Theatre of the Mind Podcast Episodes

Hawaiian Shamanism

Kelly Howell: Hey everybody. Welcome back to Theater Of The Mind. Your host Kelly Howell. OK, our show today is on Hawaiian Shamanism and the philosophy of Huna. And my guest is Dr. Serge Kahili King. Dr. King is the founder and Executive Director of Aloha International. A nonprofit worldwide network of peacemakers, dedicated to the practice and promotion of the Aloha Spirit.
He is also the author of "Kahuna Healing: Mastering Your Hidden Self" and "The Urban Shaman". Dr. King has dedicated his life to the study of Shamanism, healing, and mystical traditions. He was trained in the Shamanic traditions of Hawaii, and West Africa, and has a PhD in psychology. Based in Hawaii Dr. King brings his wisdom to the world through workshops, seminars, and lectures. And wonderful books. Welcome Dr. King. How are you?
Dr. Serge Kahili King: I'm fine. Aloha.
Kelly: Aloha. Are you calling in from Hawaii?
Serge: Actually calling in from our new center at Volcano on the big island.
Kelly: Oh, wow! What's your new center called?
Serge: It's called Hale Huna which means, can mean hidden house because it's in a forest, but it also means the house of Huna.
Kelly: Is this where you do seminars and trainings?
Serge: Yes.
Kelly: Great. Well how did you begin your training in Hawaiian Shamanism?
Serge: Well actually I began with my father. My father as a young man had been adopted by a Hawaiian family, and trained in this knowledge. And then many years later, when I was old enough, about 14, he introduced me to the knowledge. And then after he died, three years later, a short time after that the family contacted me and I was adopted by the man who had adopted my father. So Joseph Kahili adopted me as his grandson and turned me over to his son and daughter for further training.
Kelly: And how long have you been practicing?
Serge: Oh well, If we start that, that's a long time. [laughs 02:45]
Kelly: Decades.
Serge: Let's see that would be... over 50 years.
Kelly: Wow, wow. Well what are the seven principles of Huna Philosophy?
Serge: Well the principles are, first of all that the world is what you think it is. And that there are no limits, energy flows where attention goes, now is the moment of power, to love is to be happy with, all power comes from within, and effectiveness is the measure of truth. And these are all interpretations of seven Hawaiian words. Which is the way I first learned them.
Kelly: And could you explain some of the meanings behind them?
Serge: Well, when we say that the world is what you think it is, it means that your experience of the world is always going to be determined by your beliefs and your expectations, and your ideas, and fears, and desires. It's all going to be filtered through that. So it doesn't matter if there's an external world, your personal experience is going to be determined by what you think is going on.
Kelly: So it's all based on your perception.
Serge: Of course.
Kelly: Reality is what you make it.
Serge: That's right, exactly. And the beauty though is that it's possible to change it. Because we can change our thinking. And when we change our thinking and our behavior, then our experience changes. We say that reality is experience. Then we have the idea that there are no limits. There's a couple things about this. One is the assumption that the Universe is infinite. And because of that, everything is connected. And the other one is that, anything is possible if you can figure out how to do it. So even potentials are unlimited. But there is that idea that they're unlimited if we can figure it out. Then we say that energy flows where attention goes. Wherever you direct your attention why your physical, emotional, and mental energy is going to go in that same direction. And it is possible if you have a strong feeling about something, or a lot of focus on something, why your energy will attract the energy of others to go in that same direction with you.
Kelly: So it's a resonance.
Serge: That's right. That's right. On the other hand, you can be drawn into someone else's strong energy too.
Kelly: In what way?
Serge: Well, if someone else has a, let's say, a lot of charisma or a high focus, and you happen to resonate with that why you can be drawn along in the same direction that they are. And so, what we teach from this is to not only be aware of your focus, but how to focus and how to shift your focus. That's a major part of the training in this knowledge. Then we come to the idea that now is the moment of power. There is nothing else except now. We only have memories of the past, and expectations of the future. Here is the only reality, what we're experiencing in this moment. The benefit there is that we're not burdened by things that happened in the past. We're burdened by our own interpretations and our memories of them. Those memories exist in the present. So we can change our relationship with those memories, and be free from the effects.
