Even though Hula nowadays also encompasses a number of modern renditions that are sometimes held more in the spirit of entertainment (think Elvis in Hawai’i), the deep roots of tradition, and the spiritual aspects are still nearly always present.

Similar to the ceremonies of e.g. Zen Buddhist monks, the individual participant is meant to “see the picture” of the whole, and perform in unison within that picture. All while telling the important stories of Hawai’ian history both physically and through sound, often on multiple levels of meaning, including deeply spiritual ones.

In addition, the tones and vibrations of the chants themselves are meant to prepare and “set right” the energy for whatever the object of the particular performance may be.

Enjoy the video of this great performance during the Merrie Monarch Hula Festival in Hilo on the Big Island of Hawai’i. Notice “the picture” moving in exquisite unison:

Notice the famous entrance chant “Ho’opuka” (1:10 in), which translates to “Make a hole in the sun, and find the light behind the light” at the spiritual translation level. It has traditionally been used in all situations of entrance or beginning to set the energy right for what is to follow.

Found another great one here, this is also very traditional and in a more raw setting than at the festival. Masterful drumming on the Ipu heke (gourd drum):

The dancers in a Hula Halau (school) such as these have likely been dancing since they were about 3-5 years old, and practice for many years before they are ever allowed to perform in a more public performance. Their dedication is simply incredible.

The Hawai’ian Goddess of Fire, Pele, is thought to reside at the Halema’uma’u pit crater, inside the larger Kilauea summit caldera (learn more here).

The Big Island of Hawai’i is itself composed of 5 different volcanoes, the two largest of which, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, reach just under 13,800 ft. and 13,700 ft. above sea level respectively.

Amazingly, when considering that the island rises for many thousands of feet (19,000 or so!) straight from the Pacific Ocean floor, both mountains are actually taller than Mount Everest, making them candidates for the tallest mountains on the planet!

Ho’oponopono – “Two Way” forgiveness process (“to make right two times/both ways”) that could be performed either externally with actual discussion and forgiveness ceremonies between the involved parties, or internally in the individual’s own mind.

In the latter case, the “kala” (cleansing) aspect of this Hawai’ian code of forgiveness was deemed essential by the Kahuna: To achieve complete forgiveness within a client for both infractions committed by or against them is in Huna considered the only way to fully heal the negative energy otherwise held in the individual’s consciousness.

Since these issues could range from the extreme to the decidedly minor, a wonderful side-effect of frequent Ho’oponopono is that it represents a form of “mental decluttering”. While appearing innocuous, this clutter can often still drain us of mental energy, and rob us of our full effectiveness.

“Higher Self Transformation” – a process by which the individual is asking for their Higher Self (their “Aumakua”) to come in and resolve long-standing problems, issues or fixations. Whatever condition is either present in the moment, or specifically prompted and activated in a coaching/meditation session, can be removed, or even turned into a desired new condition, though caveats along the lines of “beware of what you ask for” apply.

Note that Dr. Hew Len of the Morrnah Simeona lineage refers to this process as “Self-Identity Ho’oponopono” (as described by Joe Vitale in “Zero Limits” among other places). There is in principle nothing wrong with this terminology, except that it may cause confusion between this and the other, more relationship-centered form of Ho’oponopono described above.

“Higher Self Connection” – a meditation process by which the individual’s connection to their own Higher Self (in some spiritual systems this is referred to as the “Holy Guardian Angel”) is strengthened, and specific guidance and other messages may be sought.

In general, the integration of the Three Selves is one of the highest aims of Huna psychology. Without the strengthening of the Higher Self Connection, the Conscious Mind and Unconscious Mind are basically on their own (and for many people even those two are not really cooperating all that well!).

In the Huna coaching process, diligent practice of the Higher Self Connection is the prerequisite for the client to be able to perform the Higher Self Transformation process by themselves, without further coaching. This is the reason why the Higher Self Connection is the center-piece of the “Huna Experience” Webinar that I am presently adding to the curriculum. Stay tuned for more on this very soon.

Best wishes and Aloha!

