zero limits 6 :I Love You
You cannot be denied anything that is perfect,
whole,complete, and right for you when you are
your Self first. Being your Self first you
automatically experience perfection in the way of
Divine Thoughts,Words, Deeds, and Actions.
Allowing your toxic thoughts to be first, you
automatically experience imperfection in the way
of disease,confusion, resentment, depression,
judgment, and poverty.
—Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len
I absorbed Dr. Hew Len’s message as best I could,
but there was so much more I wanted and needed
to learn. I’ve always been good at being a sponge
and “getting” the ideas by just allowing myself to
be open to them.As I sat in this first event, I
began to feel that my sole job in life is to say “I
love you” to anything that came my way, whether
I saw it as good or bad.The more I could dissolve
the limiting programs I saw or felt, the more I
could achieve the state of zero limits and bring
peace to the planet through me.
Mark had a little more trouble grasping the
message of the seminar. He kept wanting to put it
into a logical framework. It was becoming clear
to me that the mind doesn’t have any idea what is
going on, so trying to find a logical explanation
was in itself a recipe for failure.
Dr. Hew Len repeatedly stressed that there are 15
bits available to the conscious mind but 15
million bits happening in any one moment. We
don’t have a chance of understanding all the
elements at play in our lives.We must let go.We
must trust.
I admit that much of this was sounding insane. At
one point in the event a gentleman said he saw a
portal open in a wall and dead people float through it.
“Do you know why you are seeing that?” Dr. Hew
Len asked.
“Because we had talked about spirits earlier,”
someone said.
“Exactly,” Dr. Hew Len acknowledged. “You
attracted them by talking about them.You don’t
want to look into other worlds.You have enough
to do to stay in this moment in this world.”
I didn’t see any spooks. I didn’t know what to
make of those who did. I liked the movie
The Sixth Sense, but as a movie. I didn’t want
spirits showing up and talking to me.
Apparently this is normal for Dr. Hew Len,
however. He told the story of working at the
mental hospital and hearing toilets flush at
midnight—all by themselves.
“The place was filled with spirits,” he said. “Many
patients died in the ward in previous years but
didn’t know they were dead.They were still there.”
Still there using the bathroom?
Apparently so.
But if that weren’t odd enough, Dr. Hew Len went
on to explain that if you ever talk to someone and
notice their eyes are almost all white with a cloudy
film around the edges, then they are possessed.
“Don’t even try to talk to them,” he advised.
“Instead, just clean yourself and hope your
clearing will remove the darkness taking them over.”
I’m a pretty open-minded guy, but this talk of
spirits and possessed souls and ghosts who use the
toilet at night was a bit much for even me. Still, I
hung in there. I wanted to know the ultimate
secrets to healing so I could help myself and
others to wealth, health, and happiness. I just
never expected I’d have to walk through the
invisible world and enter the twilight zone to get
there.
At another point in the event we were lying on the
floor doing exercises to open the energy in our
bodies. Dr. Hew Len called me to him.
“When I look at this person, I see all the starvation
in Sri Lanka,” he told me.
I looked at her but only saw a woman stretching
on a carpet.
“We have so much to clean,” Dr. Hew Len said.
Despite my confusion, I did my best to practice
what I understood.The easiest thing to do was
simply say “I love you” all the time. So I did.
When I went to the bathroom one evening, I felt
the beginning of a urinary tract infection. I said
“I love you” to the Divine while sensing the
infection. I soon forgot about it and by morning
it was gone.
I continued to say “I love you” mentally,
repeatedly, no matter what was happening, good,
bad, or different. I was trying to do my best to
anything in the moment, whether I was aware of
it or not. Let me give you a quick example of how
this works:
One day someone sent me an e-mail that upset
me. In the past I would handle it by working on
my emotional hot buttons or by trying to reason
with the person who sent the nasty message.This
time I decided to try Dr. Hew Len’s method.
I kept silently saying “I’m sorry” and “I love you.”
I didn’t say it to anyone in particular. I was simply
evoking the spirit of love to heal within me what
was creating or attracting the outer circumstance.
Within an hour I got another e-mail from the same
person. He apologized for his previous message.
Keep in mind I didn’t take any outward action to
get that apology. I didn’t even write him back.Yet
by saying “I love you,” I somehow healed within
me the limiting hidden program that we were both
participating in.
Doing this process doesn’t always mean instant
results.The idea isn’t to achieve results, but to
achieve peace.When you do that, you often get
the results you wanted in the first place.
For example, one day one of my employees
disappeared on me. He was supposed to get some
work done on an important project with an urgent.
Not only did he not finish, but he seemed to
vanish from the planet.
