Ho’oponopono is an ancient Hawaiian forgiveness and reconciliation practice that was later simplified into four phrases.
The person bringing this practice to light was Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len. This Hawaiian psychotherapist did so by healing a whole ward of mentally ill criminals, to the point that the ward actually closed down within a four year time period.
Dr. Hew Len demonstrated such incredible results without conducting a single typical therapy session with any of the patients. As a matter of fact, he barely interacted with them at all. How did he accomplish this? Why did it work?
First off, it is important to understand the philosophy of Ho’oponopono. It is simple enough to be summarized by three answers to three questions.
Who are you?
Asked by spiritual teachers and gurus of all time, the first question is “who are you?”. Take a moment to reflect on this. If you take away your name, gender, nationality, occupation, labels that come with the relationships you are in, what is left? Your Essence. That Divine light, what I call the Powerful Self. It is important to understand that you are pure, flawless, absolutely perfect. You are the embodiment of love and joy, that is your most natural state, that is the core of your being.
If we are all Divine beings, why do we have conflicts? Why do we feel anger, jealousy, sadness? We’ve clearly established the fact that you are pure in your essence, however, what is not perfect is the memories and programming which are more often than not guiding your life. Think of yourself as a lantern, you have the light within you, however on top of it is a layer of dirt, making it difficult for the light to come through.
What is the problem?
The second question would be: “what is the problem? “. I’ve touched on what the problem is in the previous question, but to sum it all up the problem is YOU. This can be interpreted from either a spiritual or a psychological point of view.
For the skeptics out there, let us start with psychology. Cognitive behavioral therapy masterfully describes how it is, in fact, our mind, and not the outside circumstances that determine our life. For example, if you are experiencing sadness, it is due to a particular (most often distorted) thought you had previously. This psychotherapy treatment technique shows that you indeed have full control of your life, and it is never the outside circumstances that dictate your mood or experience, but rather the kind of self-talk you choose to identify with. If you experience thought distortions and do nothing about them, they will end up controlling your mind, direct your actions and therefore, your life. Reacting or not reacting to a particular trigger is always a matter of conscious choice. Therefore, you do create your reality because reality is really all about your own individual perception of external factors.
Diving into spirituality, if you are reading this, I would imagine that you have heard of the law of attraction at one point or another. Ho’oponopono takes the concept of “you create your own reality” a step further, emphasizing that there is no outside. The idea is that whatever we perceive as outside circumstances, events, conflicts etc. are simply mirrors to what is happening within us. You create your reality, thus it is not so much a “law of attraction”, as much as “law of manifestation”.
Side note, if you are attempting to think your way through this information, don’t bother, the mind won’t possibly understand. instead, I invite you to be present with what you are reading and feel it, rather than think it.
The key concept of Ho’oponopono is taking 100% responsibility for your life, everything and everyone in it. Whatever circumstances present themselves in your life, positive or negative, you contributed to them in one way or another. At the very least you can take responsibility for judging and labeling them as “positive” or “negative”.
How to fix the problem?
We have now reached the final question, which is “how to fix the problem?”. The answer is pretty simple, what would one do with dirt? Clean it, of course! You can fix the problem by clearing away the programming and memories which are directing your thoughts and actions. Your life moves in cycles. Ever notice how you attract the same kind of people or circumstances into your life? If the lesson was not learned and if you still hold attachment to a particular memory, similar situations will keep repeating themselves.
By applying the Ho’oponopono you clear the memories and programming that do not come from your Essence. You
The only purpose in your life and mine is the restoration of our Identity—our Mind—back to its original state of void or zero (Buddha), of purity of heart (Jesus) and of blank (Shakespeare) through nonstop cleaning.
Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len
Now that I covered the philosophy of this powerful practice, hopefully, you will be able to understand why Dr. Hew Len made such a big difference in the lives of all those people. As mentioned previously, he did not conduct any typical therapies with the patients, but simply looked through their files. As he read through the files of the patients who committed terrible crimes such as theft, rape, murder, etc., he cleared the triggers that surfaced within him. He cleared the judgments, the disgust, the anger, sorrow, whatever he was thinking and feeling. He took 100% responsibility for what manifested in his life.
Interestingly enough, in a later interview, he was asked whether he intended to change the lives of all those people. He replied by saying that his only job was and is to this day to clear himself. Although this answer seemed astonishingly selfish to me at the time, I now understand it perfectly. There is no “outside”. Peace begins with you.
