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Having seen the historic perspective, philosophy and basics of Huna, now chapter we will discuss
few exercises in Huna. These are the techniques based on Huna principles for working on the
physical or emotional issues. Since these are not formalized, different Kahuna’s practitioners and
trainers may have their own versions; there are many derivatives, modifications or additions. Huna
says “Whatever works is Huna”. So it doesn’t really matter what version you learn and practice
as long as it works for you. Some of them are very potent form of creative meditation known as
‘Tikis’. These range from very simple to complex. These are basically mental power images of
which physical figures are only representative symbols. This involves building thorught forms.
You use your imagination of what you actually want to happen. You need to focus the life force
energy or ‘Mana’ to make thought forms a reality. You need to ask for contact with your higher
self, God within or ‘Atman’ for the required focus.
In this book I have stated certain protocol to formalize the exercises. It is just to make your learning
and understanding simple. It is neither to claim any credit for the exercise nor to bind you in strict
rituals. Thus although these exercises are techniques (‘Tantra’), do not take them blindly as some
sacred rituals. You may modify them as they suit you. After all ‘Effectiveness of these exercises
on you is the measure of truth for these techniques’.
I have found out through many years of practice on myself as well as on my clients, that ‘it is far
better to do one exercise hundred times than learn hundred exercises and do them only once’.
Every time you repeat an exercise, you get a deeper insight and new experience leading you to
better results. Purpose of our practicing Huna is getting positive results and resolving issues
troubling us rather than just an academic learning. Hence I suggest you do just a few exercises that
prove effective to you. You should choose simplest of the exercises that work. If it is easy to learn
and practice simple exercise and get good results, then why to mess around with complicated stuff?
If any exercise doesn’t work, you may select an exercise that is slightly more complicated;
although all exercises are easy to learn, few may take little time to understand and get experience.
Here I would like to caution you. Since the exercises are very simple, one may tend to doubt its
efficacy and effectiveness. This may lead to lethargy of not using them with due sincerity and
perseverance. Most of the exercises given in this book are the ones came from Kahili family
traditions of Huna as explained by Dr. Serge Kahili King. Few of them are modified or extended
by me and my friends Vikas Dixit and Dilip Gaikwad. I usually mix these exercises with NLP,
which is a bit complex to understand. This method not only brings synergy but also gives feeling
of doing something substantive. For practicing Huna or NLP or for that matter any Meditative
techniques we need to relax our body; only then we can train or program our subconscious mind.
Therefore we would first discuss importance of relaxation of body and then the Huna exercises.
The purpose of the body relaxation is to get in to Alpha and Gamma states of brain functioning,
where most of our subconscious learning takes place. This way we establish communication with
our subconscious. The human mind is a wonderful and amazing piece of intricate machinery. Let
us briefly discuss the states of mind.
Our Brain States and Frequencies
The Conscious Mind is analytical and critical part of our brain that governs our logical thinking
and awareness of environment. It is the processor for our conscious decisions, actions or reactions
in daily life which we make by thinking and deliberating. The Subconscious (or Unconscious)
Mind is the 'deeper' part of the mind that is responsible for processing thoughts and storing every
experience in our lives along with associated emotions stored in our body. Operation of our mind
is classified in different states according to the speed of the predominant brainwave signals from
one neurological point to another. When we are operating in condition when we think we are awake
and seeing, talking, listening, responding to thoughts etc., it is called the ‘Beta’ state. In this state
we have full conscious awareness and attention on everything around us. Usually only one side of
our brain is operating. Typically we are operating at brainwave cycles between 15 and 40 Hz.
Higher frequency usually equate to stress, anxiety and 'over thinking' when the conscious mind
reacts negatively to a given situation. These high frequencies result in hypertension, increased
heart rate, increased blood flow, cortisone production and glucose consumption.
When we are in the state of mild daydream or light relaxation or just about to sleep it is called as
‘Alpha’ state. We are partially aware about surrounding and responding to environment
mechanically. For example while we are driving a vehicle in relatively less traffic and just cruising
or when we get engrossed in reading a good book or swimming / walking leisurely, playing for a
fun, gardening etc. and sort of lose a track of what is happening around us, we are in 'Alpha' state.
Meditation, NLP, Huna, etc. are usually aimed at reaching 'Alpha' state and then having a dialogue
with our subconscious mind. In 'Alpha' state our brain waves operate at cycles between 9 and 14
Hz. In 'Alpha' state we are in the state of awareness which is partially conscious and partially
subconscious at the same time. This state is useful to absorb information. 'Alpha' state is considered
to be highly desirable for effective learning. 'Alpha' promotes more of the left side of the brain to
be used for processing.
Below these frequencies we get in to 'Theta' state when brainwave cycles operate between 5 Hz
and 8 Hz. In ‘Theta' state we are in a deep relaxation where the most part of our conscious mind is
'switched off', and the thoughts in the subconscious mind are flourishing. This is usually typified
by sleep, dreaming, and very deep relaxation. This is similar to hypnotic state where a hypnotists
take their clients before giving post hypnotic suggestions. 'Theta' state is ideal reaching ideas,
visualizations and suggestion to enter the subconscious mind effortlessly. In this state we become
less aware of what is going on around us and hence do not resist the thoughts consciously. Huna
exercises we keep moving between 'Alpha' and 'Theta' states. If you are teaching Huna exercises
to others, you should get expertise to maintain the client in these states through instructions in your
calm voice.
Next comes the 'Delta' state of extremely deep relaxation / sleep with complete subconscious
operation. 'Delta' is the deepest of sleeps. It is highly necessary part of sleep for the physical body
to recuperate and recover at a heightened level. This is normally not used for Huna exercises.
However, one can be in ‘waking Delta’ which is an advanced state of meditation. This state is
associated with 'kundalini' experiences. 'Delta' state has our brainwaves operating between 1Hz
and 4Hz. It is interesting to note that very skilled hypnotists, who can take the client into 'Delta',
are able to use hypnosis as a replacement for anesthesia during medical surgeries! This has been
documented on numerous occasions medically and scientifically.
The human mind naturally switches between the different states of mind according to the current
environment, situation or happenings. As an extreme example when we are involved in a serious
accident or injury, people sometimes enter into coma state. This is the brain's way of an emergency
response of automatically entering into the deepest realms of 'Delta' for heightened physical
recovery, trauma protection and mental recovery. This is an example of the brain's natural response
to a situation, where it lowers brainwave activity for instinctual protection means.
On the other hand, we can artificially induce a change in mental state for both positive and at times
non-beneficial purposes. Stage hypnotists often invoke a sudden shift in brainwave frequency
through a rapid hypnotic induction in the person to enter ‘Theta’ state for entertainment purposes.
There is no real positive purpose in doing this other than to have a laughter. It does illustrate the
power of hypnosis. There are many examples of irresponsible use of these techniques
for manipulation.
There are many ways to artificially invoke a person to operate at different brainwave frequency
states. These include hypnosis, meditation, massage, drugs, alcohol, yoga, video games, TV,
driving, reading and many more just to name a few. This can be very useful indeed. By learning
the best way to lower your mind state to ‘Alpha’, it is possible to create numerous positive
emotional, mental and physical benefits. For instance hypnosis is excellent way to take the client
into ‘Theta’ and then responsibly use ‘post hypnotic suggestions’, which are fully absorbed by
one's subconscious mind, to create permanent and lasting changes in the mind and body.
In Huna we achieve a light ‘Alpha’ state wherein you can consciously process information and
self-suggestion to help change your emotions and feelings. Music and audio such as binaural beats,
white noise, theta rhythm, nature recordings and other slow, repetitive sounds can help to
overcome insomnia, perform meditation, self-hypnosis and achieve deep relaxation in the 'Alpha',
'Theta' and at times even 'Delta' states.
Deep relaxation on a consistent daily basis is proven to be advantageous for the mind and the body!
If you are constantly stressed and operating in the high 'Beta' levels, or if you do not truly relax
and hit 'Alpha' and 'Theta' except for a few hours in the night when you sleep, then you will not be
emotionally or physically reaching your optimum level of health. It can have significant negative
effects on overall health. In these relaxation states NLP and Huna techniques help us to access,
understand and reprogram our subconscious for betterment of our lives. This can confuse and
scramble our negative programs to make them defunct, and create new positive programs to
improve our life experience.
Relaxation Methods
Before we discuss the Huna exercises, we will discuss two basic things necessary to make these
exercises effective. These two things are relaxation of the physical body and anchor for the
exercise. For most of the exercises, our posture is important. Since these exercises work at
subconscious level, we may need to close our eyes. This is to stop about 80% of our sensory inputs
that may disturb our concentration. Therefore, it is necessary to sit on a chair in a comfortable
position with feet firm on ground, hands on the thighs and eyes closed. Yoga postures like
‘Padmasan’, ‘Ardh-padmasan’, ‘Sukhasan’ or ‘Vajarasan’ are also good if feel comfortable.
However if you do not practice Yoga regularly, I would suggest just to sit on a comfortable chair
or sofa. Avoid lying on bed as you may go to sleep during the exercise. There is no harm even if
you go to sleep. However, in that case you may not be able to complete the exercise to derive its
full benefit. Of course if your issue is insomnia (or sleep disorder), you should do the exercise
lying in a comfortable bed and allow yourself to go to sleep during exercise. There are few
exceptions for these postures that would be explained case to case.
Relaxing physical body i.e. muscles is very much necessary before we do any Huna exercises. The
reason is very simple. Our mind and body are connected. We cannot access our subconscious mind
without going through our conscious mind, unless our body is relaxed and brain is in ‘Alpha’ state.
Any kind of tension in muscles will distract our mind. We know that good sleep or meditation is
possible only when our muscles are relaxed. Similarly concentration on reading, study, or any
work requiring mental focus needs our body to be relaxed. There are many relaxation techniques.
I will explain few of them. You may use any one or a combination of them.
First method that I personally like is concentrating on the body parts from toe to face in a sequence.
One by one you slightly tighten the muscles concentrate on it and then let it go or drop it dead like
a stone. Start from the feet and then move upwards till forehead. Keep suggesting your mind that
the part of the body does not exist for you and you are enjoying a beautiful state of relaxation. Also
suggest to yourself that muscles are relaxing progressively.
Second method is similar to the first method with only a small difference. In this you visualize and
feel that you are withdrawing the life from the body upwards from toe to head slowly. Few people
suggest using a light music to augment these processes. However, the music should not distract
you during further exercises. If you happen to sleep during the process, particularly when you are
doing it to resolve issue of insomnia or sleep disorder, it would be disturbing to get up and put off
the music.
Third method is to imagine you are coming down in an elevator from tenth floor to ground floor
(tenth floor is just an arbitrary, you can do it from any floor as long as it takes enough time). You
visualize yourself inside the lift with indicator showing the approaching floor number; hear the
sound of the fan; feel of the breeze from the fan, movement of lift, vibrations, may be perfume
worn by the previous user who had just got off, etc. In other words, you must experience a real
experience coming down the lift through as many senses out of VAKOG as possible.
