Greetings
This is Max Freedom Long speaking again and coming via tape to continue our discussions of the ancient Huna System of beliefs and practices. This system seems to have originated or at least first appeared in the glyph records, in ancient Egypt. About 5,000 years later the tag ends of it were picked up in the Hawaiian Islands, in the keeping of the kahunas — or Keepers of the Secret. From the fragments, and while making a study of the forces brought into play in fire walking, it was discovered that they had preserved the fragments of a wonderful system of what may be called Psychology. But it was more — it was the science of man’s being after death as well as in life, and, still further, it had a strong element of religion, in that it described beings both above and below men who were powerful and helpful. These ranged from Nature Spirits to the human beings who had graduated or evolved from the human level as we know it, and become Superconscious Selves or High Selves. (The Aumakua or Older and Utterly Trustworthy Parental Spirit Pair – Father and Mother, the male and female lesser selves joined and blended in them to make a more complete individuality of greater wisdom and power.)
Above the High Selves came layer after layer after layer of ascending and still more powerful and wonderful Beings. These are beyond the reach of our understanding, and have only been postulated as a continuation of the upper growth or rising through evolution always closer to the Ultimate Power, whatever that may be.
In the great Drama of Initiation which has come down to us in a fair state of preservation in the Four Gospels, and which the Hebrews got from Egypt, we have some light thrown on the higher levels of being. Jesus, the leading character in the drama, plays two parts interchangeably; first he is just the man talking, then he suddenly begins to teach as a High Self, often veiling his words in the language of the sacred CODE.
It must be remembered that the common man of the day believed that he could pray directly to God, the Ultimate and highest of all. But there was only one God and there were many people, all praying at the same time, so that God would have his hands very full attending to the needs of so many people at once. It was a childish idea at best, but the true teachings were reserved for the initiates, and candidates for initiation were instructed by Jesus, speaking as the High Self, to, “Ask it in MY NAME.” The Code tells us that the name is that of the High Self, and that we pray to it, and if we ask more than it can handle as an answer to our prayer, it will then send the prayer on up to the Great Company of High Selves or to the next higher level — to the god-Aumakua or Higher High Selves.
This was enough for the candidates but when the drama was stolen and was read by the outsiders, they failed to understand what was meant. Moreover, they thought they had found a history of a real live man. They still clung to the belief that they were permitted to pray to God the All Mighty, but that they must ask in the name of Jesus… So, today, and as it has been in Christian circles for some 20 centuries, we end all prayers with, “We ask it in Jesus’ name”. Or we may be elaborate and say, “We ask this in the name of Jesus the Christ, who was crucified on the cross and who died to save us from suffering for the sins of Adam and Eve.” Once we understand the coded teaching of Huna, we may find that we feel a little foolish when we think of praying in this ancient and time honored way.
I realize that it is very difficult for many who have been brought up to believe in the old ways to accept the Huna philosophy. Habits of thought are very hard to break or alter. Huna is only for those who are ready for it… and they are very few and far apart. Fortunately, there are a few who are questing and who read other literature aside from that of their born belief. Or they have outgrown it and are looking with critical and questioning eyes at the multitude of teachings of the New Thought school. Frequently I have my reward when a letter comes to tell me of the delight of a searcher in at long last finding my books and Huna. It makes all the long research very worthwhile.
In the TEN ELEMENTS of man, the matter of prayer covers the three spirit parts of the man, his three shadowy bodies (call them astral or doubles if you wish), and the three manas, which are really not bodies at all, but are the life force as generated by the subconscious self and used by it and the middle or conscious self, also by the Superconscious or High Self.
The central theme of Huna is PRAYER, and getting answers to prayers. I cannot stress too often the difference between Huna prayers and the ordinary kind, being the prayers made in the churches where the priest follows a set formula, or in the Protestant churches where the pastor closes his eyes, bows his head, and proceeds to tell God for twenty minutes how to fix the affairs of the world.
In the days when the kahunas were still at work in old Hawaii, they had a ritual in which the native priest retired from the sight of the people who were gathered before the crude temple platform with its several grass houses. He went into one reserved for “Braiding the cord”, and out of sight and silently, or perhaps with a chant, he did what, in the code language is u-la-na. He took the aka threads from the silent worshipers who were praying for the good of the land, and braided or united them into a single strong strand which would reach to the High Selves who were watching. He made the mental picture of the land as it SHOULD be, and sent this as the “seed” of the prayer to the High Selves to be made to grow into reality. It was not a short or hit-and-miss prayer. It was a long ritual done under taboos of various kinds, and if the prayer was made right, the results were expected in due course of time.
Jesus said, “Pray without ceasing” and that was code. He did not use the word “braid”, but Hoo-ki, the root of ki meaning to “squirt water from the mouth” and telling the initiate that he must send the water of mana UPWARD to the High Self to help it to “grow” the prayer seeds.