Kelly: Can you go into that for a little bit?
Serge: Sure.
Kelly: How do you do that?
Serge: Well, for instance if you had some traumatic incident when you were a child, or even later, but let's say as a child, and that still bothers you. And your behavior and your thinking and your fears are still conditioned by that. This helps you realize, this idea helps you realize that's over and done with. You cannot be burned by yesterdays sun, and you cannot get wet from tomorrows rain. Those things don't affect you right now, but the memory does. And you're reacting to the memory, not the experience anymore. So you can change your relationship by changing your mind, changing your physical behavior in relation to that memory, changing your feelings. And when you can do that, and there are many techniques, but when you can do that, then you're no longer burdened by that. It's simply because it becomes a memory that no longer effects you.
Kelly: So it's recreating your past, in a way?
Serge: No that's, let's say a more advanced. You can get the same effect very often by reinterpreting the past, and that's an intellectual approach. Or you can simply change how your body responds when you remember the past. And that will do it too.
Kelly: And you have a practice involved with that?
Serge: Yes, several techniques that we use for that. One of the best, our very favorite, is something called dynamite. It's a technique of bringing the mind and the body together and making a change, both of the mind and the body in the present moment, in relation to a memory. We have a booklet that we send out to people at no cost, and we have the entire instructions for that in 22 languages on our website.
Kelly: Oh, wonderful! What is your website again?
Serge: www.huna.org. The next one says, to love is to be happy with. Now to carry that further it means to be happy with someone or something. This is the essence of love. This is the meaning of the word Aloha. And from the Hawaiian point of view it's a very clear, you know when love is happening and when love is not happening. Because when love is happening, there's always happiness involved, whether you are giving it, sharing it, helping. And many people have great misunderstandings about love, thinking that it includes jealousy and anger and fear, and all these kinds of things. That has nothing to do with love; that has to with jealousy and anger and fear. Love is the happy part of a relationship. And so, we teach people how to get through that state in relation to whatever they want to in their life.
One of the big factors there that get in the way of love is criticism; that's probably the biggest that destroys relationships. And so, we teach a lot about how to handle that and how to change your habits of it, and to get back in, as close as possible, into a loving space. Now there are times when you get out, but what we concentrate on is how to get back.
And let's see, then the next one is all power comes from within. And this principle says that it's your life, it's your responsibility, and that no one has power over you. You're going to react from your own choices regardless of what happens. And the sooner you take responsibility for that the more powerful you become in your own life.
And finally, the last one is effectiveness is the measure of truth. This confuses a lot of people, but it's the kind of thing that we use all the time. For instance, right now, it's a little bit after 11 o'clock in the morning, in Hawaii, but that's a very arbitrary concept. That's all made up, this whole idea of time and even the date.
There are dozens, if not, many more types of calendars around the world that don't agree with the one we all use. We're using the one we use because it's convenient. We divide the hours of the day into 24 because it's convenient, so that I can call you at a particular time and we can meet. But all those things are arbitrary, but we treat them as if they're true because that's effective.
So when we're talking about, let's say, healing, we're concerned mostly with what produces the healing, not the method. We use whatever method helps the healing, that's compatible with healing. So we're not bound by a particular technique, or a particular approach. We use as our guideline, does it help to heal, and that's the meaning of that. So that's the seventh principle.
Kelly: Well in "Mastering Your Hidden Self", you write about the 'three selves'. What are they? And what are they're primary functions?
Serge: All right. Well this is a concept we use as a way of learning how to heal ourselves and develop ourselves, and help other people. Basically, we sometimes use words people are more familiar with like 'subconscious' and 'conscious' and 'superconscious', but those don't really have a lot of meaning. If we want to be specific, these are three aspects that every individual has. So one of them that we associate with the subconscious or the body, the function of it is really memory.
Kelly: The subconscious?
Serge: Yes. This is what it does. It remembers, and it acts out memory through habits and things like that. And it's always learning and always gathering memory. The other part is what we call in Hawaiian 'Lono'. This is related to the conscious mind, and it's the part of you that imagines. So it has the ability to imagine. It also has the ability to focus. But imagination is the primary quality that allows us to do new things, invent new ways of thinking, and be creative with the memories we have and so forth, and then create new memories.