Fourth method is to concentrate on breathing with visualizing, listening, feeling and smelling your
breath coming in and going out. Also observe movement of your rib cage, abdomen, chest,
heartbeat, etc. Some of the meditations use this technique. I found this technique very powerful
when followed with one of the first two techniques.
Other methods are visualizing number 3 then 2 and then 1, in three different colours, in two as
well as three dimensions, slowly in a sequence; imagine listening to ringing of bell for a long time;
think of smelling a rose, etc.
Whichever is the method you use, it is important that you need to get into a relaxed state of mind
and body for experiencing effectiveness of the Huna exercise. This would take you in Alpha /
Theta state. It is necessary to be in the Alpha or Theta state to work on our subconscious mind.
Anchoring is a concept of NLP. However, it is also natural to Huna. If we do the Huna exercises
regularly, we can associate the exercise to some physical anchor like posture, time and place, the
way we close our fingers (mudra), focus on breathing, music, etc. This facilitates quickly reaching
the state where we can access the benefits of the exercises. For more details of Anchoring, reader
may refer to my book on NLP.
Among all these exercises few potent exercises used by KaHunas are called as ‘Tiki’. These are
like mental 'power images' through physical representations as objects. These have many purposes
depending on the users’ perceptions. These are based on the concept of building the 'thought
forms'. These are kind of prayers or meditations. These are more than dreams or wishful thinking.
These are the symbolic representation at our subconscious level of what we want to happen. These
beliefs would happen with your own efforts or with the help of something greater than yourself;
say, your higher self or spirits or God. What actually happens is your ‘Mana’ or life force energy
makes the thought form a reality.
‘Piko Piko’ Breathing:
‘Piko Piko’ breathing is a type of spiritual breathing in Huna like ‘Pranayama’ in Indian 'Yog
vidya'. In 'Piko Piko' breathing, focus is on energy or ‘Shakti’ (‘Mana’ in Hawaii) rather than
breath. It is very similar in concept like ‘Kundalini’. ‘Piko’ means center. In Huna center of
universe or our connection with outer energy is through top of our head or temple. We call it as
‘Sahasrara Chakra’ in Indian spiritual system. Other ‘Piko’ is center of our body which is at our
Naval. In ‘Piko Piko’ breathing first you close eyes. Then while ‘breathing in’ focus your mind at
the top of your head and while ‘breathing out’ focus at your Naval. Visualize the energy entering
from universe through your higher self and getting stored in body at Naval. Usually you do it for
10 to 15 times. Breathing should be smooth, deep and without any force. Your focus should not
be on breath or air but on ‘Piko Piko’ and feel the flow of energy. As energy level increases in
your body you can experience its flow through your entire body and every cell. Feel the flow of
energy and experience yourself at higher energy level. Then open your eyes.
One of the meaning or purpose of Huna is making life force or making life energy (Shakti, Chi,
Ki, or Mana) flow. This makes it clear what is importance of ‘Piko Piko’ in Huna (like ‘Pranayama
in Yoga’).
It is short it is a relaxation technique for coming back to your core and calm whenever you need
it. It is simply inhaling air with your attention on the top of your head (don’t look up, it is only the
attention you have to give) and exhaling with your attention on your navel. There is no holding the
breath (‘Kumbhak in pranayam’). Intend is to relax and energize your life force or Mana’. Give
up trying to move the energy or interfere in any other way with breathing. Just continue giving
your full attention to your breath with moving from the top of your head to navel alternatively. It
is also used for a quick energy boost like ‘Pranayam’. ‘Pranayam’ of course has number of
variations for various physical, mental, emotional and spiritual effects. 'Piko Piko' breathing is for
more of emotional and spiritual effects.
1. Garden (Waena)
Purpose:
Garden ‘Tiki’ (created images, sound and feelings as called in Hawaii) is an ancient Huna
technique. It is a kind of active and creative meditation. ‘Waena’ in Hawaiian means garden or
center, a place of growth and a way of centering. It is one of the most powerful meditative exercise.
It is a way of organizing our thought patterns to give us new insight and dimension of our present
emotional state. It provides a tool for changing our present emotional state for better. It helps in
balancing and strengthening ecology of our subconscious mind. As per Huna every aspect of outer
experience has its counterpart in thoughts in our subconscious. Huna considers the real world as
‘outer dream’ and subconscious as ‘inner dream’; both dreams impact on each other. By changing
our experience of outer world, we change our thoughts in our subconscious ‘inner dream'.
Similarly by changing our thoughts in subconscious ‘inner dream', we can change the experience
of the outer world.
The ‘Garden’ can be used practically for all emotional issues like Stress reduction, improving
peace of mind, goal setting, confidence building, relieving trauma, tackling phobias, getting
resourceful state of mind for learning, mending relations, getting over depression, improving
sensory acuity, de-addiction, improving focus on studies or task, achieving emotional balance, etc.
I have used it successfully with my clients for issues of objective reality like promotions, cracking
job interviews, getting wealth, health, etc. by changing ecology of mind and thus changing
behavior to positive state. Positive state of mind obviously helps to resolve the issues. In garden
we introduce a positive thought at subconscious level in a symbolic way. Language of
Subconscious is symbolic in nature. Change in thought changes belief, in turn attitude, thus
behaviour, hence performance and ultimately lead to success in achieving a goal. The Garden Tiki
is your own private, secluded and sacred place that has your own identity. We create it from our
memory or description from our own experiences, heard / read information, or vivid thinking and
feelings. We should allow our subconscious to come up and flourish with a rich garden image and
experience.
Technique Protocol:
Exercise ‘Garden’ can be done at any time of the day. It is preferable to find a time when we do
not have urgent work to perform or expect any call. Switch off phone, mobile, doorbell, etc.
Ringing sound would give you a jarring experience in the middle of the exercise. Switch off TV,
video, audio devices, etc. Sit at a quite place with less disturbance and noise. Sit on a chair or floor
in a comfortable position with legs firm on ground and hands on laps. They should not dangle and
move. Garden exercise in lying position is not recommended unless it is used for getting good
sleep for people with insomnia. In lying down position, one may go to deep sleep. There is no
harm. You would still get few benefits, but some of the benefits may not be fully realized.
Garden tiki is like daydreaming. First, close your eyes and start with any of the relaxation
techniques. We need to relax our body and mind. Any method for relaxing that takes you to Alpha
state is fine. Tell yourself that any sound from outside would not mean anything to you and perhaps
would take you to deeper state of relaxation. Formal training of hypnosis or meditation is not
necessary for relaxation, but it does help. Initially you may like someone to take you through the
process or have audio recording to make the process smooth. However, it is not necessary. Rather
once you can do it yourself your inner subconscious world will guide you the best.
Then concentrate on your breath. This acts as an anchor and once you have practiced it enough it
activates garden in subconscious without yours efforts. In other words it acts like a switch or a key
to activate the ‘Garden’ program loaded in your ‘Neck Top Computer’ (brain). I prefer breath as
anchor as it remains active all the time and possibly keeps ‘Garden’ active at subconscious level.
It may require many years of practice to keep Garden active all the time; and this would be
something like living in blissful state or ‘Sat-Chit-Anand’.
While concentrating on breath, activate all five senses; Visual (V) i.e. observe your breath, see its
colour, flow of air, etc.; Auditory (A) i.e. Listen to the sound of your breath its intensity, volume,
pitch, etc.; Kinesthetic (K) i.e. Feel your breath like touch, temperature, movement throughout
your body, lungs, nose etc.; Olfactory (O) i.e. Smell of your surroundings, fragrance etc.; Gustatory
(G) i.e. taste you get on your tongue at the time of exercise. Once we notice your breath through
all five (at least first three VAK) senses, you are ready to visit your subconscious garden.
Visit to you Garden
As per Huna philosophy the world that you see is the outer dream and the garden you visit during
the exercise is your inner dream. Both these dreams are connected. If one is changed, other changes
automatically. There is no hard and fast procedure for the exercise. I have developed a procedure
that works effectively for me and my clients. You can discover it for yourself. As long as you
follow the basic philosophy of Garden exercise, use all your senses, avoid any conscious thoughts
during the process and allow your symbolic inner world flourish, you will get the benefits. I am
describing the procedure that I use.
1. Once you relax completely, observe yourself in front of a ‘Garden Door’ which is closed with
a chain and a lock. This is your ‘personal garden’ in the subconscious and hence it is
symbolically locked before you enter. Remember that this is a sacred place. There is no place
for evil thoughts, bad thing or harmful things in the ‘Garden’. Your behavior must be good i.e.
‘Satvik' throughout the exercise. Of course you need not follow normal rules that we observe
in any garden for example rules like ‘do not touch the plants’, ‘do not pluck the flowers’, ‘do
not enter in the pond or fountain’ etc. In fact, you must behave in the Garden like any child
behaves; exploring things, touching thing, tasting fruits, running around, climbing trees and so
on. Use all five senses as far as possible in every situation. Be free like a child in a garden.
Another important point is not to allow any other person to enter in your garden. If you have
any specific requirement like helping you to make your garden beautiful, you may call a crew
with your explicit permission. I would like to caution you that not to call people in garden to
resolve your issues or differences with them. Reason for this is, in such cases you tend to bring
in logic in discussions, arguments, suggestions, etc. Remember Huna exercise is magic and not
logic!
2. Once you are in front of the garden gate which is closed and locked, just observe the gate.
Look at its design, color, whether it is made of metal or wood, its size (big or small), shape,
and so on. Then touch it and feel it. (Senses of smell and taste may be absurd for a gate). Then
open the lock and push the gate in. Observe any sound it makes and notice if any force you
require to push it open.
3. Once the gate is open, you may see a path with trees on both the sides. It could be walking
through a dense forest. Walk on the path confidently and in relaxed manner. Observe whether
the path is of mud, grass, bricks, stones, concrete, etc. Is it straight or zigzag? Has it got any
fencing or border? Observe it minutely.
4. You may pick up a small branch of a tree lying on the ground. Observe it. Break it and listen
to the sound it makes. Also observe whether the branch is dry or wet. Then drop it on the
ground.
5. If you see any temple or a place of worship you may like to visit that place. Observe if the
temple is made of stones, marble, concrete, bricks or something else. Enter the temple and
notice if you had climbed any steps? How many? Then ring the bell and listen to the resonating
sound of the bell. You may like to ring it again or ring other bells making different sounds.
Go inside and pray. Observe what Deity, Idol or God is there. You may like to go around and
complete ‘Pradakshina’. Eat sweet ‘prasad’ and remember its taste on your toung. Smell the
fragrance of the burning ‘perfume sticks’ or flowers offered to the God. Enjoy the calmness
of the place. Then come back on the path and continue walking inside.
6. After walking some distance, you will enter a huge garden with lots of greenery and colourful
surroundings. Focus your attention to see, hear, experience, taste and smell things in garden
as clearly as you can. Be completely free and enjoy every bit of the garden.
