I have been curious about why different people have been inspired to use Huna and what they most value about it. I asked fellow Alakai, Huna practitioner and author Stewart Blackburn to provide 5 reasons why he loves Huna. I am grateful that he agreed and here they are. I wholeheartedly agree with what he writes. I hope this inspires you too.
Huna, the spiritual system with roots in Hawaiian culture and wisdom, is a wonderfully clear set of ideas and techniques that can produce powerful results with relative ease. The ideas of Huna are not new or unique, although the combination and use of them can be. By taking advantage of the metaphors of Hawaiian culture Huna has a way of conveying complex concepts in ways that seem simple and understandable. The fact that these ideas and techniques work, and usually very quickly, also helps. On top of what I have just said, there are 5 other things that I love about Huna.
The first is that it is a constant reminder that everything I experience I have had a hand in creating. Huna places the responsibility of my life squarely on my shoulders. I don’t get the luxury of blaming anyone else for anything in my life. What I experience comes from how I think and the feelings that are associated with those thoughts. The depth of this idea is mind-boggling. The implications of this take us into the very essence of creation and how consciousness works. We can operate this system by following some simple techniques, but to deeply understand it requires changing a lot of basic assumptions about reality. I find the effort totally worth it, but it is daunting. Huna gives us a blueprint of how reality gets created and the encouragement to master the process.
The second thing that I love about Huna is that it shines a light on the nature of power. Science defines power as the ability to do work. Huna uses that same basic definition. When we use our power, we get things done. But what power actually is can easily get overlooked in the drive for more of it. By reminding us that power only comes from within us as our ability to choose, we are powerful to the degree that we are willing to make the choices in our life. That is, we start by choosing what we think. Most people in my experience allow a great variety of dysfunctional and damaging thoughts to run freely in their minds. By taking charge of what we focus on we can stop most of the damaging thoughts and nurture the thoughts that help us be healthy and happy.
We choose how we feel. The idea that we are powerless in the face of our feelings is nonsense. Most of our feelings come as the results of what we are thinking, so as we take charge of our thoughts we are also taking charge of our feelings. The connection between thoughts and feelings is not an obvious one, but a little time spent observing them both pays great dividends.
We choose how we act and, more importantly, how we react. We have a great many choices as to how we will react to things we don’t like and each choice affects us differently. Disappointment for example is a choice that is so natural when things don’t go the way we want them to that it seems like the normal and expected response. But disappointment is only one of several ways we can respond, and in fact is the least pleasurable of them all.
We lose power whenever we make our choices in the context of either the past or the future. Thinking that our current circumstances are the result of things that have happened previously takes away our ability to choose freely. We are chained to what we have already experienced. We can make choices independent of our past and let go of feeling that things have to be a certain way.
The same is true of the future. If we allow our concerns for the future to influence our choices, then we block out all the options that are not related to those concerns. We lose sight of the inspirations that are available. Then the best we can do is relieve the concerns as opposed to seeing the wonderful possibilities in front of us. So we see that power is greatest when we find a way to stay present and relaxed. It is in this state that we use our power most effectively. Power is understanding the many choices that we have and then selecting the ones that work for us best.
A third reason that I love Huna is that it is so deliciously practical. We want to find ways to fix anything that seems to be going awry and to do so as quickly as we can. It foregoes any kind of dogma or formality, and lets effectiveness be the guiding principle. So we say, if it works, it’s Huna.
One more reason that I love Huna, a fourth one, is that it is one of the very few spiritual philosophies that integrates the higher or inner self into the whole self. This is not just a philosophical idea that we are made up of a body mind, a conscious mind, and a higher mind or High Self. It is the practical application of this idea into a perspective that in each thing that we do we can feel the process of creation. We can be aware of desires from deep within, growing in energy, being focused and shaped by our conscious minds, and finding their way into the physical reality we all know. The whole self then includes the awareness of our inner senses (psychic abilities and awareness), access to whatever information that we desire, and the blissful feelings of deep connection to all things. Other systems of course include these “higher” abilities. Rather than just accessing these higher states, in Huna we become one with them. We learn to choose, think, and act from the place of the unity of all parts of us. This is the full acceptance of all of who we are.
And the fifth reason that I love Huna is that in the midst of the discussions of power, consciousness, and focus, it reminds us of what is most important in life—love. And it doesn’t just emphasize it, it makes clear what love is and is not. Love is about being happy and has nothing to do with any kind of criticism, judgement, or blame. In Huna love is about a kind and generous acceptance of people and what they do. There is no emphasis on protecting ourselves from “evil” or “bad people.” There are simply behaviors that we like or don’t like. And if we don’t like a particular behavior then we do whatever it takes to mitigate that behavior or its influence in our lives. We accentuate the joyous aspects of our lives and give as little energy as possible to those things and people who disturb us. Problems need to be dealt with, but they don’t need to take over.
I have been profoundly guided, inspired, and altered by Huna. And I am grateful to all those involved in this very much alive, open-ended, and growing spiritual way of life. Loving Huna is about loving myself and that’s the best thing I know of!
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Stewart Blackburn is the author of It’s Time to Come Home: With Kindness and Compassion, We Come Back to Ourselves. His website is: www.stewartblackburn.com
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