And then, the other part is inspiration. This is what some people call the 'higher self'. This is also a part of every individual, and it is that part of you that inspires, both with energy and insight. And so, those are the three.
Kelly: So would that be the superconscious?
Serge: Yes, that equivalent.
Kelly: So we've got the conscious, the superconscious and subconscious.
Serge: Recognize it as having a very specific function.
Kelly: Well can we talk a little bit more about the subconscious?
Serge: Sure. It's very important.
Kelly: You have quite a bit written about that in your books. The nature of it in more detail: You say it takes orders. You have a long list of things.
Serge: That's right. Because the coordination of the subconscious let's call it that for the moment looks for guidance, it is not creative of its own. Once it learns how to do something, it will keep repeating that until it has a good reason not to, either by experience or by training. That's the part of ourselves that we can step aside, with one part of our mind, and train our own subconscious into different behaviors. Sometimes by giving new memories. Sometimes by giving new learning. Sometimes by giving strong directions. The subconscious is very one way to put it impressed or very strongly guided by authority. Now if a person decides, with their conscious mind or not, that authority is outside them, that it resides in another person or in a technique or in something else, then by making the decision the subconscious is going to be guided by that authority. And many people lose authority over their own bodies by giving it over to other things and other people. So we teach how to bring that authority back and be the captain of your own ship, in a way.
Kelly: You wrote that, "The subconscious will serve as faithfully and quickly as soon as we learn to give it good orders".
Serge: Right.
Kelly: How do we do that? What's a good order?
Serge: A good order is an order that brings pleasure to the subconscious. Remember this is also the body.
Kelly: Now that's an interesting point.
Serge: Sure. It always moves toward pleasure and away from pain, when it can. In some cases, because of the decisions of the conscious mind, if it cannot perceive any pleasure in a particular situation, it will always go for the least pain. So this is why if somebody might be working at a job, and they keep telling themselves how much they hate it that becomes painful for the body, for the subconscious to be there. And so, it will choose a lesser pain, like an accident, or getting fired, or getting sick to get out of that situation, when it becomes intolerable to be there. And then, when it's out of the situation, when that pain is gone, then it will move toward healing.
Kelly: Well let's say that you're in a job that you don't like, and you want to change your job. Well how would you give a good order to your subconscious to find a new job?
Serge: Well in the decision to find a new job, you're going to have to not only want it intellectually, because it makes sense and is logical. You're going to want to think about what will be the pleasure in that new job. And if you're thinking about the money, then don't just think about the money, that's very abstract. The subconscious doesn't deal well with abstracts. Think of what you can do with that money.
Kelly: So the fun that you can have and the pleasure.
Serge: That's right. That's right.
Kelly: So a lot of it has to do with feeling, not thinking.
Serge: Tasking, or something like that.
Kelly: Pardon?
Serge: The pleasure of doing a different task, of doing something you like better than what you already have. Anything that has sensory pleasure in it is a way to guide the subconscious.
Kelly: So when we want to program our subconscious, you're saying that we need to bring in images and thoughts and ideas that bring pleasure to the body, that bring a physical sensation of pleasure.
Serge: Sensory and emotional pleasure.
Kelly: OK.
Serge: And it will go over in that direction, if you can make it vivid enough.
Kelly: Yeah, you talk a lot about creative meditation techniques and passive meditation.
Serge: Right.
Kelly: Could you explain the difference between the two? Because I think that kind of fits in with what we're talking about with the subconscious.
Serge: Sure. Passive meditation is when you are meditating on... It could be an object, a concept, a photograph that symbolizes or represents something you want, or anything like that. People around the world, this is one of the oldest forms, use that in different ways. And what happens is, because everything is connected, when you begin putting your whole attention on something the subconscious begins to identify with it, and take on the characteristics of what you are keeping your attention on.
Kelly: Attention goes where energy flows. Right?
Serge: Exactly. That's right.
Kelly: Or is it the opposite way around?
Serge: Well actually it goes both ways.