I didn’t take this very well. Though by then I knew
Dr. Hew Len’s method, I found it hard to say “I
love you” when all I wanted to say was “I want
to kill you.” Whenever I thought of my employee,
I felt rage.
Still, I kept saying “I love you” and “Please forgive
me” and “I’m sorry.” I wasn’t saying it to anyone.
I was saying it to say it. I certainly didn’t feel love.
In truth, it took me three days of doing this process
before I got anywhere near a point of peace within
myself.
And that’s when my employee surfaced.
He was in prison. He called to ask for help. I gave
it, and I continued to practice “I love you” as I
dealt with him.While I didn’t see instant results,
my finding inner peace was enough of a result to
me happy. And somehow, at that point, my
employee felt it, too.That’s when he asked a
jailer to use the phone, and he called me. Once I
had him on the phone, I was able to get the
answers I needed to complete my urgent project.
When I attended that first ho’oponopono workshop
run by Dr. Hew Len, he praised my book, The
Attractor Factor. He told me that as I clean myself,
my book’s vibration will raise and everyone will
feel it when they read it. In short, as I improved,
my readers would improve.
“What about the books that are already sold and
out there?” I asked. My book had been a best
seller and gone through numerous editions, and
was coming out in paperback. I worried about all
the people who already had copies of my book.
“Those books aren’t out there,” he explained,
once again blowing my mind with his mystic
wisdom.“They are still in you.”
In short, there is no “out there.”
It would take a whole book to explain this
advanced technique with the depth it deserves—
which is why I am writing this one with Dr. Hew
Len’s consent. Suffice it to say that whenever you
want to improve anything in your life, from
finances to relationships, there’s only one place
to look: inside yourself.
Not everyone at the event grasped what Dr. Hew
Len was talking about. Near the end of the final
day, they started bombarding him with questions,
all from the logical side of the mind, such as:
“How can my cleaning affect another person?”
“Where is free will in all of this?”
“Why are so many terrorists attacking us?”
Dr. Hew Len was quiet. He seemed to look right
at me, and I sat in the back of the room. He
looked frustrated. Considering that his entire
message was about there being no “out there,”
that it’s all inside you, he probably felt that
everyone’s lack of understanding reflected his
own lack of understanding. He looked like he was
going to sigh. I can only imagine that he was
saying within himself, “I’m sorry. I love you.”
I noticed that many people at the event had
Hawaiian names, yet didn’t look Hawaiian. Mark
and I asked them about it.We were told that if you
felt the urge, Dr. Hew Len could give you a new
name.The idea was to identify with a new self on
the way to having no self and merging with
Divinity at zero.
I knew the power of a new name. Back in 1979 I
became Swami Anand Manjushri. It was a name
given to me by my teacher at the time, Bhagwan
Shree Rajneesh. At that time in my life, when I
was still struggling with my past, contending
with poverty, and searching for meaning, the
name helped me start fresh. I used the name for
seven years. It was natural to wonder if Dr. Hew
Len would or could give me a new name.
When I asked him about it, he said he checks in
with Divinity.When he feels inspired, he says
what he gets.A month or so after that first ,
he wrote me:
Joe:
I saw a cloud come up in my mind the other day. It
began a transformation of its self, churning slowly
into soft, soft yellow. It then stretched its self out
like a child upon waking into invisibility. From the
invisibility the name Ao akua, “Godly,” surfaced.
I received this quotation as part of an e-mail
message today:
“O Lord that lends me life, lend me a heart
replete with thankfulness.”
I wish you Peace beyond all understanding.
Peace of I,
Ihaleakala
I loved the name Ao Akua, but I had no idea how
to pronounce it. So I wrote and asked for help.
Here’s what he wrote back:
Joe:
A is the sound for the letter a in father.
O is the sound for the letter in Oh.
K is the sound as in kitchen.
U is the sound as in blue.
Peace of I,
Ihaleakala
I was able to figure it out and enjoyed my new
name. I never used it in public, but I did when
to Dr. Hew Len. Later, when I began my blog
online at www.JoeVitale.com, I would sign off
using “Ao Akua.” Very few people questioned it.
I loved it, though, because it felt like I was asking
Divinity to clean my blog by using a phrase that
meant, to me, the parting of the clouds to see God.
While the weekend training installed “I love you”
in my head, at least temporarily, I wanted more.
I wrote and asked Dr. Hew Len if he would come
to Texas and talk about ho’oponopono to a small
group of friends. This was my plan to have more
of him to myself. He would fly to Texas for a
small talk, and stay with me.While he was with,
I’d pick his brains about what he knows,
including how he healed that entire ward of
mentally ill criminals. Dr. Hew Len agreed and
wrote the following to me:
Joe:
Thank you for taking the time to call me. You
didn’t have to and you did. I am grateful.