7. Look for flowers, watch their colours, type, and quantity (few or plentiful). Pluck them, take
them in hands, smell their sweet fragrance, touch their petals, move them on your cheeks, and
enjoy the silky touch. Observe the shades of green colour.
8. Now look for a tallest tree. Climb the tree. Experience climbing, holding, swinging from
branches and viewing your garden from the top. Then come down.
9. Look for fruit bearing trees. If there are fruits, identify the fruits, feel free to pluck them eat
them, enjoy the taste of those juicy and sweet fruits.
10. Go to the grass. It may be tall grass or nicely mowed lawn. Run, jump and roll on the grass.
While jumping you may experience it like jumping on a trampoline. Every time you jump,
you may go higher and higher, may be higher than trees, may be up to the clouds. Stop
jumping and start rolling. Then just lie down on your back and watch the sky. Watch the
colour of sky. See if there are clouds? Are there any birds flying? Observe for any breeze,
temperature (cool, warm or hot). Think what time of the day is it; morning, afternoon or
evening? Do you see the Sun? If there are birds, hear their chirping, call them near you, touch
them, thank them for being with you and allow them to fly away. Watch if they are moving
in one direction or circling in the sky.
11. Now get up. Feel the breeze. May be with the breeze observe your dress and hairs fluttering.
Look for any water body around like pond, lake, fountain, water fall, or steam. Hear the sound
of flowing water. Put your hand in the water and feel its temperature. Splash some cold water
on your face and drink the pure crystal clear sweet water. You can even swim in the pond or
go in to the fountain or waterfall.
12. Now explore the garden. What kind of plants are there? Type of soil, water supply, any other
thing of your interest.
13. Look for anything in your garden that you don’t like. Get it removed by calling the help of a
crew or gardeners. Once they complete the job thank them and let them go off. If you want
something in your garden to make it more beautiful or comfortable get it done with the help
of the crew or gardeners by calling them. It could be a plant or tree or water body or benches
or even birds and animals. Crew or gardeners would work completely under your control.
These helpers add to your psychic energy. They can take unwanted things out of your garden.
The unwanted trees, cactus, wild grass or thorny bush that you want to remove. These are
symbolic representation of your negative thoughts, pain, stress, fear, etc. that you want to
remove from your life. I have seen while working with my clients, that once they remove any
unwanted things from their garden, they feel much relaxed in their real like (outer world).
Bring the good things that you want in the garden adds to your comfort happiness and
confidence. These helpers are like ‘Angles’, ‘Yaksh’, ‘Gandharva’, ‘Dwarfs’, etc. send for
helping by your spirit. They need not be a human beings.
14. When you have finished, generate a strong positive emotion and energies with ‘Piko Piko’
breathing. Bless your garden and come back from the path you have gone in. You may like to
visit the temple again. In that case repeat the things you did earlier.
15. Once you come out of the Garden, close the gate and lock it. If you meet someone known or
unknown person outside, give half of the flowers and fruits you have brought from the garden.
Keep half with you. Feel happiness that you enjoyed in the Garden.
16. Now focus on your breathing. See, hear and feel the breath. Smell the air and check the taste
on your tongue. Feel the entire body; become aware of the surrounding, see the light entering
through your closed eyes. Hear and feel the surrounding. In your own time, neither faster nor
slower than you should, permit yourself to open your eyes and sit relaxed for a minute or so.
Few additional activities Recommended in the Garden
Planting a Magical Tree
This is an interesting addition to you Garden. You need to do it only once. Imagine that workers
or crew walks in your Garden on your call. They are all in uniform wearing caps and carrying
gardening implements. One of them is carrying a bag from which different colour lights are
emanating. The crew leader comes to you and asks where you would like to plant a magical tree.
You show the place. The crew dig a trench, put manure and prepare the place. Then one of the
crew takes out a sapling from the bag. It is sapling of a magical tree. It looks completely different
and something like that was never seen by you; may be it is radiating colourful lights from it. The
crew plants the tree; waters the sapling; puts manure; give the sapling lot of love and nourishing.
Now the sapling starts growing very fast and becomes taller than you. You thank the crew and the
crew leaves the garden.
Now you are alone in the garden. You look after the magical tree; give it lot of love, nourishment
and water. The tree would grow into a huge tree. It would have colourful leaves and fruits that you
had not seen earlier. It is after all a magical tree. You stand under the magical tree and express
your wishes. The tree will shower on you whatsoever you ask; may be money, love, good luck,
blessings, confidence, perseverance, will power, knowledge, success, and so on. Visualize and feel
that the tree is showering on you and you are soaked in the things that you wanted. You can also
ask for resources to achieve your goals. Suppose you get bored or uninterested in study of a
particular subject or find some subject difficult (like science, mathematics, English, etc.) of the
program / course you are undergoing, visualize reading book of that particular subject under the
Magical Tree. You imagine the book looks very colourful and attractive like a story book or a
comic, but with the text written in it is of that subject. Similarly, if you usually feel bored while
doing a particular activity, you perform that activity under the Magical Tree; visualize and feel
that you are enjoying that activity and the magical tree is giving you lot of energy. If you have a
problem of sleep disorder you can sleep under the magical tree and enjoy a deep refreshing sleep.
If you wish to lose weight, you do physical exercises or yoga or play a game under the Magical
Tree. Use your subconscious instinct and imagination to resolve your issue. If you do not have any
issue to be resolved, just sit under the magical tree and relax or meditate. You can also ask the
resources that you need by standing or sitting under the Magical Tree which will shower the
resources on you.
You have to plant the Magical Tree only once. On your next visits you will find it there. So go
there and give it lot of love, water and nutrition. Do the activities under it as explained earlier.
After completing the Garden routine you must visit the Magical Tree to see it is healthy. It is your
subconscious resource and you won’t like to neglect it.
Magic tree is symbolic of your support system. In our life we do have support systems. These may
be like a child holding hand of father or mother when scared of darkness or in a crowded place;
student bowing to a deity before going to examination; a person wearing a totem; or wife holding
hand of husband while riding in a giant wheel. It is more of an emotional support that relaxes you
and frees you from an anxiety. This relieves you from a shackles of fear and motivates you to take
action. It also help to bring out the resources hidden from your conscious mind. For example, we
all have confidence by birth, but we lose it as we grow. So with wishing under the Magical Tree
we connect with the subconscious mind and recover that confidence.
Appointing Helpers
Another interesting addition is appointing a helper for a particular issue or task. Once you complete
your Garden routine, look for an animal or a bird who would work as a helper for you. The helper
in the garden would help you to resolve issues or take care of any one issue that is bugging you.
Issue could be like money, job, relationship, concentration in studies, some long term ongoing
task, health, etc. Whosoever you find when you visit your garden and standing under your Magical
Tree, you may appoint as a helper. It could be any animal, reptile, bird, a person (usually avoid a
person and definitely a known person), etc. You can call the helper near you, talk to him / her, if
you wish name the helper, feed him and play with helper and assign the responsibility to resolve
your issue. The helper will agree to take the responsibility and disappear in the woods. Then you
come out of the garden completely relaxed as that helper has assumed the responsibility to take
care of your problems. In my view, the helper is like a subconscious program in your mind that
works on your issue in the background without your conscious engagement. This way your anxiety
would reduce and your conscious mind would be fresh to face the challenges and plan action.
When you visit your garden next time, call and meet the helper, feed the helper, talk to helper, and
give him lot of affection. Ensure that your helper is healthy, nourished and happy. As long as
helper is in good shape he / she will take care of your issue. Once the issue is resolved, you can
either assign the helper another responsibility or say good bye so that the helper goes off. You
could even have more than one helper for different issues. However, I would suggest to work with
only one helper initially, till you practice enough and get results. I have three helpers now. One to
take care of my investments, one for my personal issue and one for keeping me fit. This way my
conscious mind is free to work on my office work. I released one helper that I had to take care my
house construction after the house was completed. I also appoint helper when I find my book
writing gets delayed.
Helper is actually a symbolic part of our subconscious mind that we allot the responsibility. What
we actually do is to separate in our subconscious mind, the burden of responsibility and efforts
needed through action. Once we are free from the stress and anxiety of the responsibility, we can
act confidently and effectively. This is a subconscious way of following ‘Karma Yoga’ of ‘Bagwad
Gita’ by separating ‘Karma’ (duty) and ‘Karmafal’ (fruits of performing the duty). It is like our
faith in God when a devotee leaves his problems to the God to resolve and do his / her best efforts.
Visit to a Cave (Gifting yourself)
Another addition I like in the garden is visiting a cave. I have designed this variation modified
from another exercise called as a ‘Rabbit Hole’ and fantasies I enjoyed in the childhood, like
‘Allauddin and magic lamp’ and ‘Alibaba and forty thieves’. You go at the far end of the garden
where you will find a hill. Climb the hill and you will find an entrance to a cave. It would be dark
inside. You enter the cave confidently and with a curiosity of an explorer. As you walk in, it will
be a pitch dark. You won’t see anything. By touching side walls of the cave and feeling the ground
with your feet, keep moving inside. You will go left, right, up, down till you see a light inside the
cave. Identify the colour of the light. Go close to it. Then you will find many precious things lying
on the floor of the cave. Pick up anything that you like most. Keep it in your pocket and come out
of the cave. Obviously you have to travel through the dark, till you see the entrance of the cave.
Come out and climb down to your garden. Keep the gift you got from the cave at any resting place
in your garden like a shade, a canopy, a hut, a bench or a green house.
This variation I call as ‘Gifting Yourself’. We have many unfulfilled wishes in life. For example,
it could be a simple thing like you were denied a balloon or an ice-cream in your childhood. Your
parents had a valid reason, but you were too young to understand. Nevertheless, it may have left a
scar of negative feeling in your subconscious mind. This may arise as some negative issue in
adulthood. You may not even trace it to original incident that created the ill feelings. This exercise
helps in healing those incidents of hurt by gifting yourself in symbolic way.
Chinese Vase of Fulfilling Wishes
In this addition, after your normal routine in the garden you look for a place to relax. It could be a
hut or a canopy or a shade or just a bench. You go there and sit. As you are sitting on the bench
and relaxing, you may observe a big Chinese vase on your left (or right). It is a white china clay
vase with a typical blue paintings on it. You also notice a pen and pad kept near it. Now you write
your wishes one after another on the paper chits and drop each wish in the vase. Every time you
drop a wish, sparkles would come out of the vase. This is confirmation that your wish is accepted
by your garden. You can wish whatever you want like good luck, money, happiness, relationship,
blessings, etc. Once you complete dropping the wishes in the vase, you may continue other
activities in the garden.
This exercises makes your subconscious know what you really want. So while actually working
towards your goals you would not sabotage your efforts and be confident about availability of
resources you need. According to Huna principles, you have all the resources with you. You need
to tap them. Many times we feel helpless by thinking consciously that we don’t have the resources.