The word for “braid” was u-la-na. The first root, u, is “I, myself,” the man and is the root used in u-hane, for the middle self. It tells us that WE are the ones to do the work of praying. The root la is “Light” and is the symbol of the High Self, telling us to whom the prayer is to be sent. The combined roots, lana, means “to float”, which symbolizes the flow of mana along the braided cord CARRYING WITH IT LIKE A SMALL BOAT, THE THOUGHT-FORMS OF THE PRAYER — the “seeds”.
This is dry and hard to get, but stay with me. It is the heart of magic and tells us that we have not made a mistake in decoding our Huna. They used several words with always the same symbol meanings, always repeating the story. For example, ho-ano is the word in Hawaiian for “to WORSHIP”, but it is code and the roots tell us what worship is. Ho is from hoo, the root for “to make”, and ano is “a seed”. So what does one do to worship? One stops trying to run the whole show by oneself and invites the High Self to join in the work of living — as is its just and perfect right and function. We do our part by making the “seed” and we then send it with accumulated mana to the High Self along the aka cord.
In the amazing double-talk or code we find most enlightening things which illuminate dark passages in the Gospels. I have told you that ho-ano means “to worship”. It has, like so many Hawaiian words, other meanings, one of which is “to consecrate or set something apart for a special purpose — such a purpose as in the outer religion, to be used as a sacrifice. What is it that we “set apart” when we “worship”? There are two parts to the answer. First, we make the seed of the prayer and, second, we “set it apart” or consecrate it by sending it as a prayer — the flow of mana that carries it, being a gift or SACRIFICE made to the High Self to enable it to make the seed grow. (And know from this that the whole idea of pleasing God with sacrifices boils down to just this — to sending mana to empower the High Self to answer our prayers. It is the “wave offering” of the ancient Jews I would imagine.)
Here is a clincher for the other words — a reinforcer to keep us from missing the coded meanings of the Secret. It is the word for the answer to the prayer and is ano-hou. Here once more is our root for “seed” and with it a root, hou with several meanings, among which is “To make new or restore”. It also means “to change a form or appearance”, and “a likeness or resemblance to a thing” — this to change the situation to make it like the seed which was sent. And finally, it means “To pant or breathe heavily”, in which we cannot mistake the pointing to the deeper breathing necessary to the accumulation of the mana which is to carry the seed along the aka cord to the High Self to — as a sacrifice — make it strong to answer our prayers — to make the seed idea grow into the hard fact.
There is a strange tradition which boils down to this: The united or blended male and female selves who graduate up from the middle self level to become a new High Self, are, still in a way like the lower selves in the body, in need of a form of sex union to start the creative act of making the answer for the prayer. We get this from the lore of India where they have many statues of the gods in close sexual embrace. The true meaning of which seems to be that our prayers and gifts of mana cause them to come together in a slightly closer union to engage in some form of activity which parallels our sex act in that it is the beginning of their creating something.
In the Four Gospels we have a coded passage in which Jesus says, “Have ye not read that He who made them from the beginning, made them male and female, and said, ‘For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave unto his wife, and the two shall be made of one flesh. Wherefore, they are no more two, but one flesh? What, therefore, God has joined together, let not man put asunder.’ All do not comprehend this saying, but [only] they to whom it is given.”
We are warned as we read that all do not understand, that is, only the ones who know the code. Here our code word or key is “flesh” The word is given by Tregear as meaning “soul, spirit or power; (mana) force, energy, a god.” This word is io, and it contains in its meanings a beautiful description of the abilities belonging to the High Self when “the twain are made one flesh” or brought into the closest union for creating the answer to the prayer.
Swedenborg, the famous Swedish mystic on whose work a church has been founded, writes in his Arcana Coelestia of his psychic “seeing” into the higher realms or the realms which we inhabit after death. He wrote, “I heard an angel describing love truly conjugal and its heavenly delights, in this manner: that it is the Divine of the truth — united in two beings, yet in such a manner that they are not two but one….” He goes on to say that the delights and “blessednesses” of the heavenly union are beyond our power to comprehend — and fain would I believe.
Our American writer, Mary Austin, once studied the religious beliefs of the Paiute Indians, telling in her book, Earth’s Horizons, of finding that they knew the High Self which she had discovered as a child and called ”I-Mary” as the being who was higher and stronger and who watched over her. All her days, when she was in need of help, she called to “I-Mary” for it. The Indians also knew this higher Something and called it “Wakonda” or “Friend-of-the-Soul-of-Man.
She tells of asking a medicine man, “Do you truly get what you pray for? And he replied, “Surely, if you pray right” But this right way of praying involved an immense amount of explanation. To them, prayer was an act of outgoing on the part of the inner self toward something, not a god, toward getting a responsive action in the world about you. They did bodily acts, danced and sang and performed an elaborate ritual. They felt that the Wakonda could not fail to fall into step with them and give the desired results — if the prayer ritual was performed with the right physical acts (the low self part in the prayer) and the right outgoing of the inner self, which was the middle self reaching out to the High Self. They got rain and good crops, and general good for their people, overlaid as their prayer methods were by an accretion of cumbering dogma.
