I recently attended a Healing Day at which Partnership Ho’oponopono was one of the communions explored. Due to a sense of confusion felt by some of the participants I found myself giving an explanation of the four sentences, which are its heartbeat. I was later requested to put my explanation down in writing. I offer it here with some extremely simple but powerful starter exercises for anyone wishing to get a flavour of this beautiful clearing and healing technique…
The Four Sentences of Ho’oponopono:
I love you
I’m sorry
Please forgive me
Thank you
The four sentences are based on the realisation that all is One and therefore Union is the true status quo; that Union is activated by love and gratitude; and that by virtue of these particular truths and the effect they have upon the celestial vibration, no-one is to blame for anything that happens, though we are all absolutely responsible for everything that transpires.
To be in Union is to be in Soul. To be in Soul is to feel love and gratitude for the whole of life. This being so, what more obvious thing to say to anyone than – I love you
Being in Soul we recognise that we are responsible for all that happens here on planet earth. Knowing this to be so, what more obvious thing to say to anyone than – I’m sorry
Admitting that we are sorry, we create the possibility of reconciliation. But reconciliation requires forgiveness, which brings us to the next most obvious thing to say – Please forgive me
All that remains is to express our gratitude to Life as God for granting us the opportunity to manifest as Light and all healing within it – Thank you
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For those of you who are not conversant with the transformational healing modality known as Ho’ponopono, let me tell you a little about it. It is a traditional Hawaiian system, though the four sentences are the central core of an updated form created by Morrnah Nalamaku Simeona, the beloved and honoured Kahuna. The difference between the two systems can most easily be understood through the primary principle of each.
Traditional Ho’oponopono states that: Problem solving is interpersonal.
The system created by Morrnah states that: Problem solving is intrapersonal.
Morrnah taught her system to Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, a Hawaiian psychologist who has, since Morrnah’s passing, made the system famous. This is what he says about it:
‘Simply put Ho’oponopono means ‘to put right’ or ‘to rectify an error.’ Ho’o means ‘cause’ in Hawaiian, and ponopono means ‘perfection.’ According to the ancient Hawaiians, error arises from thoughts that are tainted by painful memories from the past. Ho’oponopono offers a way to release the energy of these painful thoughts or errors, which cause imbalance and disease.’
In short, Ho’oponono is simply a problem-solving process. But it’s done entirely within yourself.
Here are Morrnah’s words on the subject of Ho’oponopono:
Ho’oponoponois a profound gift that allows one to develop a working relationship with the Divinity within and learn to ask that in each moment, our errors in thought, word, deed, or action, be cleansed. The process is essentially about freedom, complete freedom from the past.
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Here are three simple yet profound exercises, which give a flavour of Ho’oponopono in action
Exercise 1: Find a partner with whom you have a safe and friendly relationship. As both of you will need to speak, decide before the exercise begins who will speak first. Sit opposite each other, face to face and close enough to touch. Hold hands and look into each other’s eyes. It is of paramount importance to hold hands and maintain eye contact throughout the exercise. It is also of paramount importance that you both now enter your soul space, as this is where the work takes place. Hold hands; establish and maintain eye contact; establish a resonance between your soul and your partner’s. Remain in soul for the duration of the exercise. Whoever is to speak first now says the four sentences – I love you; I’m sorry; Please forgive me; Thank you, repeating them several times while holding hands, maintaining eye contact, and balancing the resonance between your souls. The number of times you repeat the four sentences is obviously for you each to decide, but I suggest five to begin with and see how it feels. If it feels OK to continue past five do so. The reason I suggest five is that the exercise can easily become a very emotional experience. Repeat the exercise but with your partner speaking the four sentences.
Exercise 2: The same as exercise 1 but partnering someone with whom you have a more challenging (though not an antagonistic) relationship.
Exercise 3: This time you work without a partner. This exercise introduces you to modern Ho’oponopono and is the basis of your practise from this point onward. You simply repeat the four sentences to yourself. You can use a person or a situation or a feeling as your focus, or simply the Divine (Source itself). Do not forget, however, that it is not another person, situation or feeling that you are healing – it is yourself. Nothing exists outside of you. Everything (yourself included) is a figment of your reality. As it is of mine. Which is why all I can say is that I love you.
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Roy Birch was born in Dudley, in the West Midlands in January 1942. He grew up in Kidderminster, also in the West Midlands. An only and an imaginative child he began writing aged four. He became a confirmed rebel during his second day at infants school and has always been something of an outsider. From a very early age literature and art were his great loves. While languishing in prison in his mid-twenties, he attempted to produce an alternative Lord of the Rings. His attempts were abysmal failures. He became a Zennist in his late twenties after reading a koan and being vouchsafed a satori. In February 2011, Roy received a Soul Recognition; a shamanic spiritual re-birth, which gave him the impetus and the information he needed to make another attempt at his novel. The Gunfighter is unrecognisable as the work he attempted to produce almost half a century ago, but is nonetheless a direct product of that attempt. After a chequered employment career, which included clerk; shop assistant; builder’s labourer; steel worker; gravedigger; window-cleaner; burglar alarm salesman and gardener, Roy became the Outreach and Mentoring co-ordinator of Mental Health literature charity Survivors Poetry. He lost his post in 2012 when the charity’s funding finally ran out. He is the co-founder (and still organizer) of survivor writing group, Stevenage Survivors. He is also a reflexologist and a Reiki Master in the Usui tradition. Roy lives in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, with his wife Lucia. They have five children and six grandchildren. Roy’s novel, The Gunfighter, can be found on Amazon. Though I say it who might possibly be better advised to say nothing, it is well worth reading. Go onto amazon; click on books, type in my name and hey presto. Alternatively, go to the Science Fiction and Fantasy section and type in the title.
Roy can be reached at: roybirch42@gmail.com[/box]