- Coach Alex

It assumes a three-part partition of the mind/self into a Conscious Mind, an Unconscious Mind, and – crucially – a Higher Self.

Alongside these 3 selves, the ancient Hawai’ians were specifically concerned with the flows of unseen (electrical, etc.) energies (“mana”) in the body similar to the conceptions of Hinduist, Buddhist, and Taoist philosophies, familiar today by such practices as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Accupuncture, as well as various forms of Yoga and related energy cultivation practices.

In fact, before becoming known as the secret “Huna”, these practices had collectively been referred to as “Ho’omana”, “to make/create [life force] energy”.

The Kahuna held the view that there were actually 4 such progressively more subtle bodies, similar to other Eastern views on auric bodies. From the bottom up these are the physical, the emotional, the mental, and the spiritual body, with each following a precise logic of control by the Three Selves.

For example, the Unconscious Mind equates mostly to the emotional body, but it also controls the body below it, the physical body.

Western psychology has given more and more credence to these views in recent times with its recognition of psycho-somatic illness factors, so-called “somatoform” disorders, and a host of other examples of strong unconscious control over bodily processes such as phobias.

Despite this formal segmentation of the psyche, the underlying philosophy of Huna holds that all of creation including the human mind is ultimately one. This represents a form of pantheism and/or monism similar to e.g. the Hinduist views expressed in the Upanishads, those inherent in Buddhism, etc.

The Higher Self, the so-called Aumakua, is conceptualized as the direct connection to the higher planes, the Highest Being inside each human being.

Aumakua translates to “totally trustworthy parental spirit”, which gives an indication of its role similar to concepts of the “Holy Spirit” or the “Holy Guardian Angel” in Christian and Hermetic schools of thought. It is the seat of the godhead in man, and for the purposes of spiritual evolution a somewhat separate spiritual being assigned to the two other selves.

In many traditions across the world it is literally “drawn in” in pictures as a halo, or sometimes as a ball above the head (e.g. the yin-yang “Tao” symbol in Ancient Eastern depictions, which relates to the idea that it is a balanced male and female energy) when present in the event.

Despite the appearance of separation, the Kahuna thought that in fact the ultimate goal of all practices was the integration of the Selves and Bodies to work in perfect harmony and health (somewhat similar to C.G. Jung’s concept of the individuation process), and that the “growing up” and evolution of the separate selves was indeed the meaning of life itself.

Huna also contains the concept of Karma, and it is thought that “Karma” is in fact stored in the Unconscious Mind, the “Unihipili” (the little creature or animal self). Therefore, the path to healing any condition would have to include the cleaning up of such unconscious contents and programs that would get in the way of the desired results.

By the principles of correspondence (“as above, so below” and “as inside, so outside”), the Kahuna thought that the outer circumstances of one’s life would closely resemble the inner world (sometimes people refer to these ideas as “the law” of attraction).

Therefore, cleaning up this – one might say “magnetic” – Karma would be a first step to all other positive developments (E pii ana o lalo – “take from darkness into the light that which is below”), such as the seeking of specific guidance from one’s Higher Self (E iho an o luna – “bring down that which is above by means of the light”).

Since the meaning of the term Kahuna is a combination of the root words for keeper (kahu) and secret (huna), as well as the adjunct roots for light (ka) and calm/balanced (na), in the most basic sense a Kahuna was an expert in his field of purview, similar to our modern-day concept of a "Ph.D."

The great number of the different types of Kahuna listed by e.g. Laura Yardley gives further credence to this view: There were besides the more spiritually and mentally oriented Kahuna some as straight-forwardly concerned as the "Kahuna Kali Wa’a" (canoe makers), or those expert in the intricate lava rock masonry used for everything from homes and walls to the famous Hawai’ian temples (heiau).

This is also how many people have heard the term first used in popular culture in relation to the "Kahuna of Surf" or the "Big Kahuna" (from 1950’s and 60’s film and television).