I would like to propose to you an interview
“format” for the informal visit in Austin in.
Perhaps the backdrop for the interview could
be a kind of survey of problem solving
approaches that you covered in your book,
Adventures Within: Confessions of an
InnerWorld Journalist. I see you being
more than the interviewer and me
more than the interviewee in this arrangement.
Clarity is so important in conveying information,
be it in whatever art form it takes. For example,
there is much fuzziness as to what a problem is,
less its cause. How does one solve a problem
when one might be unclear about it? Where is
the problem to be found to be processed? In the
Mind? What’s that? Or in the Body (where most
put their bets)? Or both? Perhaps it’s not in any
of these venues.
There’s even the question of who or what does the
problem solving. As you mentioned in your book,
it is difficult to keep judgment at bay even as one
attempts to problem solve using such methods as
the Option or Forum. Are judgments or beliefs
the real problem? Let the real problem stand up
all to see.
The informal interview would not be about good or
bad, right or wrong methods or concepts. It would
be a way of teasing out recurrent unclarity. You
and I would provide a tremendous service if we
cleared the waters only one iota.
Of course, each moment carries its own peculiar
rhythms and tides. In the end, as Brutus says
(paraphrasing) in Shakespeare’s play Julius
Caesar, “We will have to wait till the end of the
day to see how it all turns out.” And so will we.
Tell me your thoughts about the proposed
interview arrangement. I am not married to it as
Brutus to the end.
Peace,
Ihaleakala
I quickly announced a private dinner with Dr. Hew
Len and myself. I thought five or six people might
show up. Instead, almost 100 people showed.
And 75 people paid for a nice dinner to reserve
their spot at the table.
Dr. Hew Len surprised me by asking for a list of
everyone who would attend the event. He wanted
to clean on them. I wasn’t sure what that meant,
but I sent him the list. He wrote back, saying:
Thank you for the list, Ao Akua.
It’s only about cleansing, the chance to get clear
of stuff and to be clear with God.
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms Divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.
Peace be with you,
Ihaleakala
When Dr. Hew Len arrived in Austin and I picked
him up, he immediately started asking me
questions about my life.
“The book you wrote about your life (referring to
Adventures Within) shows you did a wide variety
of things to find peace,” he began.“Which one
really works?”
I thought about it and said they all had value but
maybe the Option Process was the most useful
and reliable. I explained it’s a way to question
beliefs to find out what is real.
“When you question beliefs, what are you left with?”
“What are you left with?” I repeated.
“You’re left with a clarity about choice.”
“Where’s that clarity coming from?” he asked.
I wasn’t sure what he was getting at.
“Why can a person be wealthy and still be an
ass?” he suddenly asked me.
I was taken by surprise with the question. I wanted
to explain that wealth and “ass” aren’t exclusive.
There’s nothing written that says only angels are
wealthy. Maybe the obnoxious person is clear
about money, so he can be wealthy and still be a
cuss. But I couldn’t find the words in the moment.
“I have no idea,” I confessed.“I don’t think you
have to change your personality to be wealthy.
You just have to have beliefs that accept wealth.”
“Where do those beliefs come from?” he asked.
Having been in his training, I knew enough to
answer,“They are programs people pick up from.”
He again changed the subject by saying I am truly
a hypnotic writer. He was beginning to entertain
the idea of a book by me about ho’oponopono.
“Are you ready for me to write the book now?” I asked.
“Let’s see how the weekend goes,” he said.
“Speaking of that, how are we doing this dinner?”
I asked. I’ve always wanted to control the situation
to be sure I do well and people get what they want.
“I never plan,” he said.“I trust Divinity.”
“But are you going to speak first, or me, or what?
And do you have an introduction you want me
to read for you?”
“We’ll see,” he said. “Don’t plan.”
This made me uncomfortable. I like to know
what’s expected of me. Dr. Hew Len was pushing
me into the darkness. Or maybe to the light. I
wasn’t sure at that time. He went on to say
something more wise than I knew at the time:
“What we humans are unaware of in our moment-
to-moment existence is a constant, incessant
resistance to life,” he began. “This resistance
keeps us in a constant, incessant state of
displacement from our Self I-Dentity and from
Freedom, Inspiration, and above all else the
Divine Creator itself. Simply put, we are
displaced people wandering aimlessly in the
desert of our minds. We are unable to heed
the precept of Jesus Christ,‘Resist not.’We are
not aware of another precept,‘Peace begins with me.’
“Resistance keeps us in a constant state of anxiety
and spiritual, mental, physical, financial, and
material impoverishment,” he added.
“Unlike Shakespeare, we are unaware that we are
in a constant state of resistance instead of flow.
