- The Three Salvations of Huna -
Max Freedom Long
F.H.F.
The basic premise of all religions is, that man lives for a definite purpose. And this purpose, in brief, is said to be to gain salvation, using that word in its widest sense. Man must be saved from 'sin', from the Wheel of reincarnation, from his low estate. But what is man, and why is he here, and what is the end of growth and evolution, and what means shall we adopt? These are questions which man, as a rational being, must both ask and try to answer. The literature of these answers is enormous, and tho there are elements of agreement, yet Gods and heavens and codes of conduct for earth life differ widely.
Let us put these questions to the Huna, that we may more clearly understand its position among the multiform systems of human thought.
What is Man?
Man under the Huna concepts is an association of three separate and independent spirits or conscious beings, each one being at a different stage of evolution. The subconscious entity (Unihipili) is an animal in an animal body; it has memory and deductive reason of an elementary animal-like sort. The conscious mind entity (Uhane) has no body. It graduated from the animal level in the past, and now lives in the animal body of the subconscious self, and it possesses inductive reason. The Superconscious entity, third of the trinity, has graduated from the conscious mind class, as it did earlier from the subconscious level. Its mentation is neither memory nor reason, but a kind of direct intuitive knowing. It is called AUMAKUA, or "older, more perfectly reliable parental spirit," and is believed to be a male-female duad, in direct contact with the lower body and the two lower entities.
From what is the
man of Huna to
be saved?
Man must be saved from one thing only - the stoppage of growth, of evolution. The subconscious and conscious mind entities must spend the necessary time in their present existing conditions, but must then graduate to higher levels. The Superconsciousness, too, or High Self, is an evolving creature, and must become something still higher. And to this progress there is no thinkable end, but only the unnameable concept of the Godhead.
What is the means
of salvation?
To this question Huna replies: The subconscious self must live its normal and rounded animal life. We repress its basic urges at our peril. But it must also be trained to the ideals and needs of conscious human life. Most importantly, it must be taught to cooperate in the creative processes, the inspirations of genius; this it can do by becoming the clear channel of communication between the consciousness and the High Self. The conscious mind entity must learn to distinguish its own existence from that of the low self, from emotion and memory, and it must learn how to care for and control and teach the subconsciousness. It must also learn of the existence of the High Self and how to make contact with it, and eventually how to attain to its level of [13] super-existence. We do not really know anything about the High Self except by inference from what it does or does not do; but the countless "shalt's" and "shalt-not's" of religious dogma flow from the age-old effort to understand it. (Let us note here, that commands and prohibitions suited to one entity, say to the conscious self, cannot be applied to the other - whence the hopeless confusions and stupidities of dogmas, precepts, moral codes.)
As to means of salvation where the High Self is concerned, our answer must be speculative, yet something can be said. The Kahunas believed that salvation on each level (for each entity consisted in living the life normally expected on that level, a highly logical idea. As to the superconscious entity, it was supposed to act as a guiding intelligence. It was the Nature or Group Soul of Theosophy, as well as the Guardian Angel of Christianity. When a conscious mind entity graduated to the superconscious level, it did not at once take charge of a pair of lower selves in a man and woman, but of lower forms of life, becoming a Nature spirit or group soul, such as those which mysteriously move birds to build nests of a certain type, or to migrate in orderly fashion. The move upward from animal to lesser God was measured in terms of kindliness and love. The animal self knows animal love. The conscious mind self knows a more unselfish love as it shares the emotional loves of the animal self in the body. The Superconscious self knows love in its purest form, the mark of which is service. This high love is thought to be taught through the instincts to the lower forms of life. At least they are seen to respond to it in parental love on the lower planes.
