From the Global Light Network newsletter
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Reflections - HO'OPONOPONO

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 that 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.

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.

Joe Vitale is the author of The Attractor Factor: 5 Easy Steps for Creating Wealth (or Anything Else) from the Inside Out

Hi Winder,
WOW!!!!! All i can say is WOW!! Your post just grabbed me and drew me in---I am going to take COMPLETE responsibility for my self!!!
Light--Brighter because I love myself.
Peace--Because I am Loving myself on a greater capacity
and
Loving ---What I have not done, but I am beginning to
Healing--What I am doing Because I am Loving Myself
Energy---What is the outcome of LOVING myself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cindysue

Winder:
What a great post! This is why the concept that all separation is illusion is so powerful for healing: because it is true. Taking responsibility for myself is very different from taking responsibility for SELF, which includes all. There is a way of interpreting dreams that asks that we look at every character as an aspect of self with those qualities. Also the Jungian concepts of personal and collective shadow bring this dynamic out for healing.

I've heard that, when a relative is very ill and might die, this same Hawaian tradition was used: the extended family and friends would go to a low mountain with the ill person lay them comfortably, and proceed to ask forgiveness of eachother, looking into eachothers eyes and meaning it with all their hearts, embracing all around where the ill person was resting and perhaps looking on. I can imagine the power of this.

And now this wonderful example of the healing power of forgiveness once we understand that we are ONE. This is the first I've heard of such a pragmatic and profoundly effective approach used in a psychiatric setting! That was just so inspiring!
Thank you, Winder!
Blessings,

If this is true, what are all those computer-gamers doing to our world????

Winder

Kinda the same concept shared in "The Secret," no? Amazing how our choices influence everything around us!!! Thanks for sharing, very thought-provoking and incredible.

Love & Light!

Ashley: I tried to send you a private message. Did you get it?

Winder

Just got it, and replied Hope I can help, dear!
Love & Light!

THis is the most interesting post that I have read on this forum. On the web, in fact. As I began to read the answer to the "million dollar question", a big YES started to form in my mind. They are not out there, they are in here! And that is a man who really understands this fact - that we create our world and put it "out there", which is really "in here".

THe question now in my mind is, how come we/I have forgotten this? Do we/I have to "forget" it in order to be able to "enjoy" our life? To make it seem "real"? And how do I go from understanding and accepting this intellectually, to really experiencing it?

Fascinating, for sure. It brought a smile to my face. Thanks, Winder.

For those who have not yet seen the movie, Joe Vitale was one of the major presenters throughout "The Secret".

Within ourselves lies an ocean of answers. Outside of ourselves lies an ocean of questions. Go within and discover that you have answers to questions that don't yet exist.

Malcolm, perhaps that big "YES" was simply an inherent part of you remembering something you already knew in your heart. To me, life has been more than "learning" lessons as I evolve - it's about "discovering" my true nature which has ALWAYS existed within me from the day I took my very first breath.

Joe Vitale also explains (quite simply in "The Secret") that the way to really experience ANYTHING is to intend it. Intend for the understanding and intellectual acceptance of HO'OPONOPONO to become a tangible EXPERIENCE, practice the concepts in Winder's post, and watch the magic unfold.

You may have noticed that it seems like a LOT of things have been working like that, lately

Peace,
Rick Garzaniti
Practitioner and Instructor

"There is an alternative to drowning in a sea of questions. Find the answer within you." - Prem Rawat

Hello All!

Winder - thanks for this wonderful information.

For everyone who would like to learn more, the official website is:

http://hooponopono.org

They have some great articles and offer classes which indicate the following ---

By the end of the training, students will :

Begin to know and appreciate who they are.
Learn how to care for and protect Self.
Learn what a problem is and how to solve it.
Learn to look only to Self and the Divine Creator.
Begin to know and appreciate the Divine Creator and, Begin to experience LOVE beyond all understanding.

Some of the problem areas covered in the training include:

Self - spiritual, mental, emotional and physical
Family, relatives and ancestors
Conception, abortions, miscarriages and suicides
Death and dying
Finances
Work and school
Earthbound spirits
Space entities
Land and buildings
Objects

Very interesting!

Love to all,

Jo-Ann

www.the-power-to-heal.com

Winder,
What a deep and compelling message. It touched upon everything I believe in my core and illuminated my struggles. Although I intellectually understand the concepts, for someone like me who tends to assume responsibility for all the things that happen to others around me, it is a fine line to draw...or should I say unweave and understand more fully. Perhaps I will start with the book.

Thank you

Winder:
Thanks for bringing this information to us. The concept seems very straightforward and somekow knowm to me.The devil is in the details that seem extremely easy. I will be wrestling with this for some time. Again Thanks
Don

This feels like what we were 'after' in the Core Transformation workshop! (Just barely finished the one in SLC July 20-22 with Alain.)

Coming to the place in us that KNOWS the oneness and expanding it so that the area (There is only 'in here') that is being perceived as painful or blocked can remember its happy alignment.

Thank You Winder!
-and Thank You Alain!! I'm still teary eyed 3 days later...

Kathy

Winder, Thanks for that enlightening post. It may take a few days to perculate, re-aligning as we go. One problem arises, if I am responsible for it all and YOU are responsibile for it all and WE ARE RESPONSIBLE for it all, there must be a "meeting place" and it still seems to me that that is out "there" in creation. N'est pas?
The other day, I struggled to write here what I really do in Distant. (Groupee deleted nearly an hours work. Piety I can't be responsible for Groupee!) Mary BakerEddy, founder of Christian Science said, "Before you cure the patient, you must cure the condition in yourself!" I have never forgotten that!
Years ago, I would walk through wards of the insane asulum, even in the dark, because I was convinced that I led a charmed life and their "insanity" did not extend to me!
I will keep looking at this from within. I know how I heal but this wordsmith has difficulty in communicating it.
Here we have "The Power to Heal" A giant step for Mankind!
Huggie

Huggie: The way I see it, if all are ONE, then when I look at you, you are also ME, so if I hold YOU (a part of me) in my mind, but heal as if I am healing ME (which apparently I AM doing), then we BOTH are healed because we really are not separate as we once believed.

Hows that for confusion?
Love and Light,
Winder