For each bit of consciousness we experience at
least one million bits unconsciously. And the one
bit is useless for our salvation.”
This was going to be one fascinating evening.
He asked to see the room where we would be
holding the dinner. It was a huge ballroom on the
top floor of a downtown Austin,Texas, hotel.The
manager was polite and let us into the room. Dr.
Hew Len asked if we could be alone in it. She
agreed and left.
“What do you notice?” he asked me.
I looked around and said,“The carpet needs to be cleaned.”
“What impressions do you get?” he asked.
“There’s no right or wrong.What you get may not
be what I get.”
I allowed myself to relax and focus on the
moment. Suddenly I sensed a lot of traffic, a
weariness, a darkness. I wasn’t sure what it was
or what it meant, but I voiced it to Dr. Hew Len.
“The room is tired,” he said.“People come in and
out and never love it. It needs acknowledgment.”
I thought that was a little strange.A room is like a
person? It has feelings?
Well, whatever.
“This room says its name is Sheila.”
“Sheila? That’s the room’s name?”
“Sheila wants to know we appreciate her.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
“We need to ask permission to have our event
here,” he said.“So I’m asking Sheila if it is okay with her.”
“What is she saying?” I asked, feeling a little
foolish asking the question.
“She says it is okay.”
“Well, that’s good,” I replied, remembering that
my deposit on the room was nonrefundable.
He went on to explain, “I was in an auditorium
once getting ready to do a lecture, and I was
talking to the chairs. I asked,‘Is there anybody
I’ve missed? Does anyone have a problem that
I need to take care of?’ One of the chairs said,
‘You know, there was a guy sitting on me today
during a previous seminar who had financial
problems, and now I just feel dead!’ So I cleaned
with that problem, and I could just see the chair
straightening up. Then I heard, ‘Okay! I’m ready
to handle the next guy!’ ”
He’s talking to chairs now?
Somehow I left my mind open to hear more about
this unusual process of his. He went on to explain:
“What I actually try to do is teach the room. I say
to the room and everything in it, ‘Do you want to
learn how to do Ho’oponopono? After all, I’m
going to leave soon.Wouldn’t it be nice if you
could do this work for yourselves?’ Some say yes,
some say no, and some say,‘I’m too tired!’ ”
I remembered that many ancient cultures
regarded everything as alive. In the book Clearing,
Jim PathFinder Ewing explains that places often
have stuck energies. It shouldn’t be too crazy to
imagine rooms and chairs having feelings. It
certainly a mind-expanding thought. If physics
is right, that there is nothing but energy making
up what we perceive to be solid, then talking to
rooms and chairs just might be a way to
rearrange that energy in some new, cleaner form.
But chairs and rooms talking back?
I wasn’t quite ready for that at that time.
Dr. Hew Len looked out the window at the
downtown skyline.The huge buildings, the state
capitol, the horizon looked beautiful to me.
But not to Dr. Hew Len.
“I see headstones,” he said.“The city is full of the dead.”
I looked out the window. I didn’t see graves. Or
death. I saw a city. Again, I was learning that Dr.
Hew Len used both sides of his brain in each
moment, so he could see structures as metaphors
and speak them as he saw them. Not me, though.
I was just asleep in my shoes, with my eyes open.
We stayed in the hotel room for maybe 30
minutes. As far as I could tell, Dr. Hew Len
walked around cleaning the room, asking for
forgiveness, loving Sheila, and cleaning,
cleaning, cleaning.
At one point he made a phone call. He told the
person on the other end where he was,
described it, and invited her impressions. He
seemed to get confirmation about his own
impressions. After he hung up, we sat at a
table and talked.
“My friend says this room will let us do our dinner
here as long as we love it,” he told me.
“How do we love it?”
“Just say ‘I love you’ to it,” he answered.
It seemed silly. Say “I love you” to a room? But I
did my best. I had previously learned that you
don’t have to actually feel “I love you” for it to
work; you just had to say it. So say it I did.After
you say it a few times, you begin to actually feel it.
After a few minutes of silence, Dr. Hew Len spoke
more words of wisdom:
“What we individually hold, memories or
inspirations, have an immediate and absolute
impact on everything from humanity to the
mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms,”
he said.“When a memory is converted to zero
by Divinity in one subconscious mind, it is
converted to zero in all subconscious minds
—in all of them!”
He paused before continuing:
“So, what happens in your soul moment to
moment, Joseph, happens in all souls at the
moment. How wonderful to realize this.
More wonderful, however, is appreciating
that you can appeal to the Divine Creator
to cancel these memories in your
subconscious mind to zero and to replace
them in your soul and the souls of all
with Divinity’s thoughts, words, deeds,
and actions.”
How do you reply to that?