We at times hesitate asking or acknowledging what we really want. This could be due to our ego,
pre-conceived ideas, conscious thinking, or just ignorance due to lack of communication between
our conscious and subconscious. This part of exercises helps us in expressing out wishes at our
subconscious level.
Constructing Monument
There are occasions when you want to achieve a major goal in your life. As per Huna principle
‘you have all the resources’. Further you may be making all efforts to achieve the goal. However,
you may still be anxious till you achieve the goal. There are Huna exercises to set your goal and
conduct ecology check to ensure that your subconscious works on it. However, Garden provides
you the place where you can focus your subconscious on the goal and also remove the worries
associated with thinking about the goal.
When you visit your Garden after completing the routine, you select a nice place on the grass or
anywhere you select. Think about your goal as if it is fulfilled. You are in the state of celebrating
the achievement. Enjoy the achievement of the goal through all the five senses. Visualise the end
state, listen to sounds of clapping or words of appreciation or you shouting ‘Yahoo’, feel bodily
and emotionally in associated state, smell the fragrance of the success and taste the sweets or
anything you would eat to celebrate. Now construct a monument of your success. You decide the
shape, size, features, colour, etc. Make it memorable and that can be seen from most of the garden.
Look at it, touch it and enjoy being with it. You must feel proud by looking at the monument that
is constructed for your achievement of the goal. Then you continue other activities in the garden.
Next time when you visit your garden, make a point to visit the monument and spend few happy
moments with it. This exercise not only keep you motivated to work towards the goal but also
eliminate anxiety associated with the goal. It would also remove the tendency to procrastinate
when the goal is in distant future. The monument reminds you about the goal, maintains focus on
the goal, and motivates you to work for the goal rejoicing the end state of achieving the goal.
Conclusion:
Garden is a master exercise of Huna. I always recommend my clients to do it at least once a week.
If done daily, it has incredible effect on our mind and helps us to remain peaceful and happy. I
believe, just doing Garden regularly would solve most of our problems. Many times my clients tell
me the effect of Garden is better when I conduct it for them. So I actually audio recorded it and
give it to anyone who wants it. However, the exercise take almost half an hour, as speed of my
talking is much slower than speed of our thoughts. Therefore, I recommend to do the Garden
exercise on your own like any other meditation. This way, you could complete it in five minutes.
‘Garden Tiki’ is a type of creative meditation or active meditation to be more precise. It is designed
to develop powers of concentration and allow you to ‘journey. Within. It helps to clear clutter in
our mind and helps to learn much about ourselves. It provides the opportunity to work on various
aspects of negative as well as positive things in our life. It uses created images of sight, sound and
feelings that come out from our subconscious mind.
Any variations besides the basic Garden may work for you. You can practice any of them initially
and then choose the ones those work for you. If anything is not working for you there is no point
is continuing with it. NLP says that if something is not working for you, by repeating again it will
still not work. When client (or his/her parents) tells me that he/she worked very hard but did not
get results (or failed in examination or business) and tell them not to work hard again. They usually
get perplexed that I am not advising them to work further hard. I tell them since working hard did
not work for them, they should now work differently. Which way differently that they have to
figure out themselves by experimenting. So in the Garden exercise find out which variation works
for you and follow it regularly. Once you understand the basics and experience it yourself, you can
develop your own variations. Your subconscious would help you. After all you want results and
don’t really care what process gave the results. Whatever works is Huna, as they say.
2. Mountain
Purpose:
Mountain is another ‘Tiki’ that helps us in developing concentration and teaches us many valuable
things like perseverance, willpower, capacity to withstand stress, focus, etc. We use our five senses
visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory and gustatory to create images of a mountain and experience
climbing it in a specified given time. These are symbolic representation of our thoughts related to
our goals, challenges and motivation to achieve our objectives. We have a self-knowledge about
our goals, difficulties we may face, processes to achieve these goals and our inner feelings about
the goals that may be keeping us from moving towards the goals. At subconscious level we know
how we stand in relation to these goals and objectives. The exercises allows the dreamlike
sequence without conscious anticipation. The exercise would take you through the process of
moving towards goals without attached conscious negative thoughts that otherwise hold you back
from making efforts.
Technique Protocol:
This exercises is done by the individual without any guidance by other person or counsellor. If you
are working with your client, you just explain the exercise and then allow the client to do the
exercise. You may ask few questions after the exercise to ascertain whether the client has indeed
understood the exercise or not.
The exercises is done at subconscious level which is symbolic. There should not be conscious
thought or a preplanned execution of the exercises. The exercises is time bound. You should decide
the time, usually I specify three minutes, for exercise before commencement. There is no fixed
rule for the time; you may select three, four or five minutes. However, you must decide and specify
the time before starting the exercise and repeat it to the client three to four time before starting the
exercise. You need to clearly explain the client not to open eyes in between to check the time or
wait for you to tell when the three minutes are over or put alarm for three minutes. Tell the client
that you will not inform the time and he / she should open eyes as soon as the exercises is over.
You can show the time to client or client can check the time only after opening eyes once he / she
completes the task of climbing the mountain. If you are doing the exercise yourself then check the
time before closing your eyes and then again check after opening the eyes after completion of the
task. Then note how much time you have taken against specified time. The steps in this exercises
are;
1. Sit at a quiet place. Relax your body and breathe very smoothly. Sitting position should be
such that your legs are not dangling. You have to sit for few minutes without any movements.
2. Once you are relaxed, check the time in the watch and close your eyes.
3. Look at your feet with eyes and then look up to the front of course with eyes closed. You will
find yourself at the feet of a huge mountain. The mountain could be of any type; rocky, with
vegetation, covered with snow, sandy, steep, with steps, with mud path, or whatever. Do not
predefine. Let it be whatever comes to your mind.
4. Start climbing the mountain. You may face lot of challenges. Overcome all the challenges.
Remember you have all the power. It could also be a magical power. For example, if you come
across a wild animal like tiger, you can with magical wand make it a kitten or can throw it off
your path or fight and kill it or make it run away or avoid it by jumping over it or feed it and
make it your friend to get a pass. If you slip on the slope hold some rope or climb again or
jump up like monkey. If there is a deep gorge, you may jump across or build a bridge with
magical powers to cross or fly with helicopter or flying broom (like Harry Potter). These are
just examples. Do not pre-plan it. As you face a challenge, overcome it. Keep moving up.
5. Finally you would reach on the top. You will find some building or structure on the top.
6. Observe the colour of the building or structure.
7. Enter the building. You will enter an empty hall, possibly with one table in the middle. If there
is a table, it may have some gift for you. Open the gift and see it. If you do not find the gift, it
is ok.
8. Now open your eyes. Note the time lapsed.
9. Check the time. Did you take more time or less time than the predefined three minutes?
10. If you are doing the exercise yourself, ask few questions to yourself. If you are teaching others
to do this exercise, ask these questions to the person who has done this exercise. These
questions are: How was the mountain? How was the terrain? What challenges were faced?
How were those overcome? Did you meet anyone on the way, coming down or going up? Did
you see any animal? Did you look down on the way or after reaching the top? What was the
colour of the building? Did you find any gift? These questions are just to check if you have
done the exercise at subconscious level and in symbolic language. We do not want to use our
conscious or logical thought during exercise, for example challenge for business task is money
or order book or competition, etc. This also provides you to bring out the subconscious
thoughts at the level of symbolic language. Don’t attempt to interpret the symbolic language
as this is not amenable to conscious logic. It has a logic of its own.
11. Time taken by the exercise against the pre-determined time does tell us something about our
state of mind. My observation is when we are in good, stress free and happy state of mind, we
complete the exercise just in the pre-defined time with plus or minus 15 seconds. When we are
stressed, under some kind of pressure or anxiety, the exercise is over in much lesser time, may
be a minute or two. When we are depressed or sad, it takes much longer time (I have seen
people taking up to 10 minutes). This may be something to do with our mental rhythm. This
of course is my observations while working with the clients and not specified by Kahunas.
I would like to explain few points based on my experience and analysis of hundreds of cases.
a) The building or structure on the top of mountain is symbolically your present goal in your life.
Usually we are talking about short term goal with time horizon of three to six months on which
you are working. Colour of the building is only the representation of you achieving the goal.
b) Sometimes you have set the goal for yourself with no extrinsic rewards. It is just that you want
to achieve, for example weight loss, business targets, marks you want to get in next
examination. These are measurable but you are not getting any gift, prize or incentive / reward
from others. Neither are you expecting any. In such a case you may not see any gift inside the
building. You would just be happy to achieve your goal.
c) In few cases the goals are associated with a specific reward like bonus, medal, certificate, etc.
In such cases you would find a gift kept in the building for you. You must see the gift as your
happiness of achieving the goal may be associated with the extrinsic reward. You may not get
satisfaction unless you get the reward. Of course this gift in the building is symbolic and would
not match exactly with the real reward associated with the goal. Since the process is at
subconscious level, you may not know a-priori whether the gift will be there in the building or
not, let alone what the gift is.
d) You looking down while climbing may represent your hesitation or habit of taking review
while moving towards goal. There is nothing right or wrong in it. Similarly, you meeting
people on the way may have some significance at symbolic level. However, I have not come
to any conclusion with my experience with clients. Rather most of them do not meet any people
on the way.
e) I have found great relevance with the time taken for the exercise. As I explained above, I found
its correlation with the state of mind. When person does it in three minutes, plus minus 15
seconds, I find the person is in harmony and well synchronised. During that period person can
get up from sleep whenever he / she desires (many cases without alarm), does all planned
schedule in time, meets all time commitments, hardly requires to check time for running
activities, punctual, and so on. When the time taken is less or more than 15 seconds from the
three minutes target, I suggest clients to do the exercise daily till he / she completes it in three
minutes plus or minus 15 seconds. Once this is achieved the person could reduce the frequency
to once a week or 15 days till the real goal is achieved. After few months of practice the
Mountain exercise itself would automatically happen at subconscious level without you doing
it consciously. Then you may do it once a while to be in touch.
f) I have following thoughts about the time. Although it is not directly related to Huna, I would
like to dwell on it as it is related to ‘Harmony’ in our life, which is fundamental to Huna. We
have four clocks running in our mind. These are:
i. Natural Clock: First is natural clock that runs with sun rise and sun set. We find it
disturbed for example, a Jetlag when person travels around the globe (we commonly see
it) or a person works indoors without seeing sunlight days together (going to office before
sunrise and returning from office after sunset, no windows and only same intensity artificial
light inside office) or in north or south when days are excessively long or short. In such
cases the person feels physically stressed and may experience sleep disorder. Taking rest
and Meditation helps in setting your Natural Body Clock right.
ii. Biological Clock: Second is biological clock. It controls hunger, thirst, natural calls,
digestion, etc. It is governed by food habits, type of food we eat, frequency of intake, etc.
