Aloha my loves! This blog post is a reflection on the reflections offered by Ho'oponopono and how the Freedom content describing the Human Condition by Jeremy Griffith helps to reconcile the most difficult reflections we face of psychosis, greed, war and murder.
Years ago, during a difficult period of my life, commonly known in the spiritual community as the"dark night of the soul," I came across the Hawaiian forgiveness tradition called Ho'oponopono through the book Zero Limits by Joe Vitale. (More can be discovered about this technique on our Ho'oponopono page) The practice is as easy as saying "I love you, I am sorry, please forgive me, thank you" to any person, place or situation that you have a negative response to. The philosophy behind the phrasing and how it offers "cleaning" for our energy and the world is more challenging. We say the phrases as a way of taking responsibility of our negative vibes. The phrases help us acknowledge a truth we have forgotten and that is what we experience in the outer world is a reflection of what is going on within our inner world. We send love, ask for forgiveness and give gratitude as we open up to seeing what this person, place or situation is reflecting back to us about what is within. (More can be learned about how to apply this reflection to a variety of topics with the Ho'oponopono Videos linked here!) So, back to my "dark night of the soul." My ex-husband was diagnosed schizophrenic and bipolar during four years of on and off hospitalizations for psychotic breaks. At first, it was simply supportive for me to use the phrases to take my power back from the situation. I felt the truth of the philosophy of Ho'oponopono and so, I took responsibility with the phrases for my role in the unfolding. I knew I didn't "deserve" the trauma I was experiencing and I also knew that I had to walk away in order to heal the damage that had been caused. Still, the phrases and practices helped open me up to understanding where the psychosis within me was. With time to reflect, I indeed found many psychotic tendencies within me. I've loved on myself with the phrases each time I've discovered these reflections. I've loved on my ex each time too. Understanding that, while his psychosis was his own lesson and karma to experience, he was helping me see something within that I could not see, let alone begin to love and forgive. After experiencing the relief I did from applying Ho'oponopono at the most difficult time in my life, I continued to utilize and apply the practice. Whenever I experienced a negative charge to a person place or thing, I offered Ho'oponopono and opened to seeing the reflection being offered. One of the hardest places to apply Ho'oponopono is when it comes to big issues that appear in the media. The extreme greed of our species? The declarations of war? The murder of children? How can these terrible things be inside me?
When it came to greed I had to realize that, one way or anther, I was acting selfishly. Shinning a light on this selfishness has been one of the most humbling reflections Ho'oponopono has offered me, particularly as someone who identifies as a loving giving person. I began to see my actions and reactions to people in a new light, seeing my selfishness on display more times than I care to admit. When it came to war I had to acknowledge that, on some level, I was fighting a war within me. It became clear that I needed to come a peaceful place within myself if I expected to see my outer world reflecting peace. I began to place more awareness on my bringing harmony to my inner world. When it came to the murder of children I had to recognize that, in some way, I was attacking innocence. I began to see subtle and outright attacks on my inner child, and that these horrific events in the media were an attempt to show me my own lack of regard for the innocence within me. I have been developing a deep relationship with my inner child, allowing her to express her needs and honoring them as best as I can. Though I was able to find the psychotic, greedy, warring, murderer within me, I had little hope of humanity as a whole ever being able to acknowledge let alone love and forgive these reflections within. And this is where the book Freedom by Jeremy Griffith and his amazing biological discovery that explains and resolves the Human Condition comes in. This information gives scientific evidence that makes sense of these terrible reflections we see in our species. Not only does it give us understanding of them them, it also empowers us to be free from them once and for all.
Freedom is an 800 page book that is extremely difficult to summarize succinctly. As such, it is suggested that the reader watching the hour long interview with the author to gleam more understanding about this incredible discovery which declares itself the information that saves the world.
In summary, what biologist Jeremy Griffith has discovered is that the development of our species has been misunderstood. We have thought we developed from animals that were like the animals we see today, believing our genes to be animalistically oriented with the desire to fight and compete selfishly for available resources, particularly food and mates. We believed that our intellect, our conscious thinking mind, is what elevates us above these animals and keeps us from behaving like them.