In the Drama of the Gospels, we have a number of coded sermons in the form of Parables. In one of them Jesus speaks in veiled terms of sowing seeds, and says, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” He speaks of the seeds that fall on rocky ground and when the sun comes out, the tender growth is withered and the seeds die. This codes the necessity of planting well in properly prepared soil and then “watering” the seeds by sending mana daily to the High Self for its use until such a time as the harvest is ready and the answer to our prayers are made to appear in reality and substance. The code word for “wither” is lo-ha, in which the root ha means to breathe hard, as in accumulating mana to send to the High Self.
I’ll tell you a secret, if you take care to spread it far and wide. It is that if you can include another person in your prayer, or two others, picturing them as sharing the good thing you ask, you can also ask for the help of their High Selves and the answer to the prayer will come that much faster and better. We have always to avoid selfishness and greed and lack of love and sympathy with others. And here is another secret. If you have a feeling of guilt about something you have done to another person, this guilt sense may act as a blank wall set up between you and your High Self when you try to reach it with your prayer. But there is a remedy, and this is to go and make amends directly or in kind for that misdeed. Keep on making amends until your low self is convinced that it deserves to have its prayer answered. And a last secret for you. You can’t hold a grudge and hate someone and get through to the High Self. Jesus taught us to pray in code. We read, “Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses AS WE FORGIVE OTHERS.” Clean your mental house and scrub and scour for dear life. Examine yourself for hate, jealousy, resentment, guilts and all the contaminating things. Get rid of them if it takes days of talking to your self like a Dutch uncle. Work to clear the path to the High Self so that you can begin to do the outgoing of the Paiutes. Sit down alone and think long about the High Self. Read some passages that you feel are inspiring and helpful from any book you favor. This will help the low self to fall into the mood. And don’t be a “BREATHLESS ONE”, as the Hawaiians called the white people who did not breathe strongly and accumulate mana and send it to the High Self. Take days if you have time. Prepare YOURSELF. Make ready your prayer picture of what you and others need. Practice breathing your prayer and sending mana to the Aumakua.
Question and Answer and Discussion
Q: Just how does one breathe more deeply to accumulate mana, then send it to the High self along the aka cord?
A: After quieting down and thinking of what you are about to do, and after you have decided on what you are going to ask for and have pictured yourself and one or two others as having obtained it and in the act of enjoying it, you can lay aside the picture mentally for the time being. It will be there ready to recall at a moment’s notice.
Now begin to think of the High Selves and of accumulating mana to give to them as a gift — as a totally acceptable sacrifice — as the basic strength they will use to create the answer to your prayer.
With the knowledge well in mind of what you will DO with the mana, begin to accumulate it. Breathe deeper and more slowly and EXPECT the low self to do the work of accumulation. Take breaths in a series of four inhalations and exhalations, pause a moment, then repeat. This can be kept up as a form of slow rhythm until some forty breaths have been taken. The Ha Rite of the Gospels means the Forty Breath Rite. But the “forty also means “many”, so is not a set number. Go slowly and if you begin to get dizzy from too much oxygen, slow down. All you want to do is furnish the low self with enough oxygen so that it can burn blood sugar from the liver and make the added vital force.
As you get charged up, and you may notice this after even four breaths, you will find that your vision is clearer as you check it by looking at some picture on the wall. You will begin to feel more vital, more “up and at ’em”.
The body has only one thing we can share as low and middle selves, and this is the automatic work of breathing. It is the one thing we can take away from the low self and do ourselves. We can’t digest the food or beat the heart, but we can join the low self in doing the breathing job, and when we do, the low self is much impressed. It needs to be so impressed to call its attention to what we are doing and to be made to respond and do its part — which it knows how to do very well — as it increases the mana any time we get ready for a special exertion such as walking or running. This is called a “physical stimulus”, and is anything we may do to get the attention of the low self and convince it that something is being attempted.
Another physical stimulus which may be used is to take a physical position. The favorite one with the Huna Research Associates is that advised by Baron Eugene Ferson in his lessons. One stands up, spreads the feet wide apart, and extends the arms straight out from the sides, left palm facing down, right palm facing up, looking straight ahead with back straight. Ferson thought we stuck the hands and feet out beyond the oval shadowy body or double which surrounds us, and made contact with the “Universal Life Force” which was outside and filling the whole of the atmosphere. The trick was to draw in this force and charge the body. There is nothing to support his theory, but it makes a nice picture of something being done and gets the low self to work. Soon one will feel a tingle in the hands and while this may be lack of circulation, with Ferson it passed as the sign that the Force had been accumulated. And, by about then it should be.
Drop your arms, bring your feet together and begin to think about the High Self, then begin to send the mana, and in a moment more, begin to recall your picture of your ANSWERED prayer and send it with the mana, thinking of the shadowy cord connecting you with the High Self overhead. You may succeed at first try, or you may not. Keep practicing until the method is easy for you. Aloha