Kelly: OK. [laughs 18:51]
Serge: And so, the longer you dwell on something the more your subconscious begins to identify with it. So this is why if you're dwelling on sickness it begins to identify with being sick. If that's what you think about all the time. If you dwell on a particular quality that you love, or something that has or represents that quality, it would begin to develop that quality within itself. So if you meditate on the beauty and harmony and energy of nature as an example. Meditate passively, just keep it in your awareness with appreciation. Your body will begin to take on those qualities in many cases, bring about a healing, or renewed growth, or a lot of ways that can be translated in positive terms. So that's passive meditation. You dwell on something until your subconscious begins to take on the qualities.
Kelly: And on the...
Serge: Creative meditation.
Kelly: Yeah. Creative meditation.
Serge: Here's where you get in with your creative imagination. And you imagine vividly with sensory and emotional detail, what it is you want. Now this is doing it positively to make a change, but it happens all the time anyway. Then people's fantasies are reflected in the body. When we go to a movie and we can cry, and we can be afraid, and we can laugh, and we can feel joy because we're identifying with what's going on with that activity, and interpreting it as activity in our mind. And when we go home we can recreate the whole experience with our imagination. And we can even make changes if we want to make a better movie. Or you can simply imagine the things that you want, but it can't be an intellectual process. For instance, a lot of people want to be healthy and so they think about that a lot. But that doesn't mean very much to the subconscious. It's got to translate that into concrete terms. So imagine yourself running or dancing, or playing, or something physical and emotional, then your subconscious again begins to identify with that. So it can identify with active things, and it can identify with passive things.
Kelly: It seems what I'm hearing from you is that the physical aspect is very important...
Serge: Oh, very.
Kelly: ...to access the subconscious. That the idea of embodiment is key, whether you're doing passive or active meditation.
Serge: Exactly. We're not whole unless we bring body, mind, and spirit together. Or let's say we're whole to the degree that we do that.
Kelly: And we have a tendency to be so mental and in our heads.
Serge: Yeah. Most people, well I won't say most, but let's say a great many people at any given moment aren't even here. They're worrying about the past, they're fearing the future, they're off someplace else. And the body will get very uncomfortable and sometimes ill because of that, without that connection.
Kelly: Well, just sitting at a computer all day, you're not paying attention to your body.
Serge: That's right. And if you don't do something, you'll feel that. I spend a lot of time at the computer, but I purposely have things that I have to get that are in inconvenient places. So I'm working on the computer but I'll have to get up and get something, or go over and do something else that's part of my task, so that I get my body involved in moving.
Kelly: That's brilliant. Yeah, I've heard of writers who have little timers on their desks, or some way of just allowing themselves, after half an hour or 45 minutes to get up and move.
Serge: Right. And I usually have things going on at my... Well, I like to multitask a lot. But I also have music very often, or sometimes even a TV show going on at the same time I'm writing or doing something else on the computer, that involves my body more.
Kelly: Interesting. You say that one of the most important concepts in Huna Philosophy is Aka. What is Aka?
Serge: Well the closest equivalent is kind of like the ether that used to be a concept in science. A few scientists still abide by it. The idea being, that in a scientific sense, that if light travels in waves it has to travel through some kind of medium. And so this was a theory that there was this vast medium throughout the Universe. But when we get into the esoteric knowledge, we also find it all around the world, the word Aka in Hawaiian may be related to the Sanskrit Akasha. And it's kind of like, if we want to use the term a matrix. It isn't physical, but physical things come out of it. And so it's this vast field out of which all creativity comes. Now we also use it in a more localized sense when we individually talk about our Aka body. But everything has a pattern within the Aka field, and these patterns are always interacting. And this is why when you can hold a very strong focus it begins to imprint a pattern.
A man named Rupert Sheldrig has a similar concept with what he called morphological fields. Where the patterns of a society or a particular location gradually become imprinted on this matrix, so that other people who go into this same area are affected by that pattern, without them realizing it. And so when we think of the Aka we think of this field that can be, it's always very modifiable. There's nothing about it that's fixed unless the thoughts are fixed, unless things don't change. Now everything is changing within the field, but that again is a matter of perception.