All I could think was,“I love you.”
You cannot be denied anything that is perfect,
whole,complete, and right for you when you are
your Self first. Being your Self first you
automatically experience perfection in the way of
Divine Thoughts,Words, Deeds, and Actions.
Allowing your toxic thoughts to be first, you
automatically experience imperfection in the way
of disease,confusion, resentment, depression,
judgment, and poverty.
—Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len
I absorbed Dr. Hew Len’s message as best I could,
but there was so much more I wanted and needed
to learn. I’ve always been good at being a sponge
and “getting” the ideas by just allowing myself to
be open to them.As I sat in this first event, I
began to feel that my sole job in life is to say “I
love you” to anything that came my way, whether
I saw it as good or bad.The more I could dissolve
the limiting programs I saw or felt, the more I
could achieve the state of zero limits and bring
peace to the planet through me.
Mark had a little more trouble grasping the
message of the seminar. He kept wanting to put it
into a logical framework. It was becoming clear
to me that the mind doesn’t have any idea what is
going on, so trying to find a logical explanation
was in itself a recipe for failure.
Dr. Hew Len repeatedly stressed that there are 15
bits available to the conscious mind but 15
million bits happening in any one moment. We
don’t have a chance of understanding all the
elements at play in our lives.We must let go.We
must trust.
I admit that much of this was sounding insane. At
one point in the event a gentleman said he saw a
portal open in a wall and dead people float through it.
“Do you know why you are seeing that?” Dr. Hew
Len asked.
“Because we had talked about spirits earlier,”
someone said.
“Exactly,” Dr. Hew Len acknowledged. “You
attracted them by talking about them.You don’t
want to look into other worlds.You have enough
to do to stay in this moment in this world.”
I didn’t see any spooks. I didn’t know what to
make of those who did. I liked the movie
The Sixth Sense, but as a movie. I didn’t want
spirits showing up and talking to me.
Apparently this is normal for Dr. Hew Len,
however. He told the story of working at the
mental hospital and hearing toilets flush at
midnight—all by themselves.
“The place was filled with spirits,” he said. “Many
patients died in the ward in previous years but
didn’t know they were dead.They were still there.”
Still there using the bathroom?
Apparently so.
But if that weren’t odd enough, Dr. Hew Len went
on to explain that if you ever talk to someone and
notice their eyes are almost all white with a cloudy
film around the edges, then they are possessed.
“Don’t even try to talk to them,” he advised.
“Instead, just clean yourself and hope your
clearing will remove the darkness taking them over.”
I’m a pretty open-minded guy, but this talk of
spirits and possessed souls and ghosts who use the
toilet at night was a bit much for even me. Still, I
hung in there. I wanted to know the ultimate
secrets to healing so I could help myself and
others to wealth, health, and happiness. I just
never expected I’d have to walk through the
invisible world and enter the twilight zone to get
there.
At another point in the event we were lying on the
floor doing exercises to open the energy in our
bodies. Dr. Hew Len called me to him.
“When I look at this person, I see all the starvation
in Sri Lanka,” he told me.
I looked at her but only saw a woman stretching
on a carpet.
“We have so much to clean,” Dr. Hew Len said.
Despite my confusion, I did my best to practice
what I understood.The easiest thing to do was
simply say “I love you” all the time. So I did.
When I went to the bathroom one evening, I felt
the beginning of a urinary tract infection. I said
“I love you” to the Divine while sensing the
infection. I soon forgot about it and by morning
it was gone.
I continued to say “I love you” mentally,
repeatedly, no matter what was happening, good,
bad, or different. I was trying to do my best to
anything in the moment, whether I was aware of
it or not. Let me give you a quick example of how
this works:
One day someone sent me an e-mail that upset
me. In the past I would handle it by working on
my emotional hot buttons or by trying to reason
with the person who sent the nasty message.This
time I decided to try Dr. Hew Len’s method.
I kept silently saying “I’m sorry” and “I love you.”
I didn’t say it to anyone in particular. I was simply
evoking the spirit of love to heal within me what
was creating or attracting the outer circumstance.
Within an hour I got another e-mail from the same
person. He apologized for his previous message.
Keep in mind I didn’t take any outward action to
get that apology. I didn’t even write him back.Yet
by saying “I love you,” I somehow healed within
me the limiting hidden program that we were both
participating in.
Doing this process doesn’t always mean instant
results.The idea isn’t to achieve results, but to
achieve peace.When you do that, you often get
the results you wanted in the first place.
For example, one day one of my employees
disappeared on me. He was supposed to get some
work done on an important project with an urgent.
Not only did he not finish, but he seemed to
vanish from the planet.
