Huna in India, Tantra & Kundalini
September 1, 1954
THE SERPENT FIRES, as promised in the last Bulletin, will now be taken up for dissection under the strong light of Huna, and then put back together again in as nearly its original form as is now possible. For those who are not familiar with this branch of Yoga practice, as developed in India, it may be well to start far back and tell the story as we now begin to see it in its beginnings, in its middle centuries, and in its modern and fabulous form.
The very ancient kahunas once made contact with the priests of India. We cannot be certain as to when or how, but we can see the unmistakable traces of the Huna lore which they shared with the men who acted as their hosts.
India, at that early date, had many primitive religious beliefs, with gods of endless kinds, but with the coming of the Aryan invaders, there was introduced a religion and set of beliefs very similar to that found in Norse Sagas. A collection of stories, most of which concerned the gods and their relations with men, were written down and preserved. They were the famous Vedas. They were looked upon by the ruling class – the invaders – as Christians look upon the Bible, and all new departures in religious thought were proven to be correct by their instigators by pointing to passages in the Vedas, usually rather obscure passages whose meaning was in question.
The Vedas taught the doctrine of a triune God from whom descended the lesser gods, all Creation, and mankind. In due time, along came kahunas, who had a three-part God, and whose beliefs were recognizably similar in a number of ways, even though offering many new ideas. It is probable that Huna, because it offered swift healing and many other benefits, was eagerly accepted by the more intelligent of the local priests. Kahunas taught them that there were three selves in man, that each had its own invisible body of subtle matter, and that each used the vital force manufactured in the body from food, water and breathed air for its own particular purposes. They also taught them that each of the three selves evolved to a higher level of consciousness after a small number of reincarnations. They taught also that the animal spirits came evolving up to be the Aunihipili of men, and that the Auhane had no body of its own when it stepped up from being a Aunihipili, so it lived in the body with the Aunihipili, using its new and better mental powers to guide and direct. The Aumakua, which mated upon graduating from the Auhane level, became a dual or male-female pair of closely united spirits. These did not live in the body, but above it, free to go and come, but connected to the two lower spirits of the man by an invisible cord made of aka substance. Telepathic contact was maintained through this cord, and mana or vital force was had as a flow through the cord by the Aumakua “Utterly Trustworthy Parental Spirit Pair.” This Aumakua Pair possessed still finer mental powers and acted as guide and director for the lower pair, much as the Auhane watched over the Aunihipili. If the lower pair was cut off from full telepathic contact with the Aumakua Pair by complexes, thoughts or other causes, much of the help from that source was lost and life no longer remained normal, healthy and happy. Most pain was caused by being cut off from Aumakuas or by failing to invite them to take their part in living the life of their man, or by failing to send them their necessary daily supply of the bodily force or mana.
This Huna teaching was by way of being a great secret. It was to be passed on only to those able to accept, understand and use it. It was not to be written down unless in such a veiled and symbolic way that only an initiated kahuna could understand the writing. In this respect, the part of the Huna lore left behind in Egypt, the Near East, and other places, was also protected by a covering of veiled meanings such as have recently been identified as pure Huna in parts of the Bible and in the Gnostic literature.
We do not know just why the Huna lore was lost either in India or the lands around Egypt, but lost it was. It may have been that the official esoteric religions of rulers caused the loss through continuing opposition to those who tried to keep the Huna traditions alive.
It is easy to see what happened by slow degrees as the initiate kahunas of the local races died out. Behind them they left only their veiled writings, and around these grew up a vast set of misconceptions as men tried to guess what had once been taught and how the lost knowledge had been put to use.
Whether there had been a Vedic knowledge of reincarnation before the arrival of kahunas, it is hard to decide, but there can be no doubt about the later belief in repeated lives. When the nature of the three selves and of their joint upward evolution was lost, the small number of incarnations was expanded until they became almost endless. The belief was added that man could reverse his upward evolutionary trend and reincarnate as a beast or even insect, all according to how he failed to live correctly.