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The Problems:
There we have the three salvations of the kahunas. We have also the various problems presented by them, among the latter being these:
1. Does the doctrine of original sin, in Christianity, come from some earlier knowledge of the Huna belief that Man has in him an animal self as well as a conscious mind self? Was the Christian salvation based on some obscure teaching, whereby some ritual might be performed to awaken the man to the true nature of his three selves and his relation to them, considering him as a conscious mind self? Remembering that the Kahunas had left the Nile or nearby country long before the birth of Jesus, one may ask whether the doctrine of the atonement might have changed the older Huna doctrines. We have our choice of considering Jesus a teacher representing a special dispensation, or of looking upon him and his teaching as emblematic of older and more universal truths. If Jesus represents the conscious mind entity, and his "Father" represents the Superconsciousness (Aumakua) of Huna, then, in the "I and the Father are one" we would have an excellent symbol of the advanced individual at the stage of the graduation of the conscious mind-entity into the level of the superconscious - or, at the very least, of the individual advanced to the point of being able to make contact with the Superconscious and identify himself with it in calling down the healing power. Allowing for the possible changes in the Christ story, there may have been a direct symbolic teaching there at the beginning.
2. Does the doctrine of the Three Selves, and their growth and evolution thru the three levels of consciousness, agree with the doctrines of Karma and Reincarnation? Does the dictum, "as a man soweth so shall he also reap," apply to the three selves in the same degree? If the animal self in us gets beyond the control of the conscious mind and [14] becomes a drunkard, or causes an emotional urge resulting in murder, is the Karma visited on all three selves alike?
Immediately we have before us the problem of what karma a "self" just rising from the dog kingdom, for example, to become a subconscious self (for a conscious self which had in turn just graduated - just what Karma would the new graduate dog-self have? Also, would it share the karma accumulated by the conscious mind self with which it is newly associated, even tho it had never been in contact with the conscious mind self when the latter was subconscious? What would the graduating former conscious mind self retain of the Karma generated before it became a Superconscious?
These are complicated questions. It is also logical to believe that any Law or Power administering Karma would be just enough to refrain from punishing an animal self for transgressing some commandment intended only for the conscious or superconscious. The Kahunas might logically have proposed a separate as well as a combined Karma for the selves. But they seem not to have done so. Also, they might have developed the theory of reincarnation in terms of the three selves as well as in terms of the three as a unit. Here again there is no evidence that they did so. The implication is, that the Karma and reincarnation theories, both less than complete and inclusive, even in India's complex systems, were enlarged beyond all reason in scope and length. Karma and the Lords of Karma who administer it begin to appear as towering dogmas rather than ineffable truths. Reincarnation looms too long and too large for practical use. Several lives in each stage of growth might carry one from the stage of an Australian "Abo" to that of civilized man. Our sense of justice and progression rebels at a thousand lives as an aboriginal, and similar thousands in each of the four castes, as in India. In an event, we should make some adjustment where dogmas are found to show human thumbprints of the makers.
The belief in the High Self appears in some form in all systems. The Christian may call upon it as Jesus Christ, the Mediator with God the Father. Healing or help of any kind may be asked, or wisdom and enlightenment. The same holds for the Kahunas, except that their appeal is directly to the Aumakua, and not thru It to still higher Gods. Thru it the deities presiding over Nature may be reached (similar to reaching the "Father" thru the "Son"), and weather and animal and sea life be more or less controlled.
Only in India has dogma reached the precarious height which make it a barrier cutting off man from the help of the High Self. One may contact the High Self and strive to be assimilated into it (or still higher "Supremes"), but one may not ask to be healed lest he be refusing to suffer and so wear out bad Karma. It stands to reason that if the law of Karma is the actual bugaboo it appears to be in the lores of India, there would be some slight indication of its reaction on those whom the High Selves heal in response to prayer. The Kahunas knew no such reaction. The Christians, including Jesus, recognized nothing of the sort in the days of miracles or in modern times. Nor do psychologists who heal by purely psychological treatment to remove fixations. With Three Salvations instead of one, perhaps the Kahunas can help some of us to hurdle the vastly hindering barrier of Karma, and shorten the dreary stretch of reincarnations.