We often see it disturbed by night shift working, rotating shifts, ‘graveyard shift’, working
in US or Europe time as we often see for IT or call center professionals in India. Late night
parties or watching movies also disturbs the biological clock. This disturbance very often
leads to acidity, digestion problems, sleep disorders, addiction to smoking, alcohol or tea /
coffee. In general person feels lethargic. Since in many cases professionals may not have
control on their work schedule, I suggest them to keep fixed eating time, drink lot of water,
regular physical exercise, and avoid drinking tea or coffee or any other stimulant just to
avoid feeling sleepy. They can drink water, wash their face with cold water, take shower,
or walk up and down few paces, avoid oily and heavy food, etc. They should take enough
rest on weekly offs to set the Biological Clock right.
iii. Mind Clock: This clock gives you time sense like getting up, feeling sleepy, timely
completing tasks, even restricting exactly to the time allotted for speaking, punctuality, etc.
If it is disturbed person feels anxiety, depression, melancholic, lethargic, etc. Mountain,
other meditation, physical activities, breathing technics like ‘Piko Piko’, ‘Pranayam’, etc.
help in setting the Mind Clock right.
iv. Spiritual Clock: This clock gives you sense of wellbeing, motivation, life energy flow
(‘mana’) and peaceful and happy state. If it is disturbed, you feel stress, mood change,
anger, tendency to remain in past or future. Meditation, balance and moderation in
everything we do, chanting, prayers, ‘Sat sang’, clearing clutter with Huna exercises like
‘Garden’, Ho’oponopono etc. help in setting Spiritual Clock right.
Conclusion:
Mountain is a simple and good exercise to develop your focus on goal. Mountain symbolizes goals
and objectives that seem difficult to you at conscious level. You also develop perseverance,
eliminate procrastination, increase will power, and capacity to withstand stress by practicing
‘Mountain’ exercise. It can be done at any time and place. It also works like meditation. I tell my
clients to do it regularly and check the time. When you get it in just close to predefined time (plus
minus fifteen seconds), you may discontinue it for some time. May be then do it once a month. In
case you feel getting stressed or depressed then again start doing it regularly till you get over the
issue. There are few similar exercises like ‘Mountain’. These are briefly explained below.
3. Meadows
Purpose:
This exercise is another type of a creative meditation. In this you find yourself moving in a
meadow. It represents one part of your mind. Although you decide to walk through meadow
consciously, the actual details in the meadow are added by your subconscious mind. These are the
reflection of outer world in your inner world. Any imperfection in meadow is reflection of your
imperfect or negative thinking. So if you correct imperfections in your meadow through your
creative imagination during the exercise (like Garden) you would put your subconscious for work
for correcting the thoughts and thus fixing the problem in the outer world. You must carefully
analyze everything in the meadow as it is reflection of your thoughts in subconscious. This would
improve your knowledge about self and understand why you are behaving in a particular way at
the moment. As your thought process change, you will see the change in the meadow every time
you do the exercise. This in fact is due to change in yourself, your attitude, belief and state of mind.
So you should focus on making the meadow beautiful and rest will happen itself.
Technique Protocol:
This exercises is done by individual without any guidance by other person. It is similar to the
Garden exercise except we usually activate our visual, auditory and kinesthetic sensory acuity. The
exercises is done at subconscious level which is symbolic. There should not be conscious thought
or a preplanned execution of the exercises. The exercises is time bound like the ‘Mountain’
exercise. You should decide the time for exercise before commencement. There is no rule for the
time; you could usually select three, four or five minutes. The steps in this exercises are;
1. Sit at a quiet place. Relax your body and breathe very smoothly. Sitting position should be
such that your legs are not dangling. You have to sit for few minutes without any movements.
2. Once you are relaxed, close your eyes.
3. Look at your feet with closed eyes and then look in the front. You will find yourself in a
meadow. It would be lush green with undulated landscape. There may be animals like sheep,
dogs, cows, horses, etc. There may be birds of various types and colours. You may hear the
sounds animals and birds. There may be children playing. It could be a sunny day or a rainy
season. You may see a rainbow. Let it be whatever comes to your mind.
4. Start walking or running through the meadow. Enjoy the sunshine. Feel the temperature and
breeze. If you want, you can change it to suit you. You can bring in clouds if you want. If you
find anything odd or unpleasant for example a thorny bush, you can remove it or get it removed
from helpers. Make the meadow beautiful. I enjoy playing golf in meadow if you wish. You
can play with a ball or something else. You could also ride a horse if you like.
5. Observe the different shades of green colour. You may see the wild flowers of different colour
grown all around.
6. You can play with the animals if you wish. They are all your friends.
7. When you reach a particular point, see the light entering through your closed eyes, hear the
sounds and feel the surrounding as well as your body. Then allow yourself to open your eyes.
8. Check the time. Did you take more or less time than predefined?
9. We do not want to use our conscious or logical thought during exercise. This also provides you
to bring out the subconscious thoughts at the level of symbolic language. Don’t attempt to
interpret the symbolic language as this is not amenable to conscious logic. It has a logic of its
own.
10. Time taken by the exercise against the predetermined time does tell us something about our
state of mind. My observation is when we are in good stress free happy state of mind, we
complete the exercise just in the predefined time, usually plus minus 15 seconds. When we are
stressed the exercise is over in much lesser time. When we are depressed or sad, it takes much
longer time. This may be something to do with our mental rhythm as explained earlier.
Conclusion:
Meadow is a simple and pleasant exercise to relax our mind and enjoy the peace. It also helps to
eliminate negative thoughts. It can be done at any time and place. It also works like meditation. If
you are thinking about some problem, after exercise ‘Meadow’ you would find a solution. Meadow
removes the clutter in our mind and help us to think clearly and positively. I suggest to do this
exercise regularly. It takes much lesser time than the Garden and gets similar kind of results if you
don’t have any specific issues to be resolved in the Garden.
4. Forest
Purpose:
This exercise is yet another type of a creative meditation. In this you find yourself moving through
a dense forest. It represents one part of your mind. Although you decide to walk through forest
consciously, the actual details in the forest are added by your subconscious mind. These are the
reflection of outer world in your inner world. Any imperfection in the forest is reflection of your
negativity or confusion or stress. So if you correct imperfections in your forest through your
creative imagination during the exercise (like Garden) you would put your subconscious for work.
This would help in correcting the thoughts and thus fixing the problem in the outer world. You
must carefully see, hear, taste, smell and feel everything in the forest as it is reflection of your
thoughts in subconscious. This would improve your knowledge about self and understand why you
are behaving in a particular way at the moment. As your thought process changes, you will see the
change in the forest next time you do the exercise. This is due to change in your attitude, belief
and state of mind. Forest helps you to eliminate your hidden fears and inhibitions. I find it very
useful with my clients to get over fear of public speaking, exams, interviews, and shyness to meet
others. I usually integrate the ‘Forest’ exercise in my ‘Garden’ exercise.
Technique Protocol:
This exercises is done by the individual without any guidance by other person. It is similar to the
Garden exercise except we are wandering through a dense forest. The exercises is done at
subconscious level which is symbolic. There should not be conscious thought or a preplanned
execution of the exercises. The exercises is time bound. You should decide the time for exercise
before commencement. There is no rule for the time; you could usually select three or four or five
minutes. The steps in this exercises are;
1. Sit at a quiet place. Relax your body and breathe very smoothly. Sitting position should be
such that your legs are not dangling. You have to sit for few minutes without any movements.
2. Once you are relaxed, close your eyes.
3. Find yourself in the middle of a dense forest. You will see a path. Follow it the way you want.
Your task is to reach a specific place in the middle of the forest. It could be a flag or a
monument or an old structure.
4. There may be animals. You may fight with them, allow them to go by or play with them. There
may be birds of various types and colours. You may hear the sounds of animals and birds. Let
it be whatever comes to your mind.
5. Check how is the forest. Peaceful or threatening? Start walking or jogging through the forest.
Enjoy the sunshine and cool shade. Feel the temperature and breeze. Listen to the rustling
sound of wind moving through trees. You can change the forest to suit your test. You can bring
in clouds or rains if you want. If you find anything odd or unpleasant, you can remove it or get
it removed by calling helpers. Make the forest nice and peaceful. I enjoy climbing trees,
swinging from one tree to other, watching and listening to birds, watching animals, etc.
6. Observe the different shades of green colour. You may see the wild flowers of different colour
grown all around or orchids. There may be fruits on the trees. You can eat these delicious and
juicy fruits. Notice their taste.
7. You can play with the animals if you wish. They are all your friends.
8. Now you will reach a particular place in the forest. It could be a flag or a monument or an old
structure. Once you reach there your exercise is over.
9. Now see the light entering through your closed eyes, hear the sounds and feel the surrounding
as well as your body. Then in your own time, not faster or slower than you should, allow
yourself to open your eyes.
10. Check the time. Did you take more or less time than predefined?
11. We do not want to use our conscious or logical thought during exercise. This also provides you
to bring out the subconscious thoughts at the level of symbolic language. Don’t attempt to
interpret the symbolic language as this is not amenable to conscious logic. It has a logic of its
own.
12. Time taken by the exercise against the predetermined time does tell us something about our
state of mind. My observation is when we are in good stress free happy state of mind, we
complete the exercise just in the predefined time, usually plus minus 15 seconds. When we are
stressed the exercise is over in much lesser time. When we are depressed or sad, it takes much
longer time. This may be something to do with our mental rhythm. This of course is my
observations while working with the clients and not specified by Kahuna. This was explained
earlier.
Conclusion:
Forest is a simple and good exercise to relax our mind and enjoy the peace. It also helps to eliminate
negative thoughts, fears and develop self-confidence. It can be done at any time and place. It also
works like meditation. If you are thinking about some problem, after exercise ‘Forest’ you may
find a solution. Meadow removes the clutter in our mind and help us to think clearly and positively;
whereas the ‘Forest’ removes anxiety and fear. I suggest to do this exercise regularly, in alteration
with the exercise Meadow and Mountain. It takes much lesser time than the Garden and gets
similar kind of results if you don’t have any specific issues to resolve in the Garden.
5. Exercise Authority
Purpose:
Whenever we resist any thought mentally it generates a stress. Mental resistance differs from
emotional resistance. Emotional resistance is a result of evaluation by subconscious mind;
whereas, mental resistance is result of analysis by conscious mind (logical level). Emotional
resistance comes from thinking of something as a bad / immoral / unscrupulous and you don’t like
it. Usually when you feel cheated or fooled or forced to do something against your value system
or belief system, you get emotionally stressed. On the other hand mental resistance comes from
thinking of something as wrong and you don’t agree with it. Mental resistance causes anger. For
example, often disciplined and honest people get angry when they see someone is breaking traffic
rules or throwing garbage on the road or using unfair means. Many a times they cannot do anything
to stop it and feel helpless. They cannot stand such violations although they themselves are not
offended or insulted by others. This also happens when they read news of corruption or fraud.