The Huna teaching that our progress must depend on our actions, whether good or bad, gave birth to a great exaggeration in the form of the doctrine of “karma,” this coming to be administered by “Lords of Karma” who stood just below the level of Supreme God, and who administered the karmic law with exact justice, punishing in one incarnation for the sins of earlier incarnations. Every action of body or mind was said to create fresh karma, and, be the karma good or bad, one was forced to keep on reincarnating until the last trace of it was lived out, happily or unhappily. The only way to avoid making fresh karma was to stop acting or thinking. The final absurdities were very great indeed.
When the exact nature of the three selves was lost, they degenerated into a single self for man while in the toils of karma and the flesh. The Auhane was lost sight of except for warped trace ideas. The Aumakua was replaced by the Ultimate God, so that the escape from the flesh entailed an absorption back into God or Brahma. Naturally, this made it all but impossible for a man in the flesh to become perfect enough to make the great upward leap and win absorption and the release from personality. About three centuries before the appearance of the great kahuna, Jesus, in the Near East, Buddhism was formulated by a Prince of India. He reformed the tangled mixture of Vedic and primitive religions with their badly muddled admixture of Huna, making the final escape one into a condition or Nirvanic state, rather than into Supreme Brahma. He simplified the codes of behavior and of worship, also preaching against blood sacrifice, corrupt priesthoods and the evil of hurting others. In this his teaching was duplicated by Jesus a few centuries later. He also tried to reform an older and very corrupt religion, that of the Jews.
One of the first sets of short, veiled and symbolic writings in early India has come down to us in Sanskrit, with a great body of commentaries, the latter serving to add guesses and mistaken assumptions to the original, and the original, undoubtedly, suffering much change in being copied time after time down the years. In the Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjala, the Bhagavad-Gita, and the writings attributed to one of the Kapilas, may be traced the progress of the changes made by guessing after the last initiates were gone. The Vedic beliefs were brought back as “the words of God,” and used to confuse the picture.
Yoga was perhaps the first systematic movement in which the lost Huna lore was replaced with guesses instead of basic facts. One can picture the anxious men who knew that there had once been a great and practical system, and who tried this and that to make the remaining fragmentary knowledge of it work for them. It is evident that a passage of time had caused the feats to be performed through Huna to take on fabulous and amazing proportions. Listening to tales of what great initiates had supposedly been able to do, the aspiring young religionists made every effort to develop those powers in themselves. Patanjali, in his 49th aphorism, wrote, “Therefrom spring up in the ascetic the powers to move his body from one place to another with the quickness of thought, to extend the operation of his senses beyond the trammels of place or the obstructions of matter, and to alter any natural object from one form to another.” There were many even more wonderful things promised as a reward for learning to use the Yoga teachings.
It is evident that Yoga did not work either well or soon for those who tried to practice it. The system was added to by slow steps until it became a tangle. What we now call Tantric Yoga, as it is taught today in surviving writings in India, is perhaps the last word in the contamination of the original and basic Huna ideas from which the system was evolved after initiations had ceased to be passed on from one to another.
If we picture a man who knew that he must make contact with his Aumakua, forgetting how this was to be done, and beginning to guess as to the nature of the Aumakua and what was to be done with the mana, we can understand how the idea of yoga, which means UNION, became something almost too difficult to attempt. The three types of mana no longer were assigned to the three selves, for the Auhane was lost and the Aumakua pair had become one and had moved up and up to almost the Supreme level that it later was to attain. So, the experimenting began. It was known that breathing had something to do with filling oneself with mana – which by then had become “prana,” so experiments were made by breathing slowly or rapidly, through one side of the nose and then the other, holding the breath, doing all of these things by turns and in various ways.
When this did not give the fabulous results, physical postures were added, with the chanting of sounds and sentences. The posturing was accompanied by the making of mystical and magical signs with fingers and hands.