You know these movies where you see flowers grow and clouds move across the sky? Well, if our perception were different that's how we'd see change around us. The mountains are moving, going up and down, reforming and dissolving, but too slow for us human beings to perceive. But it's all happening within this Aka field. Because it is both... it holds a pattern and it's constantly changing. A kind of a metaphor example would be like a wave on the ocean. The wave has no physical substance itself, and it maintains a pattern, but it's also constantly changing.
Kelly: Now Aka is different from say Mana in the Eastern tradition.
Serge: Oh yeah. Well, Mana is a Hawaiian word, but Mana is very misunderstood. Mana means influence, or power in the sense of influence. Authority has Mana, and sometimes the word Mana is translated as authority. It does not mean energy, although energy can have Mana. To give you an example, different trees of the same kind can have different Mana. So some trees radiate a stronger influence than other trees. People are the same way. The amount of money you have is determined by the amount of influence you have. Everybody can increase their Mana in various ways, and everybody has a certain amount regardless, every thing does. But Mana is the influence you have within yourself, and the world around you. You can increase it by increasing energy, you can increase it by increasing confidence, increasing focus, increasing symbolic things that other people perceive as having Mana.
For instance, the President of the United States has a tremendous amount of Mana, but only while he's president. The day after he's President he loses most of his Mana, because it's borrowed Mana. Money has Mana, but only to the degree that people give it Mana. It has a lot of authority, but again not with everybody. It depends on how they think about it, and how they use it. Money sitting in a drawer doesn't have hardly any Mana at all, unless it makes you feel good. But then that's more symbolic Mana.
Kelly Howell: I always thought of Mana as a substance, as a spiritual substance, an energy.
Serge: I know. Many people think that way because many anthropologists have written about it that way, but that's a great misunderstanding.
Kelly: OK.
Serge: It does come from Hawaiian, even though it's applied in other cultures...
Kelly: Many other cultures.
Serge: ...but it's applied with misunderstanding.
Kelly: Yeah, yeah. Well back to Aka then. Could you tell us about how to create an Aka thought form, and what kind of results you've seen from this method?
Serge: Well, actually a thought form is going to be created out of the Aka. OK?
Kelly: You use Aka to create the thought form.
Serge: What's that? OK, let's think of this in terms of a field. OK? All right. And let's just say it's your field, your Aka field. There's no limit to that, it's infinite. And in this infinite field it's your pattern. So when you imagine a thought of something outside of you that becomes a thought form, and when it's not visible to other people we say it's made out of Aka. But the more energy you put into that thought, then the more effect it has, the more Mana it gets. Let me give you an example.
Kelly: Yeah, and example would be great.
Serge: An example would be good. A very simple example. I was being disturbed night after night by our cat. And it would come into the room at night and walk across my face, back and forth because it wanted to be let out.
Kelly: And because it had a lot of Mana. [laughs 30:20]
Serge: It had a lot of Mana, that's right. It was able to wake me up. And I didn't want it to do that anymore. But I remember one night, and I knew it was coming toward the bedroom, and I didn't want to get up. So I created a wall, our bedroom door was open, but I created a wall right there. A very strong externalized image of a wall at the door.
Kelly: And how long did you spend doing that?
Serge: Oh well, since I've had practice I didn't have to spend long. The main thing was I did it with emotion and vivid...
Kelly: Imagery.
Serge: Imagery... sensory imagery. OK? It can't be just an intellectual thing in your mind, that won't do it. So I had the wall there, very realistic in my mind. But realistic enough and energized enough so that the cat came up to the door, and stopped and sat down, and finally turned and walked away.
Kelly: Now tell me, what kind of feeling did you infuse that imagery with?
Serge: Wall. Wallness is the best thing I can describe.
Kelly: Wallness. [laughs 31:27] Barricadeness. [laughs 31:30]
Serge: Yes.
Kelly: OK. But so, the pleasure that you felt, did you have to feel any kind?
Serge: Oh no. I didn't have to do pleasure for that.
Kelly: OK.
Serge: Right. No. I just had to do vivid intent.
Kelly: That's great.