I didn’t take this very well. Though by then I knew
Dr. Hew Len’s method, I found it hard to say “I
love you” when all I wanted to say was “I want
to kill you.” Whenever I thought of my employee,
I felt rage.
Still, I kept saying “I love you” and “Please forgive
me” and “I’m sorry.” I wasn’t saying it to anyone.
I was saying it to say it. I certainly didn’t feel love.
In truth, it took me three days of doing this process
before I got anywhere near a point of peace within
myself.
And that’s when my employee surfaced.
He was in prison. He called to ask for help. I gave
it, and I continued to practice “I love you” as I
dealt with him.While I didn’t see instant results,
my finding inner peace was enough of a result to
me happy. And somehow, at that point, my
employee felt it, too.That’s when he asked a
jailer to use the phone, and he called me. Once I
had him on the phone, I was able to get the
answers I needed to complete my urgent project.
When I attended that first ho’oponopono workshop
run by Dr. Hew Len, he praised my book, The
Attractor Factor. He told me that as I clean myself,
my book’s vibration will raise and everyone will
feel it when they read it. In short, as I improved,
my readers would improve.
“What about the books that are already sold and
out there?” I asked. My book had been a best
seller and gone through numerous editions, and
was coming out in paperback. I worried about all
the people who already had copies of my book.
“Those books aren’t out there,” he explained,
once again blowing my mind with his mystic
wisdom.“They are still in you.”
In short, there is no “out there.”
It would take a whole book to explain this
advanced technique with the depth it deserves—
which is why I am writing this one with Dr. Hew
Len’s consent. Suffice it to say that whenever you
want to improve anything in your life, from
finances to relationships, there’s only one place
to look: inside yourself.
Not everyone at the event grasped what Dr. Hew
Len was talking about. Near the end of the final
day, they started bombarding him with questions,
all from the logical side of the mind, such as:
“How can my cleaning affect another person?”
“Where is free will in all of this?”
“Why are so many terrorists attacking us?”
Dr. Hew Len was quiet. He seemed to look right
at me, and I sat in the back of the room. He
looked frustrated. Considering that his entire
message was about there being no “out there,”
that it’s all inside you, he probably felt that
everyone’s lack of understanding reflected his
own lack of understanding. He looked like he was
going to sigh. I can only imagine that he was
saying within himself, “I’m sorry. I love you.”
I noticed that many people at the event had
Hawaiian names, yet didn’t look Hawaiian. Mark
and I asked them about it.We were told that if you
felt the urge, Dr. Hew Len could give you a new
name.The idea was to identify with a new self on
the way to having no self and merging with
Divinity at zero.
I knew the power of a new name. Back in 1979 I
became Swami Anand Manjushri. It was a name
given to me by my teacher at the time, Bhagwan
Shree Rajneesh. At that time in my life, when I
was still struggling with my past, contending
with poverty, and searching for meaning, the
name helped me start fresh. I used the name for
seven years. It was natural to wonder if Dr. Hew
Len would or could give me a new name.
When I asked him about it, he said he checks in
with Divinity.When he feels inspired, he says
what he gets.A month or so after that first ,
he wrote me:
Joe:
I saw a cloud come up in my mind the other day. It
began a transformation of its self, churning slowly
into soft, soft yellow. It then stretched its self out
like a child upon waking into invisibility. From the
invisibility the name Ao akua, “Godly,” surfaced.
I received this quotation as part of an e-mail
message today:
“O Lord that lends me life, lend me a heart
replete with thankfulness.”
I wish you Peace beyond all understanding.
Peace of I,
Ihaleakala
I loved the name Ao Akua, but I had no idea how
to pronounce it. So I wrote and asked for help.
Here’s what he wrote back:
Joe:
A is the sound for the letter a in father.
O is the sound for the letter in Oh.
K is the sound as in kitchen.
U is the sound as in blue.
Peace of I,
Ihaleakala
I was able to figure it out and enjoyed my new
name. I never used it in public, but I did when
to Dr. Hew Len. Later, when I began my blog
online at www.JoeVitale.com, I would sign off
using “Ao Akua.” Very few people questioned it.
I loved it, though, because it felt like I was asking
Divinity to clean my blog by using a phrase that
meant, to me, the parting of the clouds to see God.
While the weekend training installed “I love you”
in my head, at least temporarily, I wanted more.
I wrote and asked Dr. Hew Len if he would come
to Texas and talk about ho’oponopono to a small
group of friends. This was my plan to have more
of him to myself. He would fly to Texas for a
small talk, and stay with me.While he was with,
I’d pick his brains about what he knows,
including how he healed that entire ward of
mentally ill criminals. Dr. Hew Len agreed and
wrote the following to me:
Joe:
Thank you for taking the time to call me. You
didn’t have to and you did. I am grateful.