Diets and washings were tried, with fasting and most austere restraints. One after another, all the most pleasant things of normal living were given up as a sacrifice and to prevent the making of more karma, especially bad karma, which might prevent UNION. The complex and the influence of evil spirits had been touched on in the veiled writings, but their real nature was no longer understood. Sex relations were pounced upon as something to be given up especially, and love of women and of gold were classed together as most to be shunned by one seeking the ultimate goal of union with the Aumakua which had moved so very far away and up in the scheme.
In the early Vedic beliefs, supposedly systematized by the great “Giver of Laws,” Manu, Supreme God was Bruhm Atma, which means “The Breathing Soul.” Breath was, even then it appears, the usual symbol of a spirit or unit of consciousness. God “out-breathed” or projected his consciousness outward, producing force which produced matter, which resulted in Creation. In this process the One became “three formed” or the “Trimurti: Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, respectively, Creator, Preserver and Destroyer.
These gods are still worshiped by a majority of the people of India. They may be looked upon as the resident gods who were given new names by the invaders who spoke Sanskrit, and also new functions and significances. At this stage, Huna seems to have arrived in full form, although it may have played a part in the fixing of the Vedic beliefs. The idea was developed that the human soul was a spark of the “ONE” Ultimate God. It has been symbolized in later times as a “ray” of light which is projected downward through one level or plane of consciousness, tenuous substance and action-force to end in the lowest or densest plane, that of the physical. As the ray passes through each of the seven planes (use this numbering according to modern Theosophy) it is colored and soiled and changed, becoming less and less God-like and more and more degraded. Its wisdom and power are weakened to a painful extent.
In the Sanskrit, we glimpse the Huna knowledge which contained no single monad or ray coming down to be increasingly degraded. Instead, we have the sparks or monad-selves all out-breathed into Creation and first experiencing “life” as single souls in the world of minerals, then as plants, then as creatures. (This is not well defined in Huna as we now have it.) Eventually, perhaps by an evolutionary process of combining tiny atomic sparks, the animal soul or Aunihipili is set in a physical body where sparks animate cells. Evolution continues and we have the Auhane; then it becomes the Aumakua. In associated groups of three selves, the evolutionary growth continues until the selves once more are “in-breathed” or absorbed into the Ultimate.
The tradition of the three selves of Huna is still to be found in the veiled Sanskrit writings, even if much warped and twisted to fit the Vedic beliefs. The Huna idea of the three selves being connected by an invisible (aka) cord, must have made a great impression on the priests of India. The root idea of a “THREAD” was never lost, although the fact of the three selves went out of the window quickly. The three selves were replaced by the single self or monad, but for practical purposes were replaced by a set of three MINAS – literally “thread souls.” These were swiftly stripped of any soul qualities and were changed into three vast and entirely impersonal urges which were in some vague way part of “Nature.” These three urges, Satva, Rajas and Tamas, however, may be recognized as the Aumakua, Auhane and Aunihipili. The characteristics of the three forces or life urges remained those typical of the three selves of man. One urge made the man act like the good and wise Aumakua, one made him act like the less good and less wise Auhane, and one made him act like the Aunihipili when it is not controlled and made to be less than an animal by the Auhane. The good urge was symbolized by LIGHT, as in Huna, the bad or Aunihipili by DARKNESS, and the Auhane as in between.
As in Huna, the aim of living remained evolution or growth in which the man came out of the darkened state and eventually reached the state of enlightenment. But Huna progress was made by three souls strung like beads on a thread, one above the other, while the substitute beliefs made man again a single soul with its roots mysteriously in heaven while its “out-breathed” or rayed bulk stood on lower levels and worked upward to rejoin the root spark. Huna, as may be observed, was ever so much more simple.
The three invisible (aka) bodies of Huna, one for the embodiment of each self, and needed to absorb and hold its individual mana or vital force supply, were lost in the shuffle when the three selves were made into one. There was much guessing and much confusion. The shadowy bodies of the three selves were changed to several “planes,” and to several invisible bodies which surrounded the man. There was a body which was supposed to last as long as karma itself. It was called the “cause body,” and in it lay all the things of karma which caused the man to be reborn into a setting fitted to his karmic position in regard to evolution. On each of the “planes” the descending soul built a subtle body for use on that plane, so that there was a body for the mental and the emotional activities – these matching the Huna Aunihipili and Auhane aka bodies rather well. Other “bodies” to make up the “vehicles” of man were vague as concepts.
