The Golden Rule of the Ancient Hawaiian Huna

“What you think you do to others, you actually do to yourself,” was the original Golden Rule according to the ancient Hawaiian Huna masters. It is a powerful statement that is life changing if you learn how to apply it.

People can hide behind the Bible’s Golden Rule if they want to. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” creates confusion and doubt in a world where people don’t all want the same things. Do you give the other what you want from them, or do you give them what they truly want? What if they are sending double messages or don’t even know what they want? How do you know what to give?

We’ve all been around people who practically wear a sign on them saying, “Reject me.” What would we want in that situation? Would we want to know the truth, or would we want people to pretend they don’t see our sign?

What We Hide Hurts Us

This ancient Hawaiian Golden Rule is clearly challenging. It takes us deep into the secret chambers of our mind exposing our subconscious beliefs and intentions. It forces our perspective to change because it holds us in a position of one hundred percent responsibility. There is no place for blame in the Huna Golden Rule.

The Huna Golden Rule rests on the ancient wisdom that what we believe, but hide, we project on to others. Once projected, we perceive that we are separate from the belief. But we are the projector, the cause. The problem exists in our mind, so we must correct our mind to remove the problem.

Others behave as our mirrors when we project our secrets and beliefs.
Just as it does no good to break the mirror if our suit makes us look fat; it also does no good to break the mirror when others reflect our less-than-flattering beliefs. Breaking the mirror allows us to continue to be right, but it doesn’t allow us to be mentally and emotionally free.

The Huna Golden Rule lifts us up into a higher level of consciousness. Once we gain the higher perspective, the Bible’s Golden Rule also makes perfect sense and becomes easier to apply.

In the Beginning…

Projection was masterfully used by ancient Lords and Kings who wanted to rule the masses. They were called dark magicians because they used projection to hypnotize their people into giving over their power. Their powerful, charismatic, and convincing personas hid some very dark, manipulative intentions. But the people saw them as Gods, and they fell into their hypnotic spells and gave them exactly what they wanted.

These leaders glorified themselves while degrading the masses into mortal sinners. The people ignored their own emotional compasses and submissively accepted these dark leaders as gods and prophets who had the inside scoop from the old man in the sky God.

Things have not changed much. We express the dark magician inside when we impose our beliefs on others. We also fall into the blindly obedient follower trap when we don’t look past the surface persona of authority figures. This is where the purity of the Huna Golden Rule shines because it helps us repair both errors.

The Art of Forgiving

In the Huna Golden Rule, the masters or leaders always saw themselves as cause. They realized that their beliefs created their reality. Their followers were part of their reality. If anything in the world occurred that displeased them, they knew that they had a belief that allowed that experience to come into their reality. The effect or problem was used to point the way to the causal belief so they could remove the mote from their own eye.

Once their mind was clear, they knew that the problem could never happen again. They would know their work was finished when they loved their reflection, even if the reflection didn’t love them back. Thus, in their mind, both people returned to the place they were before the giving of the hurt -- or the place of forgiving.

The Huna Golden Rule Works for Everyone

One of the best uses of the Huna Golden Rule is in healing broken hearts. Johnny comes home one day and tells mom and dad that he is gay. Mom and dad tell Johnny that he has ruined their life. Johnny feels terrible because he can’t change his sexual orientation. He feels stuck in a future of guilt and shame.

What really happened? Johnny came home and said that he was gay. That is a simple fact. Mom and dad dislike or judge gay people, which is a belief that they are treating as true. So who has the problem? Not Johnny. Johnny is simply their mirror showing them the belief that they need to let go so that they can stop hurting themselves and Johnny.

Sarah, a southern white girl, falls in love with Ron, a black man. Her parents tell them that they’ve destroyed their lives. Sarah and Ron have done nothing wrong; they just fell in love. They also exposed the hidden prejudice that mom and dad hid from the world.

Janice has always been a responsible and dependable person. You could set your watch by her. But suddenly she finds herself frequently late for work. Her boss hates people who are late; and he doesn’t admit that he is one of those consistently late people. Janice thinks there is something wrong with her.

Most people are taught that they must respect and obey authority figures. That is bad advice to children in the modern world. It is a perspective that serves leaders who want blindly obedient warriors and slaves to fulfill their selfish needs. It perpetuates prejudice and hatred because authorities often express their wrong and limiting beliefs as true. Our world doesn’t contain only wise, loving authority figures. So children must learn to discern true from false.

Janice was taught to blindly obey authority, and she is obeying her boss’s unconscious command to “Be late.” As for her boss, he’s certain that he told her to be on time. But his unconscious projection is louder than his conscious, spoken message.

The Power is In the Application

When I finally accepted the perspective of the Huna Golden Rule, I took a hard look at the people that I thought hurt me. My mind desperately wanted to keep them separate and bad so that I could remain good. I eventually came to realize that they did me a huge favor. My true Self didn’t care about being good or right; it already was good and right (even if I didn’t listen to it). My true Self wanted freedom. Those who played the opponent role in my life were pointing the way toward my freedom by exposing all the beliefs, prejudices, and judgments that I borrowed from my early authority figures.

Then I decided to forgive myself for the times that I believed I hurt another. That was much harder, but not because it was different from this side of the table. It was harder because I had the belief that they had to let me off the hook; after all, they put me on it when they decided that I hurt them. Then I realized that they might never let me off the hook because they may never apply the Huna Golden Rule.

I was overwhelmed by the awful feeling of hanging on someone else’s hook. I felt trapped in their mental prison. Eventually, I realized that if no one really hurt me, then I never hurt another even if they thought I did. I exposed a belief in them. I was reflecting their baggage, and they could use it to set themselves free just as I did.

The true Self can’t do anything wrong, and the false self isn’t real. So if we drop the causal thought or belief, we gain a perspective where the past event could never have happened. We go back before the giving, which is true forgiving.

From this point of view, both Golden Rules ring true. Our true Selves know that the false selves are not real. So the Huna are right; we can’t really hurt another even if looks like we did. Our beliefs and judgments separate us from our true Self; so we cause our own pain. We hurt only ourselves because we are all one.

Recognizing that the problem, pain, or war is our own false mind projection, we naturally cease doing to others what we would not want done to us. Instead, we set them free, which is what we all really, truly want!