However, this raises their blood pressure, lose their cool and increases their anxiety. Mental
resistance is also to certain issues at office or at home when you feel decisions taken by others are
logically incorrect or not based on the facts. You want to do something but feel helpless. This
erodes your confidence and self-esteem. Sustained state of such mental resistance has harmful
effects on your physical health. Mental resistance in turn takes the form of negative criticism. The
‘ku’ feels such criticism like a mental hurt, causing a small amount of negative stress. This would
subside if you are relaxed and healthy. On the other hand it leaves a scar when you are under stress
due to something else. Many times we here a heated argument on some small subject with someone
saying, “But it is a matter of Principle”. (“in Marathi, Pune citizens are made a fun of, with the
common sentence “Pan Prshna Tatvacha Ahe”). Such an anger to a large extent serves no purpose.
The person getting angry has no direct control on immediate situation (like someone in front of
you cuts the lane while driving), or his / her angry reaction may not get positive response (for
example someone jumping the queue or the service counter person is working very slow; if you
get angry and start shouting, other person would also react and you may not get support of others).
In fact if you get angry, in most of the cases even you have choice of action you won’t get the
better results. On the other hand if you remain calm, you will be able to deal with the situation
more effectively.
It reminds me of a ‘Cockroach Story’. At a restaurant, a cockroach suddenly flew from somewhere
and sat on a lady. She started screaming out of fear. With a panic stricken face and trembling voice,
she started jumping, with both her hands desperately trying to get rid of the cockroach. Her reaction
was contagious, as everyone in her group also got panicky. The lady finally managed to push
the cockroach away but ...it landed on another lady in the group. Now, it was the turn of the other
lady in the group to continue the drama. The waiter rushed forward to their rescue. In the relay of
throwing, the cockroach next fell upon the waiter. The waiter stood firm, composed himself and
observed the behavior of the cockroach on his shirt. When he was confident enough, he grabbed it
with his fingers and threw it out of the restaurant. Was the cockroach responsible for their
histrionic behavior? If so, then why was the waiter not disturbed? He handled it near to perfection,
without any chaos. It is not the cockroach, but the inability of those people to handle the
disturbance caused by the cockroach, that disturbed the ladies. It is not the shouting of the boss or
someone cutting lane in front of us on the road that disturbs us, but our inability to handle the
disturbances due to our mental resistance (that really disturbs me!). It's not the traffic jams on the
road that disturbs us, but our inability to handle the disturbance caused by the traffic jam that
disturbs us. More than the problem, it's our mental resistance and resulting reaction to the problem
that creates chaos in our life. We should not react in life. We should always respond. The women
reacted, whereas the waiter responded. Reactions are always instinctive whereas responses are
always well thought of. Happy or unstressed people that we see are not like that because everything
is right in their Life. They are happy because of their attitude, towards everything happening in
their Life, is Right!! That is the difference between being proactive and reactive. The Huna
exercise ‘Authority’ is excellent to help eliminating mental resistance (as well as emotional
resistance). This exercise makes you more or less free from the bout of anger, short temper,
impatience and restlessness when something that is not of your liking is going on. It could be as
small as traffic signal is ‘Red’ when you are in hurry, or as hurting as your boss shouting at you
with no fault of yours. There are few other Huna exercises like Mountain, Forest, City, and
Meadow also help. However, I consider ‘Authority’ is a Master Exercise; very simple to practice,
very effective in results and more or less with certainty.
Technical Protocol:
1. Just relax for a moment and disconnect from your current thought. Few Piko Piko breaths
would do the trick.
2. Think that you are the King or Queen of the Universe. Visualise whatever you can imagine to
feel like the King or Queen. Use your creativity. May be you are wearing a particular robe, put
on a crown, sitting on a throne, holding a mace, wearing typical ornaments, etc.
3. Now convince yourself, that since you are the king of Universe, every living person, animal,
bird and also non-living object will obey your instructions. Be sure of that in your mind. In any
case you will realise as you start the exercise that your instructions will be certainly followed.
4. Once you are in the right state of mind start giving commands to any person or object or even
sounds, wind, light, etc. You must focus on the object or notice the object with any of the five
senses (see, listen, feel, smell or taste) and only then you are allowed to give orders with
following conditions.
a) Only ‘one particular order’ is permitted to be given; the permitted order is ‘CONTINUE’
whatever is happening. For example, if fan is rotating, order to the fan is ‘Continue’
rotating; if fan is stopped, the order to the fan is ‘Continue’ to remain Stopped; if someone
is smiling, ‘Continue’ Smiling; if traffic signal is Red, ‘Continue’ to be Red, then if it
changes to green the order becomes ‘Continue’ Green and so on.
b) You should give order quietly in your mind and not loudly.
c) The order can be given to anything you see, listen, feel, smell or taste. If you hear any
sound, you can order it to ‘Continue’. If you smell any particular fragrance, you can ask it
to ‘Continue’.
d) About 200 orders to be given in 3 minutes. Don’t count the time or number. This is just to
ensure that we give one order per second without giving any gap in between. The objective
is to avoid any other thought during the exercise.
5. You can do this exercise by sitting at one place, while moving, walking, running, driving, etc.
Your eyes should be open. You may continue doing this exercise for more than three minutes
also. (I know some of my clients have done the exercise for half an hour while driving.)
6. Do it at any time and at any frequency. Initially for 15 days or so, do it regularly. Then your
subconscious mind will do it automatically. (For example, if your boss shouts at you, your
subconscious mind will respond ‘Continue’ without resisting or reacting. This way you will be
able to understand, why he / she is angry at you, and you will be able to take correct action
without losing your cool.)
7. This exercise works at subconscious level. So don’t try to analyse it logically and create doubts
in your mind.
Conclusion:
This exercise is excellent to help eliminating mental as well as emotional resistance. This exercise
makes you more or less free from the bout of anger, short temper, impatience and restlessness
when something that is not of your liking is going on. This exercise develops subconscious habit
of remain calm in any situation.
There are few authors like Dale Carnegie, who tell us to accept the inevitable. This is because you
cannot avoid it. This is very good advice to the conscious mind. However, if it is not imbibed in
the subconscious mind, it deserts us when important things are not going as per our liking.
Moreover, this message of ‘accepting inevitable’ suggest our own mind that we are helpless. This
makes us weak unable to take a proactive stand. On the other hand, the exercise ‘Authority’
emphasises that we are the ‘King / Queen’ of the universe and hence all powerful. Whatever, is
happening, even the one we don’t like, is happening with our order. This implies at our
subconscious level that we are the helm of affairs; we are doing it for some good purpose; and
since we are at driving seat, we are capable of changing it. Thus it maintains our self-esteem even
when the things are not going as per our liking.
‘Bhagwad Gita’ also tells us that everything happening is for some good purpose; as directed by
the God; the God in in us; so we should only focus on our duty ‘Karm’ and let the God do the rest.
Sant Tukaram also said, ‘Thevile Anante Taisechi Rahave, Chitti Aaso Dyawe Samadhan’, means
‘be happy in whatever way the God has kept you. Whatever, these great philosophies teach us
through the conscious mind, the ‘Authority’ exercise does it through subconscious habit
development.
6. Ho'oponopono
Purpose:
‘Ho'oponopono’ is a well-known Huna exercise. It is an ancient Hawaiian practice of
reconciliation and forgiveness. It is a kind of mental cleansing. Unfortunately, it is often
misinterpreted, and misunderstood. I have met few people during my training sessions who have
learned it in an exclusive one day seminar. This often surprises me. ‘Ho'oponopono’ is not an
exercise to be learned as a standalone without learning and understanding Huna philosophy. Let's
go to the source as described by Dr. Serge Kahili King.
As per Hawaiian language ‘Ho'oponopono’ means ‘to put the things rights; to put in order or
shape; or to correct, revise, adjust, amend, regulate, arrange, rectify, tidy up, make orderly or neat;
or to make ready’. In 1972 the Queen Liliuokalani Children's Center and the Liliuokalani Trust
published a book by Mary Kawena Pukui titled ‘Nana I Ke Kumu’ or ‘Look to the Source’. This
book describes the source of Hawaiian cultural practices, concepts and beliefs. This book gives
the concept of ‘Ho'oponopono’. Pukui added the meaning of ‘to restore and maintain good
relationships among family, and also family and supernatural powers’. The specific purpose
of the exercise is to set ‘relationships right' through prayer, discussion, confession, repentance,
and mutual restitution and forgiveness. This form was from Pukui family tradition. This became
the Classic form of ‘Ho'oponopono’ for family and group reconciliation.
In 1976, Hawaiian healer Morrnah Simeona created a new system of ‘Ho'oponopono’, influenced
by her studies of Christianity, Eastern philosophies and the works of Edgar Cayce, but essentially
based on her deep spirituality and broad knowledge of Hawaiian traditions. What made her system
so different was that it was designed for individual practice without the need for a group.
In the 1980s Dr. Serge Kahili King, began teaching ‘Ho'oponopono’ as a reconciliation technique
the way he had learned it from the Kahili family starting in the 1950s. To differentiate it from other
forms of ‘ho'oponopono’ he called it ‘Kupono’. It has both group and individual aspects. The group
aspect resembles Pukui's version, but the individual aspect is for resolving individual problems.
It is similar to the Indian philosophy that what happens in our life is the result of our ‘Karma’. So
we need to free and cleanse ourself from our past negative ‘Karma’ through ‘Prayaschitta’. This
exercise resolves and removes the Trauma stored in our memory of our past experiences.
Technique Protocol:
The basic concept is simply to express forgiveness for something on behalf of someone else. We
just clean or erase the negative feeling and emotions in our memories and find our own Shangri-
La or ‘Sat-Chi-Anand’ within ourselves. We know that the ‘Present’ is only the reality. Past is just
a recorded memory and future is yet to come and hence both are not real. Past is just a program or
pattern in our subconscious. It gives us pain or happiness because the emotions associated with it.
However, if you recollect, most of the time we spend dwelling on the painful or stressful past
memories. These haunt us time and again. The key to be happy in the present and live a stress free
life is, to detach ourselves from the past negative memories. Of course this is easier said than done.
Most of the people advise us on this, but it is at the logical or conscious level. Whereas the
recording of the past and the painful or stressful thoughts originate from the subconscious level
without our control. Here comes the efficacy of the exercise ‘Ho'oponopono’ The process is
essentially about complete freedom from the past. This develops extension of one's identity to
include anything or anyone else who needs healing. We use four phrases ‘I'm sorry. Please forgive
me. Thank you. I love you.’ By repetition of these phrases a person imagines to connect his or her
own light with the light of the Divine Source. Repeating this exercise over a period of time,
dissolves disharmonious patterns in the subconscious.
In this exercise, according to Huna philosophy the phrase ‘Please Forgive me’ is not equivalent to
‘Excuse me’ or ‘Pardon me’. It means ‘to set things right’ in a morally correct way, regardless of
how you do it. You should do the thing not because it is beneficial to you, but because it is right
thing to do.
1. First step is to relax and calm yourself. You may use any of the techniques you are aware of.
While sitting down, look straight ahead and raise your eyes up with vision up against your
eyebrows.