The three grades of basic vital force or mana, became misunderstood when the three selves which used the mana were lost. The manas were not added to the idea of the three gunas or urges in a definite way, but the urges were described as very powerful and as something which the man must respond to in accordance with his good or bad nature or evolutionary position. The manas, called prams, gradually were multiplied until there was a prana for each of the senses and organs, with extras for all imaginable physical, mental and intuitional activities.
This brings us back to Tantric Yoga and its extreme of muddling. In this system, the simple idea of the three basic manas, and of the necessity of contacting the Aumakua and sending its mana over the connecting aka cord, was replaced by a set of surprising and complicated substitute ideas.
The three gunas, or “three strings,” original idea of the earlier substitutions, gave rise to the concept of three nadis, or tubes through which the pranas or active forces of man could be made to flow upward. The Aumakua, having been lost, the flow could no longer be sent to it. Instead, the combined pranic force or “SERPENT FIRE” was at first accumulated at the level of the navel and sent upward through the body and out at the top of the head, where a symbolic “door” opened that allowed the force to rise to Brahma, this causing miraculous powers to be given the yoga or UNION seeker. (This union or contact, like that in Huna, was not something that lasted long, but in India it was hoped that after death the absorption into the Supreme Self would take place and be permanent.)
In Huna, the symbol for the act of accumulating extra mana and sending it flowing along the aka string, as through a tube (nada,) was that of hard breathing, called ha. One breathed heavily for about ten breaths, commanding the Aunihipili to accumulate the mana in its aka body which centers on the solar plexus. One then became relaxed (na) as the mana was made to flow up to the Aumakua. The kahuna word mana (in its two roots as ma`na) gave the idea of an action followed by a period of quiet or inaction. This word symbol remained in recognizable form in Tantric Yoga, even if the idea behind it was almost lost. The ha and na root words are a regular part of the vocabulary of the Tantric writings.
In the earliest writings, the “Serpent Fire” or force was not connected with sex to the degree that it was later. It was said to be a goddess of intelligent, but [a] sleeping or static life force. This goddess was called Kundalini. At first she was said to have her head at the level of the navel, and it was there that one thought of her and strove to awaken her, not, as later, down behind the genitals. Kahunas symbolized the Aunihipili as having its center down in the naau or bowels, so we see how the region of the navel fits into the picture of changing concepts and expanding guesses.
The Serpent Fire force, once aroused, was said at first to rise almost directly to the top of the head and go (no longer through a nada or tube) to the God-self. As results accomplished did not measure up to expectations, more and more complications were added to the system in an effort to get it perfected. The three tubes became a central aushumna through which the augmented force suddenly rushed upward, but only after it had risen along the ida and pingala or lesser tubes which arose from the left and right at the male scrotum, and circled upward through SIX centers, opening each in turn with the accompanying production of the very special and rewarding powers or abilities. The modern writers who discuss this subject so learnedly – and so blindly – forget that the ancients had no concept of the glands or nerve centers in the body, but they insist on a few centers or chakras being identified with them.
After all the complications of making each center or chakra into a symbolic flower, with petals and with root words written on them, while gods and colors and figures fill the flower centers, and after elaborate meditations and chartings and postures and breathing exercises had failed to get the desired results, the excuse was invented that the chakra centers had to be entirely purified as the first step toward success. The sex forces were also to be purified, as well as the body and mind. So the austerities were enlarged by steady progression. Oddly enough, much that was to be purified in the thoughts and emotions of the man retains the flavor of the complex. The instructions for the use of Yoga tell how necessary it is to learn to control the mind, all thoughts, and, especially, all emotions (such as desire, hate, fear, etc,) are such as kahunas might have given for keeping the Aunihipili in perfect control by the Auhane when no complex was standing in the way. The complex, as such, or the influence of the evil spirits, known to Huna, became lost to sight, probably because the three selves had been collapsed into one and no Aunihipili [was] left to create or hold fixations or to respond secretly to the evil urges offered by the “eating companion” spirits.
