Modern uses
[edit]Traditional applications
In the late 20th century, courts in Hawaiʻi began to order juvenile and adult offenders to work with an elder who would conduct hoʻoponopono for their families, as a form of alternative dispute resolution. The hoʻoponopono is conducted in the traditional way, without court interference, with a practitioner picked by the family from a list of court-approved providers.[25]
Some native practitioners provide hoʻoponopono to clients who otherwise might seek family counseling.[26]
[edit]Freedom from Karma
In 1976 Morrnah Simeona, regarded as a healing priest or kahuna lapaʻau, adapted the traditional hoʻoponopono 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 and Edgar 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 negative Karma, 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 also common knowledge for the Old as ʻohana knowledge: "things we had brought with us from other lifetimes".[27] Any wrong doing 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 past Reincarnations, and to resolve and remove traumas from the ‘memory banks’.”[28] Karmic bondages hinder the evolution of mind, so that “(karmic) cleansing is a requisite for the expansion of awareness.”[29] Using her 14-step-process would dissolve those bondages.[30]She did not use mantras 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.”[31] ‘Self-Identity’ signifies, e.g. during the hoʻoponopono, that the 3 selves or aspects of consciousness are balanced and connected with the Divine Creator.[32] 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,”[33] 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.”[34] 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 of Mana.
[edit]Creating state of Zero
After Simeona's passing in 1992, her former student and administrator Ihalekala Hew Len, co-authored a book with Joe Vitale called Zero Limits[35] referring to Simeona's hoʻoponopono teachings. Len makes no claim to be a kahuna. In contrast to Simeona's teachings, the book brings the new idea that the main objective of hoʻoponopono is getting to “the state of Zero, where we would have zero limits. No memories. No identity.”[36] To reach this state, which Len called 'Self-I-Dentity', one has to repeat constantly the mantra, “I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you.”[37] It is based on Len's idea of 100% responsibility,[38] 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.[39] The problem would not be with our external reality, it would be with ourselves. To change our reality, we would have to change ourselves. Total Responsibility, according to Hew Len, advocates that everything exists as a projection from inside the human being.[40] As such, it is similar to the philosophy of solipsism, but differs in that it doesn't deny the reality of the consciousness of others. Instead it views all consciousness as part of the whole, so using parts of the idea of holism: any error that a person clears in their own consciousness should be cleared for everyone. This speculative idea of an individual having the ability to benefit the whole indirectly can be seen in the theory of the Hundredth monkey effect. Actually, this theory was never observed with man.
[edit]Pacifica Seminars
Pacifica Seminars founded by Morrnah Simeona started the first Pacifica Seminars Ho'oponopono in Germany. Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len was Morrnah's assistant in the seminars, however he decided to teach Hoʻoponopono in another way, in disagreement with Morrnah's taughts. Pacifica Seminars still exists and the seminars according to the ancient method are held on a timely basis among the others in Germany, Poland, France, Denmark.[41][42][43]
The difference between the two methods is that Dr. Len's way is trying to achieve “the state of Zero" by repeating a kind of mantra “I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you.”, nonstop addressing it to the Divine,[44] whereas the full Hawaiian 12 steps cleaning process according to Morrnah cleans the links between all participants of a given problem, animate and inanimate, and cut (haw. oki) the negative or unwanted ones. These shadowy connecting threads are called aka cords.[45]
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