The Integration of Mind, Body and Spirit
The following is a general introduction to the concepts of Huna. It
is not meant to be detailed nor to delve deeply into it. A reading
list is provided to allow those interested in Huna to explore what
it has to offer on your own.
I. What is Huna?

Huna was first described by Max Freedom Long. Long worked and lived
in Hawaii during the 1920's. He taught school mostly to Hawaiian
children on the island of Molokai. During his stay on Molokai he
became aware that the Hawaiians often talked among themselves of a
form of healing. Most Hawaiians rejected Western doctors and used a
more traditional form of healing when they themselves became ill.
Long became interested in learning more about this "secret" healing
system, however, whenever he would ask questions about it the
Hawaiians would ignore him or pretend as if they did not understand
what he was talking about. Over a period of several years he picked
up little bits and pieces of information on what he was to
eventually call Huna.
In the late 1920's Long met Dr. William Taft Brigham who was at that
time the Curator of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. Brigham, he
found, had also been studying the secret healing wisdom of the
Hawaiians for many years. They soon began a collaboration, which
while short lived, opened the door to what we now call Huna.
The word Huna, means the secret in Hawaiian. It refers to a
body of knowledge that has its origins in antiquity. It is possibly
2,000 years old or even older. In many ways it is a mystery school.
Whether the ancient Hawaiians called it Huna or not, may never be
known but for simplicity sake we continue to use the name the Long
gave it and call this body of knowledge Huna.
No matter who created this system, nor how old it is it is, one of
the most sophisticated healing systems ever experienced. It has
answers to the mysteries of life and death, of human development, of
the mind, the body and the spiritual nature of mankind. It tells us
who we are and why we are here and what life is really all about. As
I have personally experienced and found, as many of you may also
find, Huna can change your life, it can give new meaning and purpose
to who you are and why you are living in this particular time and
place.
The body of information we call Huna was not openly discussed and it
was apparently never written down. The teachings were passed from
initiate to initiate for hundreds, possibly thousands, of
generations. These initiates were called kahuna, meaning
literally the keepers of the secret. Most kahuna were very
wise. They were teachers and healers. They were equivalent to
today's doctors, our M.D.'s and Ph.D.'s. They were highly educated
in the ways of the world and how the intelligent world around them
worked. They could not only heal, but heal instantly and at a
distance. They could change the weather, create rain and even move
storms away, out to sea. They could communicate with animals, the
fish, trees, plants and the planet itself. They were navigators,
astronomers, they could tell the people when to plant their crops,
when to harvest, which crops and where they should be planted. For
thousands of years Hawaii flourished with little illness and an
abundance of food and water.
A kahuna was picked at birth or in childhood because he or she
radiated a certain sense of wisdom. The child then went to live with
his or her teacher and was brought up learning what would one day be
their avocation. The knowledge was taught in many forms and much
like Merlin taught Arthur, the kahuna taught their disciple.
Information was imparted through direct experience, test and trial,
verbally and through wrote learning. Depending on the expertise of
kahuna, and the specific role played in the community, the initiate
was taught not only the wisdom of his teacher, but also about how to
relate this wisdom to all other aspects of life.
The initiate kahuna learned that each person is made up of five
principal parts or aspects. While these aspects can be discussed
individually, they are really only ways of looking at ourselves. One
cannot be separated from the other. They are never alone. Rather,
they are all aspects of who we are and all these parts are always
working and acting together. They are constantly working for the
health and well-being of the whole. Illness is a disruption in the
harmony and balance of these parts. The type of illness depended not
only on the cause of the disruption and which aspects of the
individual are affected, but also on their desire to communicate
this information to us. Healing is the reconnection, harmonizing and
rebalancing of these aspects so that the individual is once again
made whole.
So that this secret knowledge would not be lost, Long tell us, it
was embedded deep within the language of the Hawaiian people. A
secret code was created that allowed the initiate to always have a
way of returning to the basic knowledge if for any reason he or she
should temporarily lose it. It is this code that Long believes he
tapped into which then opened up the mystery of Huna and allowed him
to unfold its secret and finally, bring it out into the open.
When the missionaries came to Hawaii, they brought Christianity
along with them. The Hawaiians being an amicable people, welcomed
the missionaries. They were soon ready and even willing to convert
to Christianity. While the missionaries didn't know it at the time,
the reason that they were so willing to accept Christianity was
really two fold. The doctrine of Christ, the hidden code of the
Bible, was similar or in many places exactly the same as the
principles of Huna. Secondly, most of the ministers, especially the
Catholic and some of the Protestant sects, preached about the Holy
Trinity and as you will see in the next section this was already
very familiar to the Hawaiians.