If, for the six chakra centers, we substitute the three aka bodies with a self in each, according to Huna, we have again the SIX things to count off in the system. If we substitute the aka cord leading from the aka body of the Aunihipili through that of the Auhane, and on up to end in the aka body of the Aumakua, for the three nadis carrying force upward through the six centers and then on up to the Supreme Self, we change the Tantric Yoga system back to the original Huna from which it had its rise.
Many who, like myself, gained their preliminary knowledge of the old systems of India through modern Theosophy, will find this comparison of intense interest because the “Serpent Fires” with their great (supposed) rewards for the successful awakening, have been the true “sacred cow” and prime mystery for years. In all Theosophical literature, as in the ancient writings of Yoga, there has been the dire warning that he who attempts to arouse the Kundalini before becoming first utterly purified, invites death, insanity and sudden disaster. On my own part, I find a particular satisfaction in the discovery that our simple and reasonable Huna lies behind all the absurdities which followed the loss of the secret knowledge long ago in India.
For those who wish to check on my conclusions, and perhaps to quarrel with them, I must mention some of the books studied in this investigation. Books on Theosophy are valuable for a general picture, although the effort to knit the conflicting ideas of India into one final system, has been such that Huna basics have remained obscure. The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali, the Bhagavad-Gita, and the Kapila Sutras with their several versions and many commentaries, will be of primary value. A digest of Buddhism is needed as a reform version of the philosophies embodied in the texts just mentioned. For the final absurdities, do not stop with the toned-down “teachings” of the modern and Europeanized schools of semi-Yoga. Go back to source materials and the Tantrics. Arthur Avalon’s works, especially his The Six Centres and the Serpent Power, translated into English by Woodroffe, give Tantric originals and commentaries most fully. Tantric Yoga, Hindu and Tibetan, by J. Marques-Riviere, and translated by Kennedy, is excellent for a short source book, as are recent books done in a popular vein by Ernest Wood. (The first two books mentioned and the last, are easily found. The others are difficult to come across. Check your library.)
GOOD NEWS FROM THE STUDY
Thanks to the generosity and devotion to the Huna work, the Bulletin is able to get forward in the hands of assisting HRAs. Some have sent extra help for “Cigbo,” the cigar box “kitty,” others have helped with the actual making and sending of the Bulletin. In addition, it has been possible to send sample Bulletins to new readers of the books, and from this come a few new HRAs to fill our ranks. It is hoped that in not too long a time we will have members enough in various places to begin forming small groups. Letters have been coming in asking about groups and, in some cases, offering to try to form a group. A special sheet discussing such matters has been mimeographed to send out and, as many of you may be interested, a copy will be enclosed with this Bulletin.
A PLAN FOR RECORDED SHORT LECTURES
This plan was worked out by Charles Pitts and his group at Sunnyvale, Calif. The group has, at the cost of much personal sacrifice, purchased for use at the Study a fine new Crescent tape recorder. They have two others there so that they can duplicate lectures, and the plan is for me to put a Huna lecture on one side of the tape, this to last a half-hour. On the other side special information on the use of the pendulum will be given at first. Groups can get used tape players at small cost to take 5 inch spools of tape playing at the speed of 3.75 and play the lectures, beginning at the first of the series and going on with a fresh tape at each meeting. The present schedule is a new tape every two weeks. Tapes may be rented or purchased outright by groups or individuals. The cost of such service has not yet been determined, but will be known soon.
