The 7 Huna Principles of Life – 1. Ike

This is a series of 7 articles based around the 7 principles of life in the Hawaiian Huna tradition.

Have you ever heard of Huna? It’s a Hawaiian term for “secret”. Now don’t jump off here just because you don’t want to hear another “The Secret” type story again. Huna is a philosophy (and not a set of of superficial esoteric mumbo jumbo methods) while at the same time being very practical – maybe that’s what caught my attention in the first place and I found it well worth studying. It’s not a religion that you have to join and if you are religious you should stay with your current religion if you’re happy. However following the 7 principles that are at the core of this philosophy allows you to experience your life to a much deeper and fulfilling level.

Of course as you know my dear reader I am not only presenting you some nice philosophical ideas here, but at the heart of  Unwrap Your Mind is always it’s focus on the practical aspect of great ideas.

So without further ado – let’s jump into an overview of the 7 fundamental principles of life and let’s dive into how we can apply principle number 1 today.

The 7 Fundamental Principles of Huna

In the Huna tradition there are 7 basic principles that govern life and the creation of existence. They are condensed in seven Hawaiian words. They aren’t easily translate into English language, so it’s best to use a sentence describing the essence of that word.

The 7 fundamental principles of Huna are:

1. IKE – The world is what you think it is
2. KALA – There are no limits, everything is possible
3. MAKIA – Energy flows where attention goes
4. MANAWA – Now is the moment of power
5. ALOHA – To love is to be happy with
6. MANA – All power comes from within
7. PONO – Effectiveness is the measure of truth

Over the next 7 articles, I will go over them one at a time in great detail. You will not only learn the meaning of each principle, but you will also learn detailed steps on how to activate and experience that principle in your life and how to harness the power that comes from consciously expressing them in your life.

1. IKE  – The World Is What You Think It Is

This refers to the importance of belief. Whatever you believe in, you will manifest. If you believe the world is a place full of struggle and hardship, then surely hardship and struggle will come your way. If you believe that the world is a great place for adventure and happiness, that you will surely experience much more of those than the person believing in the world of struggle.

Of course this resonates with the Law of Attraction, but it also points at us being observers AND interpreters of our world. When you strip all emotion from it, just looking at the facts, you will see, that most situations have their balance of good and bad in it. But we attach meaning and emotion to a situation and therewith defining our experience.

How often have you been in a state of anger or resentment, when something small happened (maybe a child smiled at you or you saw a beautiful sunset) and suddenly the situation changed. Well, did it change on the fact level? Maybe not, but your experience might have changed drastically because your perspective changed. And from that change of perspective your future outcomes changed, because you approached things differently.

So always remember that through IKE you have the power to change first your perceived experience and then through this your actual future.

Corollary: Everything Is A Dream

The Huna shamans believe in our life as being another form of a dream. They do believe that we dream on different levels and have several layers of dreams. And as strange as this at first might sound – think about how “real” your real world really is.

Why you can’t move through a wall

If you hit a wall with your hand, you experience it as being solid. Yet, the rock it consists of is made up of molecules and atoms. Atoms, despite popular belief, have no material part in it. They are fields of energy vibrating at certain frequencies.

The only reason your hand can’t move through the wall is that the energy frequency of the wall and your hand are vibrating on a frequency spectrum that are so close to another that they disturb each other. Other frequency spectrums (like radio waves) have absolutely no problem passing through the wall.

When you hit a wall with your hand, you are not hitting material stone. It is more that the energy frequency of your hand was coming into contact with the energy spectrum of the wall and this information was send to your brain, which  then triggered the already saved memory of the experience of “Hand hitting stone wall”.

It is the same with you hearing music or looking at a beautiful picture. You are not really seeing or hearing it, you are interpreting energy waves (coming from the music instruments and from the light reflected from the picture) in your brain. Your brain is creating the world you see. Just like it is creating the world you experience every time you have a vivid dream at night.

The only difference for us between a dream and “reality” is whether others have the same experience, however we know that people can be in the same situation together and yet have a totally different experience – like people being at a party or people experiencing an accident and later giving radical different description to the police.

Yes, we might meet in each others dreams, but it is still our dream – and the other has his own dream.

This might be a radical idea for some of you, but play with it for a while in your head and feel how it resonates within you.

Once you are able to embrace the thought of life being a dream, then you are at a point where you might realize that it is able to wake up within the dream (like Lucid Dreamers do in a regular dream) and change the dream (i.e. change your reality).

Corollary: All Systems Are Arbitrarily

There is an old story of a man searching for the meaning of life. After years of struggle and searching he came to a famous and very wise guru in the Himalayans. He asked the guru about the meaning of life and the guru asked: “Life is simply a bowl of cherries”. Very disappointed and angry the man replied: “I traveled far and wide, have come across oceans and been through the dangerous jungles and the deadly Sahara just to find you – and all you have to say is that life is like a bowl of cherries?”. The wise guru smiled and said: “Okay, then life is not a bowl of cherries.”

Since men developed his cortex he is on the constant search for the ultimate answer to the most pressing question of “What is this all about”?”. This is such a driving and annoying question, that man is constantly looking for something to cling to. He tried science, religion, philosophy, metaphysics, art -  you name it – just to feel save inside, protected from this dangerous question about the meaning of life.

If you follow the shamans thought process of “Everything is a dream”, then you will realize, that every answer you might come up about the meaning of life is arbitrarily constructed. No matter what you answer, you can be damn sure, that this is not the real answer, but a safety net you construct yourself to feel secure in life.

In essence, truth is what you define as such!

You make a decision to accept some systems as true and reject others. And I do the same. And each one of us has his good reasons to do so. But I came to mine because of some specific decisions I made about life and these could drastically differ from your experiences and decision.

So the question is not, whether is system is true or not; the real question is how good it is working for you.

So any system (including Huna or the one I defined for myself) is arbitrarily chosen, and none represent the ultimate truth, therefore you have to find out what works for you.

So whatever you read or hear, take it as a hypothesis and test it for yourself. If it works for you, use it and adapt it; if it doesn’t work for you, drop it and go for another hypothesis.

That’s where personal development and empiric science meet.

Action Steps for IKE

To experience the power of IKE ask yourself what your definition of the world with all its ingredients is. Complete the following sentences and come up with lots of honest answers. Dump your brain, until there are no more answers within you. And be honest – don’t paint rosy pictures. If you believe that your work is bullshit – write it down. You can’t lie to yourself. Take some time for this, you’ll be amazed what is within you.

• I think the world is …
• I think I am …
• I think people are
• I think my job is …
• I think my health is …
• I think my financial power is …
• I think that my ability to experience love, joy, ecstasy is …
• I think … you may come up with anything else that is in your life here

This is your current truth. Now you might see, why your reality is the way it is. Change those believe patterns and your world will change.

Take a look at the limits you set for yourself. It is a natural reaction at this point to get angry about yourself. Don’t do that. Be happy, because maybe for the first time you really expressed those limits that formed your current ability to experience life.

If you want to know more about Huna, I highly recommend the book “Urban Shaman” by Serge Kahili King (Amazon Affiliate Link).

So go for the action steps now and stay tuned for the next article describing the second principle of Huna KALA – There are no limits, everything is possible.

If you liked this article, please bookmark it on Delicious, share it on Twitter or StumbleUpon. Thanks, my friends.