As for the class of the spiritually concerned Kahuna, major examples include the Kahuna La’au Lapa’au (medicinal healers and doctors), Kahuna La’au Kahea (mental healers or "psychologists"), Kahuna Po’i Uhane (spirit catchers), Kahuna Kilokilo (experts concerned with divination and omens), and Kahuna Na’au Ao (mystics of the science of mind), each typically with several sub-designations too long to reproduce here.

While most of these pursuits would have been considered on the side of the positive and of healing for the greater good of society, there were clearly also some that might be considered under the mantle of Black Magic or Sorcery, collective known as Kahuna Ana’ana (again with a number of subspecies). These were the ones later primarily – and one might say unduly – focused on by the Western missionaries.

This preoccupation with the morbid led to a state of affairs where the native keepers of these bodies of knowledge strictly kept things from the Westerners to themselves. Most Kahuna practices were formally outlawed since the early days of the missionaries, with several of the prohibitions, on things including the performance of the Hula, the Hawai’ian ritual dancing, chanting, and drumming performances, carried forward all the way into the 1960s.

Having only 7 consonants in addition to the 5 vowels

To give an idea of this, a given Hawai’ian chant might have a rather straightforward surface level meaning describing e.g. the legends of the Hawai’ian pantheon of Gods and Goddesses, or the pursuits of royalty (Ali’i).

The same chant will typically contain however one or more additional layers, e.g. one with a more political motivation, a further one with a spiritual context, asf.

Sometimes there is a so-called “Kaona” – a key – present that may provide guidance on this matter, but often the layers of translation can only be arrived at by the most diligent translation work.

Here is a link to a useful on-line Hawai’ian dictionary. I also recommend Tad James’ “Lost Secrets of Ancient Hawai’ian Huna, Vol. II – Chants”, as a handy resource. It combines the texts of some of the most typical chants, along with a collated “dictionary of dictionaries” of most of the relevant terms used in those chants and all of their possible meanings.

One more item of great importance about the Hawai’ian language and its forms of chanting: The language “has breath”, that is, it is spoken with vigorous aspiration from the center of the body. It has a certain energy and quality to its sounds, such that the only meaningful comparison would be to something like the Gregorian Chants.

A useful anecdote in this regard is the formation of the term that the Hawai’ians first used for the newly arrived Westerners, which is now a Hawai’ian slang term and used with derogatory connotation by some:

Ha-ole (pronounced “Haulee” in the slang), literally means, “without breath” or also “white, as if dead” or “ghost”, and refers to the natives perception of English being a language without breath. Wherefore they were concerned for the newcomers’ health, fearing them sick and almost dead, which in their eyes explained the white complexion.

Even the word “Hawai’i” itself comes from the roots of Ha – “breath”, Wai – “water” / “life force”, and ‘i’ – “supreme”, taken together: “The Supreme Life Force that rides on the breath”. Incidentally, since only the Big Island is formally named “Hawai’i”, the naming of all of the Islands by that term indicates the shared understanding of the great principle behind the name.

Long had called Huna a “psycho-religious structure”, and he wasn’t that far off, except that Huna as a spiritual philosophy must be seen as religiously neutral, with the focus being more on the psychological side of things. In fact, the Hawai’ians had developed, many centuries before Freud and others, a sophisticated view of the human mind as composed of several distinct partitions, including an Unconscious Mind (the “Unihipili” or “little creature”, or as we would say in today’s parlance “the inner child”).

Some of the examples of the ancient Hawai’ians level of understanding include insights into psycho-somatic illness, as well as the formalized “deprogramming” of warriors returning to normal life after battle.

For a brief glimpse of the historical background, it is instructive to read descriptions of the state of Hawai’ian society before the arrival of the Westerners: When Captain Cook and his men landed in 1778, and were soon followed by more white men and finally the missionaries (around 1810), the Islands contained a population much larger than what might be surmised from today’s population patterns (estimates range from 250,000 to as high as 800,000).

And this large society, with a well developed system of political rule and agriculture, was virtually free of both physical disease as well as mental illness. Unfortunately, these populations were subsequently decimated to about 40,000 by the diseases that were brought by Cook’s men and their successors.

Stay tuned for great posts on Huna-related news and issues at least once a week.

Best wishes and Aloha! – Alex