The Pitts group will pioneer the use of the tapes and help us learn how best to make them up for group work or individual use. (The Kitselman tape lectures, running 2 hours to a 7″ reel and covering E-Therapy with a following series on ancient religions, especially those of India, are now available on a rental or outright purchase basis from Gordon Beckstead, 2330 E. Willetta, Phoenix, Arizona. Write to him for prices and details, also for Dianetics and other tapes.) From the Study will come, soon, tapes covering the E-Therapy and Huna foot-washing rites in combination so that groups of pairs of HRAs can begin helping with this method of removing complexes and driving away “eating companion” spirits which exert evil influences on those who are unfortunate enough to act as hosts to them. A simple measuring system and plate can be made up by groups and individuals to serve as a substitute of the Bovis-type Biometer, not the Brunler-Bovis, of course, but excellent for our purposes. Group members or individuals may be able to take readings of others and so help them to know where they stand in terms of what Dr. Brunler called “evolution of the soul.” Knowing where one stands makes it possible to start correcting one’s “will” or “personality” lacks as well as to advance on the evolutionary scale. A new HRA group is about to form in Chicago. If you live there and wish to have a part in it, let me know. A mimeo sheet covering the materials and so on for constructing a Biometer will soon be ready. A stamped and self-addressed envelope should be sent when asking for this sheet or extras on forming groups. Saves so much time for me here at the Study where I am fighting for time to do a new Huna hook for publication next year, and where all letters of over half a page are now being placed in the “Answer sometime, if possible.” I love short letters ending with, “No answer expected.” The TMHG healing work continues at 3 and 7 (Send a card for replies).
ANOTHER PIECE OF GOOD HUNA NEWS
HRA W.C. has made a most unusual personal sacrifice to help others to learn about Huna. He sold his very fine and costly camera outfit and used it to buy copies of THE SECRET SCIENCE AT WORK to present to public libraries. The Huna Research Publications has matched book-for-book with him in this project and most of the large libraries will have a copy in due time. Little by little we are going to see Huna become known and used by more and more people. Unfortunately, it takes a Biometric reading level of over 330 degrees to enable one to grasp Huna, and the average reading across the land is only 250. Eventually, speaking only in the most simple terms, the HRAs with the higher readings will have to stand as kahunas of sorts to help and heal those unable to understand the abstractions of the Aumakua, aka bodies and manas.
HRA LOVIE WEBB GASTEINER, Celina Tenn, is a new member who publishes a little printed four-sheet release as often as contributions make it possible. She preaches love as her theme, and sells advertising space in the form of short squibs giving one’s name and address, one’s special interests, and one’s invitation to other readers to correspond. She invites HRAs who wish to list their names and invite correspondence from others of like interests to make use of her service. The charge is $1 per issue. Copy should be kept down to 30 words or less. She will soon begin to help spread the good news of Huna in her releases. You might like to be on her mailing list.
MID-PACIFIC MAGAZINE, Box 1513, Honolulu, Hawaii, edited by HRA RFC, carried in its last issue an article with illustrations on myself, giving a most surprising reading via my writing and Graphology, done by a talented Chinese lady. Other articles cover Hawaii, with Huna given its place, and with free ads for the two Huna books. Subscription is $3 a year and 25¢ or perhaps 50¢ should get one a sample copy. Warm thanks to RFC for his telling efforts in behalf of Huna and myself.
THE FIRST HUNA GROUP OF NEW YORK will resume work after a summer vacation. Contact may be made through the leader, Lucien Beck, H.R.A., 78 West 85th St., New York 24, N.Y. This is the oldest Huna Group and one doing most interesting things. You will be made welcome.
THE TELEPATHIC MUTUAL HEALING GROUP work continues steadily with many who take part in it greatly aided in various ways. All are welcome, but correspondence cannot be more than a few words in reply to requests for help. The TMHG Unit which tells about the work and how to join in it costs $1.50 (Plus tax in California) post paid, and orders may be sent to me to hand on to the H.R. Publications to be filled. Reports from those asking help are requested every 30 days. Stamped and self-addressed envelopes for acknowledgments of requests should be sent.
NOTE TO NEW READERS: This Bulletin may come to you as a sample. You may have it regularly, as a quarterly or at times oftener, if you wish. Gifts to the HRA work fund are requested to help with the general work and the expense of getting out the Bulletin. HRA membership is open to all on request.
MFL