I would like to propose to you an interview
“format” for the informal visit in Austin in.
Perhaps the backdrop for the interview could
be a kind of survey of problem solving
approaches that you covered in your book,
Adventures Within: Confessions of an
InnerWorld Journalist. I see you being
more than the interviewer and me
more than the interviewee in this arrangement.
Clarity is so important in conveying information,
be it in whatever art form it takes. For example,
there is much fuzziness as to what a problem is,
less its cause. How does one solve a problem
when one might be unclear about it? Where is
the problem to be found to be processed? In the
Mind? What’s that? Or in the Body (where most
put their bets)? Or both? Perhaps it’s not in any
of these venues.
There’s even the question of who or what does the
problem solving. As you mentioned in your book,
it is difficult to keep judgment at bay even as one
attempts to problem solve using such methods as
the Option or Forum. Are judgments or beliefs
the real problem? Let the real problem stand up
all to see.
The informal interview would not be about good or
bad, right or wrong methods or concepts. It would
be a way of teasing out recurrent unclarity. You
and I would provide a tremendous service if we
cleared the waters only one iota.
Of course, each moment carries its own peculiar
rhythms and tides. In the end, as Brutus says
(paraphrasing) in Shakespeare’s play Julius
Caesar, “We will have to wait till the end of the
day to see how it all turns out.” And so will we.
Tell me your thoughts about the proposed
interview arrangement. I am not married to it as
Brutus to the end.
Peace,
Ihaleakala
I quickly announced a private dinner with Dr. Hew
Len and myself. I thought five or six people might
show up. Instead, almost 100 people showed.
And 75 people paid for a nice dinner to reserve
their spot at the table.
Dr. Hew Len surprised me by asking for a list of
everyone who would attend the event. He wanted
to clean on them. I wasn’t sure what that meant,
but I sent him the list. He wrote back, saying:
Thank you for the list, Ao Akua.
It’s only about cleansing, the chance to get clear
of stuff and to be clear with God.
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms Divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.
Peace be with you,
Ihaleakala
When Dr. Hew Len arrived in Austin and I picked
him up, he immediately started asking me
questions about my life.
“The book you wrote about your life (referring to
Adventures Within) shows you did a wide variety
of things to find peace,” he began.“Which one
really works?”
I thought about it and said they all had value but
maybe the Option Process was the most useful
and reliable. I explained it’s a way to question
beliefs to find out what is real.
“When you question beliefs, what are you left with?”
“What are you left with?” I repeated.
“You’re left with a clarity about choice.”
“Where’s that clarity coming from?” he asked.
I wasn’t sure what he was getting at.
“Why can a person be wealthy and still be an
ass?” he suddenly asked me.
I was taken by surprise with the question. I wanted
to explain that wealth and “ass” aren’t exclusive.
There’s nothing written that says only angels are
wealthy. Maybe the obnoxious person is clear
about money, so he can be wealthy and still be a
cuss. But I couldn’t find the words in the moment.
“I have no idea,” I confessed.“I don’t think you
have to change your personality to be wealthy.
You just have to have beliefs that accept wealth.”
“Where do those beliefs come from?” he asked.
Having been in his training, I knew enough to
answer,“They are programs people pick up from.”
He again changed the subject by saying I am truly
a hypnotic writer. He was beginning to entertain
the idea of a book by me about ho’oponopono.
“Are you ready for me to write the book now?” I asked.
“Let’s see how the weekend goes,” he said.
“Speaking of that, how are we doing this dinner?”
I asked. I’ve always wanted to control the situation
to be sure I do well and people get what they want.
“I never plan,” he said.“I trust Divinity.”
“But are you going to speak first, or me, or what?
And do you have an introduction you want me
to read for you?”
“We’ll see,” he said. “Don’t plan.”
This made me uncomfortable. I like to know
what’s expected of me. Dr. Hew Len was pushing
me into the darkness. Or maybe to the light. I
wasn’t sure at that time. He went on to say
something more wise than I knew at the time:
“What we humans are unaware of in our moment-
to-moment existence is a constant, incessant
resistance to life,” he began. “This resistance
keeps us in a constant, incessant state of
displacement from our Self I-Dentity and from
Freedom, Inspiration, and above all else the
Divine Creator itself. Simply put, we are
displaced people wandering aimlessly in the
desert of our minds. We are unable to heed
the precept of Jesus Christ,‘Resist not.’We are
not aware of another precept,‘Peace begins with me.’
“Resistance keeps us in a constant state of anxiety
and spiritual, mental, physical, financial, and
material impoverishment,” he added.
“Unlike Shakespeare, we are unaware that we are
in a constant state of resistance instead of flow.
