فصل 1

The Adventure Begins

In August 2004, I was speaking and working a booth at the National Guild of Hypnotists annual convention. I enjoyed the people, the event, the energy, and the networking. But I wasn’t prepared for the life-changing event that would begin that day.

My friend Mark Ryan was working the booth with me. Mark is a hypnotherapist, as well. He’s very open-minded, curious, articulate, and penetrating when it comes to exploring life and all its mysteries. We often had conversations that lasted for hours.We talked about our heroes in therapy, from Milton Erickson to lesser-known shamans. It was during one of these conversations that Mark surprised me by asking, “Have you ever heard of the therapist who healed people without ever seeing them?”

The question stopped me. I had heard of psychic healers and remote or distance healers, but Mark seemed to be suggesting something different.

“He’s a psychologist who healed an entire mental hospital full of the criminally insane, but he never saw a single patient.”

“What did he do?”

“He used a Hawaiian healing system called ho’oponopono.”

“Ho-oh-what?” I asked.

I asked Mark to repeat the term about a dozen times. I had never heard it before. Mark didn’t know the story, or the process, well enough to tell me much more. I admit I was curious, but I also confess that I was skeptical, as well. I figured this had to be an urban legend. Heal people without seeing them? Yeah, right.

Mark went on to tell me the following story:

“I had been traveling to Mount Shasta in California for about 16 years in search of myself,” Mark explained. “One friend there gave me a little booklet that I never forgot. It was white paper with blue ink. It was an article about this Hawaiian therapist and his method. I read that article over and over again for years. It didn’t describe what the therapist actually did, but it said he healed people with his method.” “Where’s that article now?” I asked. I wanted to read it.

“I can’t find it,” Mark said. “But something told me to tell you about it. I know you don’t believe me, but I’m as fascinated as you are. I want to know more, too.”

A year passed before the next convention. During the intervening months, I poked around online but couldn’t find anything about any therapist who cured people without seeing them. Sure, there’s information on distance healing, where someone heals another without the other person being present, but I understood that the Hawaiian therapist didn’t do that. As I would come to learn, there’s no distance at all in the type of healing he did. On top of all that, I didn’t know how to spell ho’oponopono to look it up online. So I let it go.

Then, in 2005, at the next annual hypnosis convention, Mark again mentioned the therapist.

“Did you ever find anything about him?” he asked.

“I don’t know his name, and I don’t know how to spell ho-whatever that term is,” I explained. “So I couldn’t find a thing.”

Mark’s a go-getter.We took a break, pulled out my laptop, found a wireless Internet connection, and went searching. It didn’t take long to find the main and only official site for ho’oponopono at www.hooponopono.org. I looked around and saw a few articles. They gave me a quick overview of what I was about to get into.

I found a definition of ho’oponopono: “Ho’oponopono is a process of letting go of toxic energies within you to allow the impact of Divine thoughts, words, deeds, and actions.”

I had no idea what that meant, so I looked around some more. I found this:

“Simply put, Ho’oponopono means, ‘to make right,’ or ‘to rectify an error.’ According to the ancient Hawaiians, error arises from thoughts that are tainted by painful memories from the past. Ho’oponopono offers a way to release the energy of these painful thoughts, or errors, which cause imbalance and disease.” Interesting, yes. But what did it mean?

As I explored the site, looking for information on the mysterious psychologist who healed people without seeing them, I learned that there is an updated form of ho’oponopono called Self I-Dentity through Ho’oponopono (SITH).

I didn’t pretend to know what all of this meant. Mark didn’t pretend, either. We were fellow explorers. Our laptop was the horse we rode into the wilderness of this new land. We were in search of answers. We eagerly typed forward.

We found an article that helped explain a few things:

Self I-Dentity Through Ho’oponopono

Being 100 Percent Responsible for the Problems of

My Clients

By Ihaleakala Hew Len, PhD, and Charles Brown, LMT

In traditional approaches to problem solving and healing, the therapist begins with the belief that the source of the problem is within the client, not within him. He believes that his responsibility is to assist the client in working through his problem. Could these beliefs have resulted in systemic burnout throughout the healing profession?

To be an effective problem solver, the therapist must be willing to be 100 percent responsible for having created the problem situation; that is, he must be willing to see that the source of the problem is erroneous thoughts within him, not within the client.Therapists never seem to notice that every time there is a problem, they are always present!

Being 100 percent responsible for actualizing the problem allows the therapist to be 100 percent responsible for resolving it. Using the updated Ho’oponopono approach, a process of repentance, forgiveness, and transmutation developed by Kahuna Lapa’au Morrnah Nalamaku Simeona, a therapist is able to have erroneous thoughts within himself and within the client transmuted into perfect thoughts of LOVE.

Her eyes brim with tears. Deep trenches enclose the corners of her mouth. “I am worried about my son,” Cynthia sighs softly. “He’s back on drugs again.” As she tells her painful story, I begin the cleaning of the erroneous thoughts within me that have actualized as her problem.

