by Marilyn Muir, LPMAFA
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I first encountered the Ho’oponopono concept from Dr. Nelson Decker in the early 1970’s in Ft Lauderdale, FL. After his death, his wife, Edyne, carried on their work. Because I had just encountered the smorgasbord that is spiritual studies, I did not initially spend enough time on it, but I have come to respect its simplicity and effectiveness.
Ho’oponopono is the Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness. It is broad in scope, but very simple in healing application. There is an excellent, short (three-minute read), basic information page in Wikipedia, which I highly recommend for background information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho%CA%BBoponopono
Ho’oponopono has Polynesian islands culture antecedents: “a person’s errors caused illness” (or difficulty) and through guilt and can be cumulative. Using the simple prayer, the person would accept:
- personal responsibility for all that happened in their life… and more;
- extending their acceptance of responsibility for the lives of their personal grouping (family),
- and ultimately the world as an extension of the self.
Therefore, all that is negative in one’s life influences the whole of one’s life, and by extension, all life. The remedy is personal acceptance and responsibility for all of life and experience. Simple example given: “If a child is sick, the parents are suspected of quarreling or misconduct.” The healing is done by the parents accepting responsibility for their actions that may have created an atmosphere that led to the illness. Once the basic concept is understood, its application extends to all of life and experience.
Because of its simplicity, this is an excellent healing tool for beginners, or those wondering where to begin the healing process. Once quiet, and knowledge of purpose and sincerity is established, the prayer or mantra is repeated multiple times until the sense that it is complete. This process can be repeated as necessary.
The prayer or mantra is: “I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. “
That’s it! So simple! Of course, it must be preceded by the understanding of how the overall concept works, and that may take a little time and effort. A supplicant must understand the underlying acceptance of responsibility of being both the cause and effect of our personal circumstance and experience. Add to that the same underlying acceptance for those in our immediate group (usually the family), but extending out as our social circle enlarges, to the eventual world view that we are all responsible for all of us and for our collective experience! Powerful little prayer once understood, and sincerely of purpose applied.
What an amazing world we would have if we all understood and accepted our individual and our joint responsibilities for our lives and our experiences!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.