Serge: Yeah, so you imagine. And there are a lot of ways we do this beneficially. One time when I was ill with the flu, which I don't get anymore, but at that time I still did. Why, I created a thought form, now see this means not having a mental image but externalizing it out into the space around us, of a machine from the future, manned by scientists from the future, with a big ray gun pointed at my chest dissolving the flu. And that took about 10 minutes and my flu was gone.
Kelly: That's amazing!
Serge: So, there's so many variations of what you can do.
Kelly: You keep saying this is something outside, so it's not internalized.
Serge: No, it's externalized.
Kelly: Interesting.
Serge: Have you ever watched a mime?
Kelly: Yeah.
Serge: OK. So that's what you're seeing, is an externalized thought form. And you're responding to it. So the mime picks a flower and puts it in his lapel, or opens a door, or walks downstairs, or washes windows. The mime is externalizing a thought form, and reacting to his own externalized thought form so well that you are reacting to it also.
Kelly: How does the Hawaiian healing technique of Kahi work?
Serge: Well, Kahi is a technique I learned from my Hawaiian auntie. It comes from a special type of massage that works on the skin only. And the way it's described in "Urban Shaman" is a very simple way, and I go through it in much thorough detail in another book. But in "Urban Shaman" basically you put your hands on a person. Let's say on a... what we call a power point, an energy point and the place that's sore or hurting. And as I recall the way I described it in "Urban Shaman", then you keep your attention on both of them at the same time, and you inhale with your attention on... There's several ways. You can inhale with your attention on your naval, exhale with your attention on where you're holding the points. And there are other variations. But basically you are causing waves of energy to go back and forth, and this produces a release of tension between the points that you're holding. I know it sounds a lot more complicated than it really is. But there's a whole massage system that that's part of.
Kelly: And it works.
Serge: Oh, it works beautifully. And it can be done with clothes or without clothes, standing, sitting, lying down. But it works on the skin. My auntie used to say that you can relax the bones through the skin. And it doesn't mean pressing, it's a very light touch.
Kelly: Could you describe what grokking is, and how it is done?
Serge: Oh sure. Grokking is a term that I borrowed from Robert Heinlein, the Science Fiction writer. Who first came out with that in 1961 in his book "Stranger In A Strange Land". And so grokking was a term used to describe a process that was done by a young human who was raised on Mars. Well, it's the only word I found in English, and it is in the English dictionary now. But it's the only word I found in English that actually describes the Shamanic process I was taught. The process that I was taught is something similar to what people have described as shapeshifting, or shapechanging, but that's only a very small portion of grokking. In Groking what you're doing is identifying with something, completely or partially, but only to the point where you can still influence it. As an example we see examples of Groking, a close equivalent in method acting. Where the actor becomes the character. And as the character, influences the character. So that's a close equivalent.
But in a shamanic sense, one of the deepest ways to understand a tree is to 'grok' it. And that means to become one with it we say, as kind of a metaphor never more than 99%. Because if you go 100%, you're the tree, if you go 99%, you can influence it.
Kelly: So could you give us a practical example of how we would use 'grokking', and what the benefits of it would be, or what the applications could be?
Serge: Let's take the example of 'grokking' a human being. You have to be very confident to do this. But one way to help heal somebody is to with your best imagination and guidance identify with them, and become that person. And then, with your shamanic or healing knowledge, as that person, heal yourself. A friend of mine used to do it differently. He would 'grok' somebody who was sick and become that person, in himself, where he was. And then, he'd go out to an amusement park and have fun, and there would be a healing effect on the person he was helping...
Kelly: I like that.
Serge: ...As long as he was able to maintain that identity. Because everything's connected, remember?
Kelly: Uhhuh.
Serge: So that if I'm connected to you, and then I change myself while I'm still having that connection in a direction your 'Ku', your subconscious wants to go, you'll follow along.
Kelly: And do you recommend doing this with permission of the person?
Serge: Permission is a very important thing. And so, the one failsafe rule is: When in doubt, ask permission. You can't go wrong with that.
Kelly: Yeah, because I don't want somebody 'grokking' me unless I know it.
