THE LAW OF ONE

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HO 'OPONOPONO

By Joe Vitale

Two years ago, I heard about a therapist in Hawaii who cured a complete ward of criminally insane patients--without ever seeing any of them. The psychologist would study an inmate's chart and then look within himself to see how he created that person's illness. As he improved himself, the patient improved.

When I first heard this story, I thought it was an urban legend. How could anyone heal anyone else by healing himself? How could even the best self- improvement master cure the criminally insane? It didn't make any sense. It wasn't logical, so I dismissed the story.

However, I heard it again a year later. I heard that the therapist had used a Hawaiian healing process called ho 'oponopono. I had never heard of it, yet I couldn't let it leave my mind. If the story was at all true, I had to know more. I had always understood "total responsibility" to mean that I am responsible for what I think and do.

Beyond that, it's out of my hands. I think that most people think of total responsibility that way. We're responsible for what we do, not what anyone else does--but that's wrong. The Hawaiian therapist who healed those mentally ill people would teach me an advanced new perspective about total responsibility. His name is Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len. We probably spent an hour talking on our first phone call. I asked him to tell me the complete story of his work as a therapist.

He explained that he worked at Hawaii State Hospital for four years. That ward where they kept the criminally insane was dangerous. Psychologists quit on a monthly basis. The staff called in sick a lot or simply quit. People would walk through that ward with their backs against the wall, afraid of being attacked by patients. It was not a pleasant place to live, work, or visit.

Dr. Len told me that he never saw patients. He agreed to have an office and to review their files. While he looked at those files, he would work on himself. As he worked on himself, patients began to heal.

"After a few months, patients who had to be shackled were being allowed to walk freely," he told me. "Others who had to be heavily medicated were getting off their medications. And those who had no chance of ever being released were being freed." I was in awe. "Not only that," he went on, "but the staff began to enjoy coming to work.

"Absenteeism and turnover disappeared. We ended up with more staff than we needed because patients were being released, and all the staff was showing up to work. Today, that ward is closed." This is where I had to ask the million dollar question: What were you doing within yourself that caused those people to change?

"I was simply healing the part of me that created them," he said. I didn't understand. Dr. Len explained that total responsibility for your life means that everything in your life- simply because it is in your life--is your responsibility. In a literal sense the entire world is your creation.

Whew. This is tough to swallow. Being responsible for what I say or do is one thing. Being responsible for what everyone in my life says or does is quite another. Yet, the truth is this: if you take complete responsibility for your life, then everything you see, hear, taste, touch, or in any way experience is your responsibility because it is in your life. This means that terrorist activity, the president, the economy or anything you experience and don't like--is up for you to heal. They don't exist, in a manner of speaking, except as projections from inside you. The problem isn't with them, it's with you, and to change them, you have to change you.

I know this is tough to grasp, let alone accept or actually live. Blame is far easier than total responsibility, but as I spoke with Dr. Len, I began to realize that healing for him and in ho 'oponopono means loving yourself. If you want to improve your life, you have to heal your life. If you want to cure anyone, even a mentally ill criminal you do it by healing you.

I asked Dr. Len how he went about healing himself. What was he doing, exactly, when he looked at those patients' files?

"I just kept saying, ‘I'm sorry' and 'I love you' over and over again," he explained.

"That's it?"

"That's it."

Turns out that loving yourself is the greatest way to improve yourself, and as you improve yourself, you improve your world. Let me give you a quick example of how this works: one day, someone sent me an email that upset me. In the past I would have handled it by working on my emotional hot buttons or by trying to reason with the person who sent the nasty message."

I decided to try Dr. Len's method. I kept silently saying, "I’m sorry" and "I love you." I didn't say it to anyone in particular. I was simply evoking the spirit of love to heal within me what was creating the outer circumstance. Within an hour I got an e-mail from the same person. He apologized for his previous message. Keep in mind that I didn't take any outward action to get that apology. I didn't even write him back. Yet, by saying 'I love you,' I somehow healed within me what was creating him.

I later attended a ho 'oponopono workshop run by Dr. Len. He's now 70 years old, considered a grandfatherly shaman, and is somewhat reclusive. He praised my book, The Attractor Factor. He told me that as I improve myself, my book's vibration will rise, and everyone will feel it when they read it. In short, as I improve, my readers will improve.

"What about the books that are already sold and out there?" I asked.

"They aren't out there," he explained, once again blowing my mind with his mystic wisdom. "They are still in you." In short, there is no out there. It would take a whole book to explain this advanced technique with the depth it deserves.

Suffice It to say that whenever you want to improve anything in your life, there's only one place to look: inside you. When you look, do it with love.

Ho'oponopono Means To Make Right

Ho'oponopono means to make right. Essentially, it means to make it right with the ancestors, or to make right with the people with whom you have relationships. We believe that the original purpose of Ho'oponopono was to correct the wrongs that had occurred in someone's life including Hala (to miss the thing aimed for, or to err, to disobey) and Hewa (to go overboard or to do something to excess) which were illusions, and even 'Ino (to do harm, implying to do harm to someone with hate in mind), even if accidental.

This description is by no means a complete training in how to do Ho'oponopono. While appropriate to do for yourself, for your and others’ safety, it should not be done with someone else without training.

For example, let's say your five-year-old grandson punched another five-year-old intentionally with hate in mind. If asked, then the one who was punched would forgive the other immediately, because it is inappropriate for anyone to carry guilt any longer than they had to, if it were not necessary.

We call this the Hawaiian Code of Forgiveness, and it's an important thought, because when we forgive others, who are we forgiving? Ourselves, of course.

If you are familiar with Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), there is a saying, "People are only doing the best they can with the resources they have available." If you've heard that before, it has to do with forgiveness. Think about it. As you do consider that you are included in "people."

In the Eastern traditions, too, there is a real tradition of being aligned with and cleaning up relations with the ancestors. In Japan, China, as well as the Hawaiian tradition, it is thought to be important to align and clean up any past problems that you've had in relationships, especially with relatives.

At the same time, perhaps there are family patterns you do not want. Certainly you have heard the saying, "We just don't do that in our family," or "That's the way it is in our family." What happens then, is that certain generational themes get passed along in families, like sadness or any number of different traits. Ho'oponopono will allow you to clean this up.

THEORY: We carry inside us as parts of the Unconscious Mind, all the significant people in our lives. (These parts of us often look very much like Carl Jung's archetypes.) Ho'oponopono makes it "all right" with them. The process of Ho'oponopono is to align with and clean up our genealogy as well as to clean up our relationships with other people in our lives.

The Process of Ho'oponopono:

Bring to mind anyone with whom you do not feel total alignment or support, etc. In your mind's eye, construct a small stage below you.

Imagine an infinite source of love and healing flowing from a source above the top of your head (from your Higher Self), and open up the top of your head, and let the source of love and healing flow down inside your body, fill up the body, and overflow out your heart to heal up the person on the stage. Be sure it is all right for you to heal the person and that they accept the healing.

When the healing is complete, have a discussion with the person and forgive them, and have them forgive you.

Next, let go of the person, and see them floating away. As they do, cut the aka cord that connects the two of you (if appropriate). If you are healing in a current primary relationship, then assimilate the person inside you.

Do this with every person in your life with whom you are incomplete, or not aligned. The final test is, can you see the person or think of them without feeling any negative emotions. If you do feel negative emotions when you do, then do the process again.

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