There was a third reason which was less obvious. Huna is not a
religion. It is in a sense a science. It is a way of looking at the
Universe and understanding how it operates. Over the many years that
Huna operated in Hawaii, the people of Hawaii had many different
religions. In most cases they were based around what they referred
to as their aumakua or Higher Self. Long described the Higher
Self as the Totally Benevolent, Totally Trustworthy Parental
Spirit. Jesus clearly was an Higher Self so he fit easily into
the pantheon of family aumakua and became the symbol, and in many
cases, the Father Aumakua. Long tells us, in his book The Hidden
Code of Religion in Huna, that he believed Jesus was a kahuna
and that through the Bible he spoke to the people as a great kahuna
would.
Long suggests, however, that since there is no specific reference to
Jesus and that certain key elements of Jesus' life are missing from
this hidden code, that Huna may well have preceded Jesus and that it
probably existed in Hawaii, long before the existence of Christ.
Many scholars and Hawaiian historians have presented theories of the
origin of the Hawaiian people. Some believe that they are
descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, others believe that they
are the remnants of the survivors of the lost continent of Mu (Lemuria).
Still others, have traced them and the Huna philosophy to early
Egypt about the time of the building of the first pyramids. Long
believed that the original knowledge of Huna began in Egypt and that
there are a number of clear indications that this was the case. He
takes careful pains to show similarities between Egyptian and Huna
code words and symbols, also because of certain similarities in
events and history. He believed that these are definite similarities
in the established genesis myths of the two cultures. He even sites
evidence in the form of a Berber woman kahuna who knew the secret
code of Huna and taught them in part to an Englishman who later
contacted Long and discussed it with him. The Berber woman "kahuna"
told the Englishman a story from the tradition of her people that
tells that they worked on the great pyramids of Egypt, they were
enslaved and finally broke their bondage. While leaving Egypt they
divided into several groups and some went east toward Asia, while
her tribe went west and settled in the Atlas mountains of North
Africa.
Long traces the migration of the Huna knowledge into India,
Indonesia, New Zealand, Java, Samoa, Tahiti, the Marshall islands
and finally, to Hawaii. And in fact elements of Huna still exists in
all of these areas.
There is another element that is unclear and that is the
relationship of Huna to the Mysteries. Huna operates much like the
ancient mysteries as exemplified by the mysteries of Temple of
Solomon (the Rosicrucian and Free Masons believe that they had their
origins here), the Elysian mysteries, as well as the Druid
mysteries, yet along with many commonalities and similarities, there
are significant differences. Possibly with time more light will be
shed on this question.
Huna is Not a Religion
As we said earlier, Huna is not a religion but rather a science or
world view. It does not require that you believe in any or all of
it. It simply exists as a way of looking at the Universe we live in.
It is also a way of understanding our humanity, how our mind works
and why were are here. Yet there is no dogma, there are no priests
or ministers, there are no services and it makes no difference
whether you are a practicing Catholic, Protestant or Jew. You have
to tigh nothing, it expounds no concept of sin, transgression or
salvation. Yet, within it exists a clear understanding of how to
live a healthy moral life and be free of sin and transgression.
In Hawaiian the word for sin means missing the mark. Hence, a
sin is not a mortal blow to our soul or a breach of respect to God,
but rather a missing of the mark of who and what we are. One
eliminates sin by correcting the problem, forgiving themselves and
those who caused hurt or pain to them.
There are few rules in Huna and those that exist are not hard rules,
that is, if you break them you will not offend the Godhead or soil
yourself forever. Instead they are guidelines for helping us to make
our life better and prevent problems that would injure us or keep us
from getting what we want from our life.
The primary mandate in Huna is to live the hurtless life. It
is important that we cause no hurt to another and that we respect
everyone as we wish to be respected and cared for. When we hurt
others, we cause hurt to our self, we create blocks to getting what
we want from life and making our life be what we want it to be. We
will discuss this in greater detail in a later section.
Huna is, in a sense, a system of mind, body spirit integration and
healing. It can be used to integrate modern psychology, physiology,
medicine, neurology, systems theory into a more comprehensive system
of healing and prevention than what we presently find in our modern
medical system. Inherent in Huna is that when it is followed closely
it teaches you how to prevent illness and when you are sick, it
allows you to recognize where your illness came from and how to heal
it. If you are already a healer, it will allow you to better help
others to heal themselves. It is not simply about treatment as
modern Western medicine is, but rather about cure of the underlying
causes and developing wisdom as to the cause so that you can prevent
the illness from ever recurring again.
To read the next article
in the series,
Huna
Healing-2, click here.
©Allco Medical Enterprises, Inc. 2012