2. Focus on one spot for about 30 seconds. Notice that your vision begins to spread out. You now
see more in your peripheral vision than in the central part of your vision.
3. Remain in this state for another minute or so. This is like a meditative state. Allow your mind
to wander. Relax your focus back down and notice how calm you feel.
4. When you hold your eye focus in that particular position, you will be unable to hold a negative
thought or emotion in your mind. You can ‘Think’ of negative but you will not ‘Feel’ the
negativity. This is a kind of dissociative state.
5. Say loudly ‘I Am Sorry’. This is the step of repentance. We are responsible for everything in
our subconscious, even if it seems otherwise. Once we realize that, it’s very natural to feel
sorry. This realization can be painful. You may resist accepting responsibility for kind of
problems you feel created by someone else until you start to practice this method and see
positive results. So choose something that you already know you’ve caused for yourself? Over-
weight? Addicted to nicotine, alcohol or some other substance? Do you have anger issues?
Health problems? Start there and say you’re sorry.
6. Now you say loudly, ‘Please Forgive Me’. Imagine you are covered by a blanket Forgiveness.
This is the act of forgiving everybody for everything, including ourselves. It means that we let
go of all the things of the past that have a negative emotional charge to them. The past is over.
We don't owe anything to the yesterday. We may remember certain things that we don't want
to do again. But any form of residual anger will only cause us harm. It doesn't serve us in any
way. So just forgive all those people who have done us wrong. Most of them probably may not
even be aware. Moreover, what we think wrong were our expectations and we're the ones
responsible for creating them and nobody is here on Earth to live up to our expectations.
Forgiving ourselves for what we have done may be even tougher. However, being mad at
ourselves for not being someone else serves no purpose. We are who we are and forgiving
ourselves for whatever we may have done is acknowledging that we are human beings and this
is how we learn. This is taking responsibility. This gives us power. Take a few moments to
open up the blanket of forgiveness and spread it out over our whole past.
7. The next step is blanket Gratitude. It's tough to be grateful for things if we still hold some
resentment or anger. But once the forgiveness is laid on, gratitude is natural. Blanket gratitude
is the act of being thankful for everything! There's so much that we totally dislike. But by being
grateful for it all, we are expressing our gratitude for life and all the experiences that make up
a lifetime. Each and every experience we have contributes to the personality of who we are. It
is made up of all the thoughts, feelings, actions, and experiences that occur each moment, few
we call ‘good’ and others we name as ‘bad’. Say ‘Thank You’ loudly. It opens ourselves to
even greater events. Not saying ‘thank you’ is closing ourselves off to parts of life, a very sad
thing to do. Blanket Gratitude envelops it all and makes this moment an unqualifiedly majestic
time!
8. The last step is the blanket of Love. Say loudly ‘I Love You’ to whatever comes to your mind.
Say it to your body, say it to God, say it to breathe, house, job, family, friends, even those you
think are your adversaries. Those who criticizes you, indirectly help you to become better.
Saint Tukaram has said “You should have a neighbor who is your criticizer”. Huna principle
‘Aloha’ says to love is to be happy with. After we set the things right and make mend with our
emotions related to the past experience, next natural thing is to feel happy about the past. We
appreciate whatever we have received. Appreciation is a little different than gratitude.
Appreciation is about finding the beauty in something, seeing the ‘good’ in all things, and
enjoying the experience. It is a way of acknowledging how marvelous things really are. But, it
isn't about just looking at the good things and ignoring the bad things. It is an internal attitude
that sees from a place of self-love. It is like validating ourselves, others and our life experience.
It is especially feeling good about ourselves that creates the vision of appreciation. When we
appreciate something, we are allowing the mirror of life to show us something about ourselves.
We see what is going on within. When we see things we don't like and we criticize them, then
we are expressing a dissatisfaction about ourselves. Usually it's much easier to see the fault
outside of us, but the true object of our complaint is not so hard to find inside when we honestly
look. When we use blanket appreciation, we can look out over the world and appreciate
everything we see. However, what we are really doing is saying that because we love ourselves,
we can see the beauty everywhere. Blanket Appreciation helps us remember that loving
ourselves is the key to any kind of happiness and joy.
9. If we do ‘Ho'oponopono’ exercise before going to bed and you pull these blankets up to your
and, remember to lay on these four blankets, you'll have a really good night's sleep!
Conclusion:
As per Huna philosophy there is no such thing as ‘outside us’. Everything happens to our in your
mind. Everything we see, hear, every person we meet, is experience in our mind. We only think it
is outside and thus we absolve our responsibility. In fact it’s quite the opposite: we are responsible
for everything that we think and comes to our attention. This means we have a power to clear it,
clean it, and through forgiveness change it. These four simple steps are important. The order is not
that important but helps in the process. Repentance, Forgiveness, Gratitude and Love are the only
forces at work. They have amazing power of healing our body and spirit.
This version of Ho’oponopono can be performed all by ourselves. We don’t need anyone else to
be there. This exercise can also be done in a group. The power is in the feeling and in the
willingness of the Universe to forgive and love.
In group exercise, there is need to have a facilitator to direct the group. Facilitator should also
ensure that there is no chaos and sanctity of the exercise is maintained. Facilitator starts the
exercise, asking participants to make pairs holding hands of each other. Then participants imagine
that their partner symbolize their own parents, siblings, spouse, close friends or enemies. Silently
with statements of Ho’oponopono they make peace with the other. This is done in turns for five
minutes to cover all those who come to your mind. After individual peace is made, participants are
asked to join in fours holding hands in a small circle. Now imagine the group represent their family,
friends, colleagues, coworkers, employees, employers, students, teachers, etc. Like in the first
round, using the statements of Ho’oponopono, make peace with all of them. Take five minutes for
smooth conduct. Then they join in group of eight to represent the people of their neighborhood,
town, city, state and nation. Repeat the process and feel peaceful and relaxed. Continue this way
in steps depending on number of people in the entire group. Finally everyone hold hands and make
one large circle to represent the entire Earth or universe. Use Ho’oponopono statements I Am
Sorry, Please Forgive Me, Thank you and I Love You again to make a peace with universe in
turn with yourself. Then conclude the Ho’oponopono exercise for entire group.
Ho’oponopono exercise is based on the philosophy of ‘total responsibility’. That means we are
responsible for what we think, do not what anyone else does. The Hawaiian Huna therapist Dr.
Ihaleakala Hew Len, who was psychologist, healed mentally ill people by taking responsibility
and doing Ho’oponopono on the ill people by just looking at their case papers. Without even
interacting with them or seeing them face to face, he cured a complete ward of criminally insane
patients. He would just 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. This story is narrated in the
book ‘Zero Limits’ by Joe Vitale and Dr. Hew Len. This story is the simple statement: heal
yourself to heal the world around you.
If we can accept that we are the sum total of all past thoughts, emotions, words, deeds and actions
and that our present lives and choices are colored or shaded by this memory bank of the past, then
we begin to see how a process of correcting or setting aright can change our lives, our families and
our society. Suffice it to say that whenever you want to improve anything in your life, there’s only
one place to look: ‘inside you’. Therefore when you look inside, do it with love. Huna principle
says ‘To Love, is to be Happy’. Our Indian philosophy and most of the Saints and Gurus tell us
to look inwards where you will find eternal happiness or ‘Sat-Chit-Anand’. The things that
are happening in the world, they are not outside; they are still inside you. In short, we are connected
to everything we experience in life, good, bad, pleasant, beautiful, ugly. And everything starts with
us. Our saints always tell us to see inside by eyes of our mind or ‘Manki Akhe Khol’. It may look
mystical. Whether you consider the idea of taking full personal responsibility as a rational and
self-empowering, or the mystical aspect that everything in life is connected (Separation between
us is a useful illusion), everyone would agree that when you change your thoughts, you change
your outside world. You can observe the effectiveness. Huna principle states, ‘Effectiveness is a
measure of Truth’. Hence of looking inwards and taking responsibility of everything is still valid.
What finally remains is ‘Zero State’ (as we were born with free of worries) after complete
cleansing and ‘Inspiration’ that we get from our higher self ‘Aumakua’.
Purpose:
It is our common experience that if we hurt any part of our body say a tow or a finger, it keeps
hitting or bumping in to something all the time. We also often experience if our toe is injured,
people around us would by mistake stamp on our toe, which does not happen normally. When our
back is injured, our friends unwittingly pat on our back. Similar thing happens when we are injured
emotionally. When we are frustrated or angry, other will say something that will make us angrier.
In my opinion in these cases we get focused on the negative thoughts of hurt, or injury. Huna
principle says, ‘Energy flows where attention goes’. So the negative response gets accumulated.
In stub toe technique we repeat the incident up to a point just before we got hurt. We do it again
and again in our mind. When our body experiences a hit, blow, poke, stab, cut, or burn, it develops
the stress. According to Huna teaching, knowing the source of stress is important in bring down
stress and result in healing. The source of stress is always ‘resistance’.
‘Stub Toe’ technique developed by Dr. Serge Kahili King helps in reducing or even eliminating
Physical Stress by changing the patterns. By re-creating the pattern and changing the ending, you
are in effect giving the subconscious mind a new memory of the event. This changes the body state
in conformity to the new version of the event. The sooner you do this after the event, quicker the
body would get back into harmony. This process could work for any negative event like accident,
negative interaction with people, unwanted outcome of our efforts, etc.
One of my client hurt her ankle with a minor scooter accident. I asked her to remember the event
and stop just before she twisted her ankle; and then imagine as if she applied brakes and stopped
holding the balance on both legs. After repeating the sequence about 100 times with eyes closed
her pain stopped and she could walk without any feeling of hurt. Once I got my figure cut with
knife while cutting a fruit. It started bleeding. I just applied pressure and blood stopped. However,
throbbing pain and mark of the cut was visible on the finger. I immediately took a knife in one
hand and imaged the fruit in my injured hand. Then started moving the knife as if I was cutting the
fruit in two pieces while stopping the knife just before touching it at the place of injury. I repeated
it for few times believing that the knife did not touch my finger. I also imagined it few times with
closed eyes. In just two minutes my pain stopped completely. Next day I was quite busy at my
work and completely forgot about the incidence. On second day when I remembered about it and
looked at my finger, I could not believe it. There was not even sign or mark of injury. I have used
this exercise on people of all ages and it worked like a magic. I have also done it on small children
with slight modification. With children, instead of explaining the logic or process, I act like
magician with some ‘garble words’ like ‘Ala mantar, kola mantar, chhu’. I find it works much
faster on children as they have full faith and focus.
One of my client used to get a pain in her fingers during winter. Doctors found nothing wrong. She
tried various remedies without any benefit. She told me that she had a fall three years ago while
cleaning ceiling fan. She broke her finger and taken a month to recover. It was during winter
season. Since then during winter she had been getting the pain. Doctors carried out X ray but found
nothing wrong. I worked ‘Stub Toe’ technique with her. I asked her to visualize the event vividly
in details and changing the event just before the fall. She visualize having supported by her
husband and averted the fall. She also developed further sequence that she completed her cleaning
work. After repeating it several times her pain disappeared and since then has not recurred.