As erroneous thoughts are replaced by loving thoughts in the therapist and in his family, relatives, and ancestors, they are replaced too in the client and in her family, relatives, and ancestors.The updated Ho’oponopono process allows the therapist to work directly with the Original Source who can transmute erroneous thoughts into LOVE.

Her eyes dry up.The trenches around her mouth

soften. She smiles, relief dawning across her face.

“I don’t know why, but I’m feeling better.” I do not

know why, either. Really. Life is a mystery except to

LOVE, who knows all. I just let it go at that, and just

thank LOVE from whom all blessings flow.

In problem solving using the updated Ho’oponopono process, the therapist first takes his I-Dentity, his Mind, and connects it up with the Original Source, what others call LOVE or GOD.With the connection in place, the therapist then appeals to LOVE to correct the erroneous thoughts within him that are actualizing as the problem for himself first and for the client second.The appeal is a process of repentance and forgiveness on the part of the therapist—“I am sorry for the erroneous thoughts within me that have caused the problem for me and for the client; please forgive me.” In response to the repentance and forgiveness appeal of the therapist, LOVE begins the mystical process of transmuting the erroneous thoughts. In this spiritual correction process, LOVE first neutralizes the erroneous emotions that have caused the problem, be they resentment, fear, anger, blame, or confusion. In the next step, LOVE then releases the neutralized energies from the thoughts, leaving them in a state of void, of emptiness, of true freedom.

With the thoughts empty, free, LOVE then fills them with Itself. The result? The therapist is renewed, restored in LOVE. As the therapist is renewed so is the client and all involved in the problem.Where there was despair in the client, there is LOVE. Where there was darkness in her soul, there is now the healing Light of LOVE.

The Self I-Dentity through Ho’oponopono training teaches people who they are and how they can solve problems moment to moment, and in the process be renewed and restored in LOVE. The training begins with a two-hour free lecture. Attendees are given an overview of how thoughts within them actualize as spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, relational, and financial problems in their lives and in the lives of their families, relatives, ancestors, friends, neighbors, and associates. In the weekend training, students are taught what a problem is, where the problems are located, how to solve different kinds of problems using over 25 problem solving processes, and how to really take good care of themselves. The underlying emphasis in the training is on being 100 percent responsible for themselves and for what happens in their lives and for solving problems effortlessly.

The wonder of the updated Ho’oponopono process is that you get to meet yourself anew each moment, and you get to appreciate more and more with each application of the process the renewing miracle of LOVE.

I operate my life and my relationships according to the following insights:

1. The physical universe is an actualization of my thoughts.

2. If my thoughts are cancerous, they create a cancerous physical reality.

3. If my thoughts are perfect, they create a physical reality brimming with LOVE.

4. I am 100 percent responsible for creating my physical universe the way it is.

5. I am 100 percent responsible for correcting the cancerous thoughts that create a diseased reality.

6. There is no such thing as out there. Everything exists as thoughts in my mind.

Mark and I read the article and wondered which author was the therapist we sought: Charles Brown or this Dr. Hew Len. We didn’t know. We couldn’t tell. And who was this Morrnah the article mentioned? And what was Self I-Dentity Ho-oh-please?

We read on.

We found a few more articles that shed light on what we sought. They included revealing statements, such as: “Self I-Dentity through Ho’oponopono sees each problem not as an ordeal, but as an opportunity. Problems are just replayed memories of the past showing up to give us one more chance to see with the eyes of LOVE and to act from inspiration.” I was curious but I wasn’t getting it. Problems were “replayed memories of the past”? Huh? What were these authors trying to explain? How did this ho-whatever help the therapist who healed people? Who was this therapist, anyway?

I found yet another article, this one by a reporter named Darrell Sifford, who wrote about meeting the creator of this ho’opo-whatever process. Her name is Morrnah and she’s a kahuna, or keeper of the secrets.What this Morrnah does to help heal people is “appeal to the divine creator of our choice ‘through the divinity that is within each person . . . who is really an extension of the divine creator.’ ” Maybe you understand that. I didn’t at the time. Neither did Mark. Apparently this Morrnah said some words, like a prayer, that helped people heal. I made a mental note to locate that prayer, but right now I was going on a different mission: to find the therapist and learn his method for healing. My eagerness to know more and to meet this shaman therapist was becoming more and more exciting. Even though Mark and I really needed to be back at our booth at the convention, we let it slide so we could continue our quest.

Based on the articles and web site, we guessed the therapist we wanted to find was named Ihaleakala Hew Len. Some first name. I had no idea how to pronounce it, let alone spell it. I didn’t know how to locate him, either. The site didn’t have any contact information for him. Mark and I tried to Google him, but turned up nothing. We began to wonder if this ethereal therapist was a fiction, or retired or even deceased.

I closed my laptop and went back to the convention.

But the adventure had begun.