Hoʻoponopono (Hawaiian pronunciation:[ho.ʔo.po.no.po.no]) is a traditionalHawaiian practice ofreconciliation andforgiveness. The Hawaiian word translates into English simply ascorrection, with the synonymsmanage orsupervise.[1][2] Similar forgiveness practices are performed on islands throughout theSouth Pacific, includingHawaii,Samoa,Tahiti andNew Zealand.[citation needed] Traditionalhoʻoponopono is practiced byIndigenous Hawaiian healers, often within the extended family by a family member.
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In manyPolynesian cultures, it is believed that a person's errors (calledhara orhala) causedillness. Some believe error angers the gods, others that it attracts malevolent gods, and still others believe the guilt caused by error made one sick.[citation needed] "In most cases, however, specific 'untie-error' rites could be performed to atone for such errors and thereby diminish one's accumulation of them."[3]: 157
Among the islands ofVanuatu in theSouth Pacific, people believe that illness usually is caused by sexual misconduct or anger. "If you are angry for two or three days, sickness will come," said one local man.[4]: 55 The therapy that counters this sickness is confession. The patient, or a family member, may confess. If no one confesses an error, the patient may die. The Vanuatu people believe that secrecy is what gives power to the illness. When the error is confessed, it no longer has power over the person.[4]: 61
Like many other islanders, including Hawaiians, people ofTikopia in theSolomon Islands, and onRarotonga in theCook Islands, believe that the sins of the father will fall upon the children. If a child is sick, the parents are suspected of quarreling or misconduct. In addition to sickness, social disorder could cause sterility of land or other disasters.[5]: 70 Harmony could be restored only by confession and apology.
InPukapuka, it was customary to hold sort of a confessional over patients to determine an appropriate course of action in order to heal them.[6]: 151
Similar traditions are found inSamoa,[7]: 12 Tahiti,[8]: 159 and among theMaori ofNew Zealand.[9]: 217 [10][11]: 242
Hoʻoponopono is defined in theHawaiian Dictionary as:
(a) "To put to rights; to put in order or shape, correct, revise, adjust, amend, regulate, arrange, rectify, tidy up make orderly or neat, administer, superintend, supervise, manage, edit, work carefully or neatly; to make ready, as canoemen preparing to catch a wave."
(b) "Mental cleansing: family conferences in which relationships were set right (hoʻoponopono) through prayer, discussion, confession, repentance, and mutual restitution andforgiveness."[2]
Literally,hoʻo is a particle used to make an actualizing verb from the following noun. Here, it creates a verb from the nounpono, which is defined as: "...goodness, uprightness, morality, moral qualities, correct or proper procedure, excellence, well-being, prosperity, welfare, benefit, true condition or nature, duty; moral, fitting, proper, righteous, right, upright, just, virtuous, fair, beneficial, successful, in perfect order, accurate, correct, eased, relieved; should, ought, must, necessary."[2]
Ponopono is defined as "to put to rights; to put in order or shape, correct, revise, adjust, amend, regulate, arrange, rectify, tidy up, make orderly or neat." Therefore,hoʻoponopono can be translated literally as "to make right" or "to make good".
Hawaiian scholar Nana Veary in her bookChange We Must: My Spiritual Journey[12] wrote that hoʻoponopono was a practice inAncient Hawaii[13]: 61–62, 67 and this is supported by oral histories from contemporary Hawaiian elders.[14] Pukui (born 1895) first recorded her experiences and observations from her childhood in her 1958 book.[15]: 184–185
Although the wordhoʻoponopono was not used, early Hawaiian historians documented a belief that illness was caused by breakingkapu, or spiritual laws, and that the illness could not be cured until the sufferer atoned for this transgression, often with the assistance of a praying priest (kahuna pule) or healing priest (kahuna lapaʻau). Forgiveness was sought from the gods[16][17] or from the person with whom there was a dispute.[18]
Pukui described it as a practice of extended family members meeting to "make right" broken family relations. Some families met daily or weekly, to prevent problems from erupting.[19] Others met when a person became ill, believing that illness was caused by the stress of anger, guilt,recriminations and lack of forgiveness.[13]: 60 Kupuna Nana Veary wrote that when any of the children in her family fell ill, her grandmother would ask the parents, "What have you done?" They believed that healing could come only with complete forgiveness of the whole family.[12]: 34
The aim ofHoʻoponopono is to correct, restore and maintain good relationships among family members and with their god(s) by getting to the causes and sources of trouble. It is usually conducted by the most senior family member, who gathers the family together. If the family is unable to work through a problem, they turn to a respected outsider.