For each bit of consciousness we experience at
least one million bits unconsciously. And the one
bit is useless for our salvation.”
This was going to be one fascinating evening.
He asked to see the room where we would be
holding the dinner. It was a huge ballroom on the
top floor of a downtown Austin,Texas, hotel.The
manager was polite and let us into the room. Dr.
Hew Len asked if we could be alone in it. She
agreed and left.
“What do you notice?” he asked me.
I looked around and said,“The carpet needs to be cleaned.”
“What impressions do you get?” he asked.
“There’s no right or wrong.What you get may not
be what I get.”
I allowed myself to relax and focus on the
moment. Suddenly I sensed a lot of traffic, a
weariness, a darkness. I wasn’t sure what it was
or what it meant, but I voiced it to Dr. Hew Len.
“The room is tired,” he said.“People come in and
out and never love it. It needs acknowledgment.”
I thought that was a little strange.A room is like a
person? It has feelings?
Well, whatever.
“This room says its name is Sheila.”
“Sheila? That’s the room’s name?”
“Sheila wants to know we appreciate her.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
“We need to ask permission to have our event
here,” he said.“So I’m asking Sheila if it is okay with her.”
“What is she saying?” I asked, feeling a little
foolish asking the question.
“She says it is okay.”
“Well, that’s good,” I replied, remembering that
my deposit on the room was nonrefundable.
He went on to explain, “I was in an auditorium
once getting ready to do a lecture, and I was
talking to the chairs. I asked,‘Is there anybody
I’ve missed? Does anyone have a problem that
I need to take care of?’ One of the chairs said,
‘You know, there was a guy sitting on me today
during a previous seminar who had financial
problems, and now I just feel dead!’ So I cleaned
with that problem, and I could just see the chair
straightening up. Then I heard, ‘Okay! I’m ready
to handle the next guy!’ ”
He’s talking to chairs now?
Somehow I left my mind open to hear more about
this unusual process of his. He went on to explain:
“What I actually try to do is teach the room. I say
to the room and everything in it, ‘Do you want to
learn how to do Ho’oponopono? After all, I’m
going to leave soon.Wouldn’t it be nice if you
could do this work for yourselves?’ Some say yes,
some say no, and some say,‘I’m too tired!’ ”
I remembered that many ancient cultures
regarded everything as alive. In the book Clearing,
Jim PathFinder Ewing explains that places often
have stuck energies. It shouldn’t be too crazy to
imagine rooms and chairs having feelings. It
certainly a mind-expanding thought. If physics
is right, that there is nothing but energy making
up what we perceive to be solid, then talking to
rooms and chairs just might be a way to
rearrange that energy in some new, cleaner form.
But chairs and rooms talking back?
I wasn’t quite ready for that at that time.
Dr. Hew Len looked out the window at the
downtown skyline.The huge buildings, the state
capitol, the horizon looked beautiful to me.
But not to Dr. Hew Len.
“I see headstones,” he said.“The city is full of the dead.”
I looked out the window. I didn’t see graves. Or
death. I saw a city. Again, I was learning that Dr.
Hew Len used both sides of his brain in each
moment, so he could see structures as metaphors
and speak them as he saw them. Not me, though.
I was just asleep in my shoes, with my eyes open.
We stayed in the hotel room for maybe 30
minutes. As far as I could tell, Dr. Hew Len
walked around cleaning the room, asking for
forgiveness, loving Sheila, and cleaning,
cleaning, cleaning.
At one point he made a phone call. He told the
person on the other end where he was,
described it, and invited her impressions. He
seemed to get confirmation about his own
impressions. After he hung up, we sat at a
table and talked.
“My friend says this room will let us do our dinner
here as long as we love it,” he told me.
“How do we love it?”
“Just say ‘I love you’ to it,” he answered.
It seemed silly. Say “I love you” to a room? But I
did my best. I had previously learned that you
don’t have to actually feel “I love you” for it to
work; you just had to say it. So say it I did.After
you say it a few times, you begin to actually feel it.
After a few minutes of silence, Dr. Hew Len spoke
more words of wisdom:
“What we individually hold, memories or
inspirations, have an immediate and absolute
impact on everything from humanity to the
mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms,”
he said.“When a memory is converted to zero
by Divinity in one subconscious mind, it is
converted to zero in all subconscious minds
—in all of them!”
He paused before continuing:
“So, what happens in your soul moment to
moment, Joseph, happens in all souls at the
moment. How wonderful to realize this.
More wonderful, however, is appreciating
that you can appeal to the Divine Creator
to cancel these memories in your
subconscious mind to zero and to replace
them in your soul and the souls of all
with Divinity’s thoughts, words, deeds,
and actions.”
How do you reply to that?
All I could think was,“I love you.”
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