Possibly the pain was just the habit she had developed after the real accident. Since the accident
happened during winter, her trigger for running the subconscious program was onset of winter.
The possibilities of this simple process are fantastic and boundless, especially if we can use it to
help the present effects of the past events. The best results come from making as small a change
in the pattern as possible.
Technique Protocol:
Sit quietly for a few minutes. Relax your body using any technique. The steps are as follows.
1. Close your eyes. Do Piko Piko breathing five times by focusing on your temple (top of your
head) while breathing-in and to your navel while breathing-out. Do it five more times, now
focusing on the pain area while breathing-out.
2. Now run the event in your mind vividly by recreating the scene as close as possible to the real
experience till a point before the painful part of the incident.
3. Stop before the painful part and change the experience. You can stop, bypass, or change the
even as if the painful part has not happened. The painful part should be replaced by another
positive or non-harmful part.
4. The vivid visualization should be continuous and the change should not be abrupt. Change
should be as small as possible.
5. Repeat the process several times. The changes made in the event should be very small so that
your subconscious mind creates the new belief. Repetition is the key to creating new memory
stronger than the memory of the earlier incident.
6. After enough repetitions, when you remember the incident consciously or subconsciously, the
first thing that comes to your mind about the event would be the new edited memory. You start
feeling comfortable with the new picture and do not feel it is untrue. Of course you still
remember the original event but without painful emotions attached to it. Then stop the exercise.
7. If necessary you may repeat the exercises few more times over a period of a week. You can
also explain the incident in its new modified version to others as if the new version had actually
happened. This will reinforce your modified memory and provide evidence to your
subconscious. Some of my clients found writing the new event as a story has helped them in
developing the new belief quickly.
8. In few cases like cutting finger with knife or hitting hammer on your hand while driving nail,
etc. it may be effective to repeat the physical action and stop just before getting hurt. This of
course you can’t do it in case of accident or fall or some other thing that you won’t be able to
stop just before getting hurt.
Conclusion:
By re-creating the pattern and changing the ending, you are in effect giving the subconscious mind
a new memory of the event, requiring the subconscious to change the body state in conformity to
the new version of what happened. With the new memory body would get back into harmony. This
helps the negative after effects of the event are minimized. It also helps our body and mind to come
to the balanced state quickly and help recovery. This process could work for any negative event
like accident, negative interaction with people, unwanted outcome of our efforts, etc. to remove
the lingering negative effect of our replaying the event in memory.
We often see the old people keep talking of their accident or fall or recurring pain (usually knee or
back) as if it was a delightful event. They are possibly looking for sympathy. They effectively start
enjoying the pain by repeating these negative memories. Remember the story of Pig in the first
chapter? This I call a Nocebo (placebo of negative beliefs) effect. Obviously their body and mind
starts helping them to remain in pain longer.
This Stub Toe exercise is extremely simple and useful almost daily in our life. It just takes few
minutes. It is too simple and could be learnt very quickly. Its simplicity is deceptive and so you
may not be motivated to do it. However, once you experience it, you would realize its power. I use
it almost instinctively. Recently I had a sudden shivering with high fever. I did Stub Toe and slept
off. I was perfectly normal when I got up. I continued my work and the fever never came back.
With Stub Toe exercise, I have observed my wounds heal surprisingly fast. Possibly my mind
helps body and energy system to come back to balance quickly. There is a similar exercise in
Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) known as ‘Editing Your Life’s Stories’. It is given in my
book ‘Reboot Your Mind: Move from Negativity to Positivity with NLP’.
17. Bless everyone and everything that represents what you want!
Purpose
This is a powerful technique and although it is extremely simple. However, it may not prove easy,
because you must remember to do it and you have to do it a lot. It is a secret which has been given
to humanity over and over again, and here it is once more in another form. Our sages knew it and
they used it regularly. In fact most of Indian chants, ‘Stotras’ like ‘Atharvshirsh’, ‘Ramraksa’
‘Maruti Stotra’, ‘Hanuman Chalisa’, ‘Shrisukta’ are nothing but praising God and getting blessings
to everything around us including ourselves. To bless something means to give recognition or
emphasis to a positive quality, characteristic or condition. What is recognized or emphasized will
increase, endure or come into being.
Blessing is effective in changing your life or getting what you want. It effects in three ways:
Firstly the focus of your mind stirs up the positive, creative force of the Power of the Universe.
Secondly, it moves your own energy outward, allowing more of the Power to come through you.
Thirdly, when you bless for the benefit of others instead of directly for yourself, you tend to bypass
any subconscious fears about what you want for yourself, and also the very focus on the blessing
acts to increase the same good in your life. What is so beautiful about this process is that the
blessing you do for others helps them as well as you.
In order to gain the most benefit from blessing, you will have to give up or cut way down on the
one thing that negates it, ‘cursing’. Here cursing does not mean ‘swearing’ or saying ‘bad words’.
It refers to the opposite of blessing, namely ‘criticizing’ instead of ‘admiring’; ‘doubting’ instead
of ‘affirming’; ‘blaming’ instead of ‘appreciating’; and ‘worrying’ instead of ‘anticipating with
trust’. Whenever any of these ‘cursing’ is done it tends to cancel out some of the effects of blessing.
So the more you curse the harder it will be and the longer it will take to get the good from a
blessing. On the other hand, the more you bless the less harm any cursing will do.
Technical Protocol
1. Sit comfortably. Allow your eyes to close. Take few deep breaths. Focus on your breathing
through visual, auditory and kinesthetic senses.
2. Do Piko Piko breathing to increase your energy. When you feel relaxed, centered, and/or
energized, begin imagining that you are surrounded with an invisible cloud of light. Your
energies should be high so that you can move it outwards. This way you can focus the power
of universe through you to the things you bless. Your every breath visualize increase in energy
of this energy cloud.
3. As you bless, imagine that the object of you are blessing is surrounded with part of the same
energy that surrounds you.
4. Blessing may be done with imagery or touch the way we bless when someone does
‘Namaskara’ to you by bowing down. In such case, as per our Indian custom, we touch the
person on the back or head and bless loudly (I say ‘Kalyanmastu’. Many people in India bless
with ‘Ayushaman Bhav’ or ‘Shubham Bhavatu’ etc.). In this exercise most usual and easy way
to do it is with words and visualising the person or the thing that is being blessed. The blessings
could be given directly in the presence of the person also. Some ideas for blessing various
needs and desires as main kinds of verbal blessing are given below. Apply them as often as
you like and as much as you want.
a) Admiration - This is the giving of compliments or praise to something good that you
notice. E.g., "What a beautiful sunset; I like that flower; you're such a wonderful person."
b) Affirmation - This is a specific statement of blessing for increase or endurance. E.g., "I
bless the beauty of this tree; blessed be the health of your body."
c) Appreciation - This is an expression of gratitude that something good exists or has
happened. E.g., "Thank you for helping me; I give thanks to the rain for nourishing the
land.". I have developed an exercise ‘Appreciate and Attach a Smile’ which is very
effective. It is given in my book on NLP, ‘Reboot Your Mind: Move from Negativity to
Positivity’. I would suggest everyone to see a short film on YouTube with URL
http://images.app.goo.gl/wGEX3CFRCUK1jSnDA
d) Anticipation - This is blessing for the future. E.g., "We're going to have a great picnic; I
bless your increased income; Thank you for my perfect mate; I wish you a happy journey;
May the wind be always at your back." Few of these we do it often like ‘Bon Voyage;
Happy Landings; Best Luck for …..’ etc.
e) Health - Bless healthy people, animals, and even plants; everything which is well made or
well constructed; and everything that expresses abundant energy.
f) Happiness - Bless all that is good, or the good that is in all people and all things; all the
signs of happiness that you see, hear or feel in people or animals; and all potentials for
happiness that you notice around you.
g) Prosperity - Bless all the signs of prosperity in your environment, including everything
that money helped to make or do; all the money that you have in any form; and all the
money that circulates in the world.
h) Success - Bless all signs of achievement and completion (such as buildings, bridges, and
events); all arrivals at destinations (of ships, planes, trains, cars and people); all signs of
forward movement or persistence; and all signs of enjoyment or fun.
i) Confidence - Bless all signs of confidence in people and animals; all signs of strength in
people, animals and objects (including steel and concrete); all signs of stability (like
mountains and tall trees); and all signs of purposeful power (including big machines, power
lines).
j) Love and Friendship - Bless all signs of caring and nurturing, compassion and support;
all harmonious relationships in nature and architecture; everything that is connected to or
gently touching something else; all signs of cooperation, as in games or work; and all signs
of laughter and fun.
k) Inner Peace - Bless all signs of quietness, calmness, tranquility, and serenity (such as quiet
water or still air); all distant views (horizons, stars, the moon); all signs of beauty of sight,
sound or touch; clear colors and shapes; the details of natural or made objects.
l) Spiritual Growth - Bless all signs of growth, development and change in Nature; the
transitions of dawn and twilight; the movement of sun, moon, planets and stars; the flight
of birds in the sky; and the movement of wind and sea.
These ideas are for guidance. Don't be limited by them. You can think of your own, for example
relationships, good sleep, rain, etc. Remember that any quality, characteristic or condition can be
blessed (e.g., you can bless slender poles and slim animals to encourage weight loss; energy to get
over depression, etc.), whether it has existed, presently exists, or would exist in future in your
imagination.
Personally I have used the power of blessing to heal my body, increase my income, develop many
skills, create a deeply loving relationship with my wife and children, remain healthy (I haven’t
fallen sick for almost 40 years) help my clients to resolve their issues and to write books.
Conclusion
This blessing technique practiced in Hawaii enhances your power to bless by increasing your
personal energy. It requires no special place or posture, and may be done while moving or still,
busy or resting, with eyes open or closed. To bless something means to give recognition or
emphasis to a positive quality, characteristic or condition. What is recognized or emphasized will
increase, endure or come into being. As we know ‘Energy Flows, Where Attention Goes’, it is
obvious that the things you bless would increase. Hence your outside world would become better
and so would your inside world. This would give you the direct benefit.
How to use these exercises
Huna exercises discussed in this chapter help in dealing with situations in day to day life like stress,
anxiety, emotional distress, physical disorders or trauma that has short term or long term effect on
health and wellbeing. We do have natural defense mechanisms to deal with such situations.
However, Huna exercises help us to recover faster. Huna exercises (along with NLP, Yoga,
Meditation, Energy healing, etc.), train our subconscious to take us out scar free from such negative
situations without conscious efforts. Since the stress and tension is released permanently, it won’t
bother us in future. Huna exercises bring us to the state of harmony with ourselves, others,
surroundings, nature, and the universe. Thus we learn art of living in happy and blissful moment
for most of the time. Although these exercises are easy, the responsibility of doing these regularly
lies with us.