The process begins with prayer. A statement of the problem is made, and the transgression discussed. Family members are expected to work problems through and cooperate, and not "hold fast to the fault". One or more periods of silence may be taken for reflection on the entanglement of emotions and injuries. Each person's feelings are acknowledged. Then confession, repentance and forgiveness take place. Everyone releases (kala) each other, letting go. They cut off the past (ʻoki), and together they close the event with a ceremonial feast, calledpani, which often included eatinglimu kala, symbolic of the release.[13]: 60–80
In a form used by the family ofkahuna Makaweliweli of the island ofMolokai, the completion ofhoʻoponopono is represented by giving the person forgiven alei made from the fruit of thehala tree.[20]
"Aunty" Malia Craver, who worked with the Queen Liliʻuokalani Children's Centers (QLCC) for more than 30 years, taught courses in traditional hoʻoponopono.[21] On August 30, 2000, she spoke about it to theUnited Nations.[22]
In the late 20th century, courts in Hawaiʻi began to order juvenile and adult offenders to work with an elder who would conducthoʻoponopono for their families, as a form ofalternative dispute resolution. Thehoʻoponopono is conducted in the traditional way, without court interference, with a practitioner picked by the family from a list of court-approved providers.[23]
Some native practitioners providehoʻoponopono to clients who otherwise might seek family counseling.[24]
In 1976Morrnah Simeona, regarded as a healing priest orkahuna lapaʻau, adapted the traditionalhoʻoponopono of family mutual forgiveness to the social realities of the modern day. For this she extended it both to a general problem solving process outside the family and to a psycho-spiritual self-help rather than group process.
Simeona's version is influenced by her Christian (Protestant and Catholic) education and her philosophical studies about India, China andEdgar Cayce. Like Hawaiian tradition she emphasizes prayer, confession, repentance, and mutual restitution and forgiveness. Unlike Hawaiian tradition, she describes problems only as the effects of negativekarma, saying that "you have to experience by yourself what you have done to others." But that you are the creator of your life circumstances was common knowledge for the people of old as "things we had brought with us from other lifetimes."[25] Any wrongdoing is memorized within oneself and mirrored in every entity and object which was present when the cause happened. As the Law of Cause and Effect predominates in all of life and lifetimes, the purpose of her version is mainly "to release unhappy, negative experiences in pastreincarnations, and to resolve and remove traumas from the 'memory banks'."[26] Karmic bondages hinder the evolution of mind, so that "(karmic) cleansing is a requisite for the expansion of awareness".[27] Using her 14-step-process would dissolve those bondages.[28] She did not usemantras or conditioning exercises.
Her teachings include: there is a Divine Creator who takes care of altruistic pleas of Men; "when the phrase 'And it is done' is used after a prayer, it means Man's work ends and God's begins."[29] "Self-Identity" signifies, e.g. during the hoʻoponopono, that the three selves or aspects of consciousness are balanced and connected with the Divine Creator.[30] Different from egoistic prayers, "altruistic prayers like hoʻoponopono, where you also pray for the release of other entities and objects, reach the Divine plane or Cosmos because of their high vibrations. From that plane the Divine energy or "mana" would come,"[31] which would transform the painful part of the memory of the wrong actions in all participants to "Pure Light", on whatever plane they are existing; "all are set free".[32] Through this transmutation in the mind the problems will lose their energy for physical effects, and healing or balancing is begun. In this sense, Simeona's mana is not the same as the traditional Polynesian understanding ofmana.
Pacifica Seminars, founded byMorrnah Simeona, started the first Ho'oponopono seminars inGermany. Seminars are still held on a regular basis in Germany, Poland, France, and Denmark.[33][34][35]
In 1982, psychologist Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, Ph.D took his first class with Morrnah Simeona.[36] He trained as an instructor under Simeona, and later taught with her traveling in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. After Simeona's death in 1992, Len returned to Hawaii to continue work in Ho'oponopono'. In 2007, Len co-authored a book with Joe Vitale calledZero Limits,[37] referring to Simeona's Hoʻoponopono teachings. Len made no claim to be akahuna. In contrast to Simeona's teachings, the book brings the new idea that the main objective of Hoʻoponopono is getting to the "zero state — it's where we have zero limits. No memories. No identity."[37]: 31 To reach this state, which Len called 'Self-I-Dentity thru Ho'oponopono', or SITH®, includes using themantra, "I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you."[37]: 32 It is based on Len's idea of 100% responsibility,[37]: 41 taking responsibility for everyone's actions, not only for one's own. If one would take complete responsibility for one's life, then everything one sees, hears, tastes, touches, or in any way experiences would be one's responsibility because it is in one's life.[37]: 22 The problem would not be with one's external reality, it would be with oneself.Total Responsibility, according to Hew Len, advocates that everything exists as a projection from inside the human being.[37]: 24