The discovery presented in his book reveals a different story.
12 million years ago, our species separated from the animal instinctual nature, and developed into an altruistic species through providing nurturing during a prolonged infancy. This enabled our ape-like ancestors to develop into love-indoctrinated adults. Our ancestors lived as a harmonious unit, acting unconditionally loving and selfless towards each other for the good of the species. We now understand that our genetic inheritance as humans is unconditional selflessness; this is our instinctual nature.
2 million years ago, we began to develop a nerve based learning system. This means we began to store memories, enabling us to compare past results to future choices. In terms of adaptation, the never based learning, or intellect, is a significant improvement because adaptations can be made in the moment rather than taking generations to develop, as in the case of gene based adaptation. The problem with intellectual adaptation, however, is that it relies on trial and error. It is no longer enough to operate instinctually based on thousands of years of genetic adaptations, the intellect needs to know, to understand, and to experiment to discover what works and what does not.
The Human Condition is the result of a 2 million year battle between instinct and intellect. As the intellect developed through comparing past results with future outcomes, it necessarily behaved contrary to the loving ways of our genetic inheritance. When this acting out occurred, our instinct reacted with ridicule. The intellect responded to that ridicule by condemning and attacking the instinct. Both sides were left at war with each other since neither part had an understanding of the adaptive necessity of this exploration.
Here we can see our psychosis reflected and explained. Jeremy defines psychosis as "soul illness" and relates it to the experience of our instinctual nature over the last 2 million years, feeling abandoned and betrayed by our intellect. We are all psychotic. And every time we've seen it in the outside world and felt upset by it, there has been an invitation to look within ourselves and come to understand this quality exists within us too. With the understanding this new discovery offers, we can not only love, forgive and give thanks to that which was attempting to show us ourselves, we can finally cure this illness.
Here we can also see our greed reflected. He defines neurosis as "intellect illness"and relates it to the experience of our developing intellect over the last 2 million years, needing to understand through experimentation. We've had to ignore the callings of our instinctual natures to act as a loving unit, and learn through cause and effect that the way of altruism is best. Meaning we had to act for ourselves, and not for the whole of our species, to learn what impact these actions had.
The reflection of our inner war is perhaps the most obvious reflection this material offers. The inner war is the battle between our instinctual gene based natures developed over millions of years and our intellectual nerve based learning system developing itself through the search for knowledge. We all have experienced this inner battle most of our lives, every time our intellect's drive for knowledge overrode our instinctual impulses. Each time this override occurred we suffered guilt and shame, and deep down we began to fear that perhaps underneath it all we were a bad person. With this understanding we can not only declare a truce within ourselves, we can finally know without a doubt that we are good and not bad.
The reflection of the murder of children, the attack on innocence, may be the hardest to see here. In response to the condemnation of our instincts, our intellect began to attack anything that represented it out of retaliation, since it lacked the knowledge to explain itself. Innocence is the epitome of our instinctual heritage and as such, it has been the focus our intellect's outrage. Anyone who has ever seen the purity of an infant knows that innocence is instinctual to them. They haven't learned anything of this world yet. Their intellect has not yet developed and thus we see their innocence reflected in its purity. We keep seeing the attack on children because we are attacking our instinctive childlike natures for ridiculing us in our quest for knowledge.
While these reflections that Ho'oponopono offer are challenging to face, the Freedom content provided by Jeremy Griffith gives us a safe container, supported by first principle based science, to finally acknowledge and face what we see in the mirror. When we are able to do that, we are also able to offer love, forgiveness and gratitude to all of the places in our lives we have seen these reflections. And I believe that kind of clearing within the collective consciousness has the ability to restore our species back to the altruistic unconditional love that is our birthright as humans.
Namaste, the universal light within me salutes and honors the universal light within you!
Image Credits :
Display & First Image: ”Thinker mirror reflection” by Ted, License | Second Image: "Self Reflection" by mshbazz33, License: unknown