Serge: You're broadcasting yourself all over the universe right now.
Kelly: I know.
Serge: What they're doing is 'grokking' that pattern that you're broadcasting.
Kelly: [laughs 38:31]
Serge: If you have any doubts about what you are doing, whether it's right or ethical or proper, then always ask permission.
Kelly: OK. Tell us about 'Kimana'.
Serge: Well here we've combined two words: 'ki' and 'mana'. Now remember, 'mana' is 'influence'. And I also said that one of the ways to influence is with energy. So 'Kimana' is that influencing with energy. 'Ki' in Hawaiian is very similar to the 'ki' in Japanese, or the 'chi' in Chinese. So you direct the energy with your imagination to increase, to move, to flow. You build it up in yourself first, and then with your knowledge and intention, you move it to help another person, to help a tree, to influence a situation in a more positive way. And the doing of this is what we call 'Kimana', using energy and mana.
Kelly: And how about 'Nalu'?
Serge: 'Nalu' is like the passive meditation that I mentioned.
Kelly: And is it different from passive meditation, or is that what it is?
Serge: It's basically passive meditation. The word means 'wave', and it has meanings in its roots that mean 'quiet togetherness'. So you're becoming together with something.
Kelly: In 'Nalu', you're harmonizing with a specific energy.
Serge: That's right.
Kelly: OK.
Serge: That's a good way to put it.
Kelly: OK. How does Hawaiian shamanism help promote global transformation?
Serge: Well by helping other people to realize that they have these same abilities, and that they are common to the human race. And there are more ways to help people that just facetoface and with physical means. We can help with our emotions, with our energy, with our minds. There are so many ways to help the situation around the world that do no cost anything to apply, and yet can provide tremendous help, and the more people who can learn these ways, even if they come from out of a shamanic tradition, people do not have to become shamans to use them. Because at one time, this was the way societies worked, the shaman was a specialist, but everybody could do these things in some form or another. Well, we're bringing that back, the shamanic ideas back into the places where people live, which is in urban environments today, for the most part, all around the world.
Kelly: And your books are very generous in your teachings and practices that I was very moved by them.
Serge: We believe very strongly that we need to do more than just tell people to do good and be good, we need to show them ways to do that.
Kelly: Mm. Now you teach people. Tell us about your workshops.
Serge: Well, I do workshops in Hawaii and outside of Hawaii. We have one coming up next week here in Hawaii where, it's called Hulaquest, and it's for personal development. Oour classes take place outdoors in various locations, the mountains, the ocean. And we're teach people different ways to work with their mind and their body and their spirit for personal transformation. I also teach workshops... we have several different kinds. We have, on our staff, people who teach Hawaiian massage.
Kelly: Kahi? Do they teach Kahi?
Serge: Kahi is part of what they teach, they also teach some traditional Lomi Lomi, they teach Hula as a healing art. And then I teach different workshops, I'm teaching on this fall in Germany called Changing Reality, and I'm teaching one that has to do with four specific healing techniques in Vienna called Hunatherapy. So I go around the world teaching, and I write the books, and then we bring people here in Hawaii too.
Kelly: Do you have anything planned for the states?
Serge: Not at the present time. And these days, I go where I'm invited.
Kelly: OK.
Serge: So I don't have to go and solicit workshops anymore. I just don't happen to have a stateside invitation at the moment.
Kelly: Oh, well we'll have to get you one. I hope somebody listening to this show invites you, especially in Santa Fe. [laughs 43:25]
Serge: Sure.
Kelly: What's your website?
Serge: Website is www.huna.org. And it's a pretty massive websites. We have a huge... we divide it into what we call huts, which are pages with subpages. And so we have a large library hut. We have areas for healing and sending healing, receiving healing. We have a tremendous amount of information that people can tap into, healing techniques that they can download. It's a pretty big website, and it's connected to some sister sites like One On, Hawaiian sacred sites that people can visit and psychic phenomenon, things like that.
Kelly: Great. Well this has been very wonderful having you on the show.
Serge: Oh, it's been a pleasure for me.
Kelly: I've enjoyed it immensely.
Serge: Thank you. Aloha.
Kelly: Aloha!