Hoponopono (Ho’oponopono): Healing Through Forgiveness
He Hoponopono (also known as writing Ho’oponopono ) is a philosophy of conflict resolution and spiritual healing based on forgiveness, reconciliation and love.
Its origins date back to the first inhabitants of the Polynesian island of Hawaii, who used to practice healing rituals based on the Hoponopono philosophy. In the 20th century, Nalamaku Simeona He adapted ancient teachings and techniques to modern times and popularized what we currently understand as Hoponopono.
Although in the ancient versions of this healing art the figure of the healer was instructed by priests, in the current version the action falls on the individual who wishes to be healed, so we can understand this spiritual art as a method of self-help.
Polynesian beliefs
In the popular cultures of the Polynesian islands, it was believed that the mistakes that people made were the causes of illnesses, since they unnerved the spirits of the gods. Moved by this dogma, They thought that to debug errors the individual had to confess If the confession was not accepted, the person could become ill and die. Keeping the error secret is what encouraged the disease to continue developing.
In the paradigm of psychoanalysis, we could translate Polynesian beliefs by the concept of repression. By not being aware of these negative elements for health, the tensions they cause remain anchored in the psyche, and are later somatized. By confessing the error, the harmful effect on the person is nullified and neutralized.
“Ho’oponopono” means, in Hawaiian, something like mental hygiene: family assemblies where relationships are channeled and balanced through words, discussion, confession, compensation, repentance, sincere understanding towards others, forgiveness and, ultimately, love.
While the particle “ho’o” is a prefix that turns a noun into a verb, the noun “pono” can be defined as “goodness, morality, correctness, virtue, just, ethical…”.
Thus, “ponopono” means “redirect correct, reorder…”.
One of the most prominent researchers on Hawaiian tradition, Mary Pukui described the first steps of Hoponopono in Polynesian culture as “a family tradition consisting of family members meeting with other distant members of the same family and redirecting entrenched problems between them, managing to forgive and understand the other.”
Hoponopono was conceived as a spiritual method to restore bad interpersonal relationships that led to pathologies and illnesses of the individual, and therefore of the group. It was possible to get to the origin of the problems, and it was believed that this also improved individual and family relationships with the gods, who provided certain essential elements for spiritual peace.
Hoponopono today
Of course, the concept of Hoponopono is not due to experimental psychology and the psychological intervention practices that contain it do not have the support of science. Despite this, it has been used in various contexts during the last decades.
Traditional enforcement with criminals
During the second half of the 19th century, a prison program was implemented in Hawaii in which criminals had to work with an elder who led Hoponopono meetings with their families, as an alternative method to purge inter- and intrapersonal conflicts.
In the 1970s, traditional Hoponopono was adapted to the needs of industrial society. The philosophy of forgiveness and conflict resolution was extended to social problems, and it also acquired, on the other hand, a psychospiritual character purification of emotional ballast of each individual.
This adaptation placed a lot of emphasis on the effects of negative Karma. Being aware and experiencing for yourself the pain you have caused others is one of its foundations. The Hoponopono philosophy has elements of solipsism, going so far as to affirm that “each person is the creator of his own life and his circumstances. Every immoral action leaves its mark on one’s own psyche and is reflected in every object or living being that witnessed that moment.”
The cleansing or purification of karma becomes an essential requirement for the expansion of consciousness
Hoponopono: no limits
21st century versions of Hoponopono emphasize the importance of reaching “the state of zero, where there are no limits or ties, no memory, no identity.” To reach such a state, called “Self-I-Dentity”, one must repeatedly repeat the following mantra to oneself:
Please forgive me. Very sorry. I love you.
The underlying philosophy of modern-day Hoponopono advocates the assumption of full responsibility for our actions and those of others Conflicts, then, arise from oneself and never by the force of an external reality. If you want to change your personal reality, you must change yourself. Although this postulate resembles solipsism, the truth is that Hoponopono does not deny the reality of other people’s consciousness.
Instead, Hoponopono conceives the computation of the consciousnesses that inhabit the world as intertwined pieces If one clears his own conscience of the errors committed, he will be clearing the conscience of everyone. Without a doubt, a philosophy that can help us understand ourselves better and be more connected with the people around us.
introductory book
Do you dare to try this philosophy? I invite you to get the book of the Dr. Mª Carmen Martínez by entering this link.
