven.

OR MEDITATE ON THIS BIT for a moment. It was written by the Chinese sage, Lao Tse, about 600 B.C. The passage is taken from M. Stanislas Julien’s 1842 translation of the Tao Te King. “You look (for the Tao, the Law) and you see it not: it is colorless. You listen and you hear it not: it is voiceless. You wish to touch it and you reach it not: it is without body.”

Consider the Tao the Aumakua, and then apply the lines, as I have done after trying to see, hear and touch my Aumakua, figuratively speaking, via the back door of the Aunihipili and the pendulum. But in making my try I at least did one thing that still seems proper to do, and which still is indicated as fully successful by the movements of the pendulum held over my left palm – I accumulated mana and sent it with love to the Aumakua while asking that I be allowed to make contact with it, even if it could not be seen, heard or touched. Down through the many centuries men have known that sacrifice to the gods was needed before prayer. The secret of true sacrifice is the sending of mana along the aka cord to the Aumakua to empower it to work better in shaping an answer to our prayer. So says Huna.

AS F. MAX MULLER POINTED OUT in his 4th volume of Chips from a German Workshop (pages 237 238), it is very dangerous to try to say that word sounds in one language equate with similar sounds in another language and mean the same thing. In the passage from the Tao just given, the words I, Hi and Wei, mean “colorless”, “voiceless” and “without body”. Early European writers tried to show that the Hebrew name for God, “Jehovah” was taken from the sound of the three Chinese words given above, because they had a similar sound and also pointed to something like a God concept. In our work with the words used by kahunas to name the things which were also symbols of parts of Huna, we have taken great care to avoid saying that a similarity of sound indicated a similarity of meaning in the comparison of words in different languages. A few words may have been borrowed and their pronunciation changed but unless the symbol or thing named in the Huna words passes over with the borrowing, danger looms. A case in question is the word mana in all Polynesian dialects, and the word prana in the Sanskrit of Indian religion and Yoga.

THE SANSKRIT WORD YOGA has (according to W. Y Evans Wentz) two meanings.

1. To join, as in joining two oxen with a yoke, or two men, each carrying the end of a carrying pole which supports between them a burden. Our word “yoke” may have come from yoga.
2. To meditate or to go into a trance. We read: “It implies a joining or yoking, of the unenlightened human nature to the enlightened divine nature in such a manner as to allow the higher to guide and transmute the lower. It has also been taken, but less generally, to imply a yoking, or harnessing, or disciplining of the mind itself, by means of mental concentration.”

In the West, in our borrowings from the East, we have usually made the great mistake of thinking that in Yoga we are taught to try to unite with the higher self and through it with the Ultimate God. We have looked upon this union as “the dewdrop slipping into the shining sea” to become absorbed and blended so that all identity, experience and personality is utterly lost. To us this was the “at-one-ment” and we read, “The Father and I are one”, and that God was One, but made up of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.” I, for one, have been blinded by this misunderstanding for years, but my recent delving into Yoga and Huna has given me what I consider the key to the mystery.

There are two forms of union or joining together or yoking. The words we have used were badly chosen. The first is the dewdrop falling into the sea to make a complete blend. In Huna the word i, for the Aunihipili, gives us in the root, pili, the second meaning, that of joining and sticking together very closely, as do the Aunihipili and Auhane. In this second meaning, we see that the two selves are yoked or joined together in a very close association, but that at no time does one actually become the other. Nor is there anything to indicate that the Aunihipili and Auhane ever actually become the Aumakua of the team of three. Each is at a different stage of evolutionary growth. They could not become each other by any stretch of imagination. Our false idea that Yoga teaches us that we, as the lower man, must become one with our Aumakua in any way except by making a close contact, has thrown us  for a fall at every turn.

However, there is, as I have pointed out in my comment in the Will Levington Comfort Letters booklet, a form of perfect UNION. It is a strange union in which the Aumakua Mother and Father may blend to make a perfect union and also may withdraw from the common center to remain, basically, male and female, each half having its own unique qualities, powers and sensitivities. So, in Huna we have two goals: union with the mate, and contact with the Aumakua. MFL