Hale Makua: The Meaning of Aloha

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Greetings to all of you … Distinguished members of the United Nations, and my fellow indigenous peoples in the community of man—aloha.

In Hawai’i, and throughout the Polynesian family within the Pacific, “Aloha” is a word used to describe a specialness of feeling, a demonstratable affection for a person or idea. Unfortunately, man rarely understands the pure, undiluted essence of “aloha as harmony” or “aloha as concern for the whole.” It is important, however, that you be exposed to aloha as it can and does exist elsewhere. Aloha is experienced by all realities but in different ways and with different foci.

Our ancestors, of a more advanced consciousness, exist in a dimension of total self-commitment to the advancement of all energy toward the Universal Creator. Aloha, as I know it, exists as an expression beyond individual limitations. This aloha is an experience tied to those insights gained from the accumulation of evolved lifetimes. As aloha is seen in its true proportions, so involvement in and concern for the universal growth and advancement of all energies becomes the living focus of all.

Lesser-evolved realities exist in more poorly defined dimensions, focusing on the individual and his needs rather that on a concern for the whole. On our level, there is little concern for aloha as universal harmony because there is only a budding understanding of man’s connection to the whole.

Quite naturally, on our dimension, physical awareness through the development of human relationships, yourself with your attitude and the other person, is the most important exercise of life with a new growing concern for individual spiritual advancement.

Aloha is experienced by all dimensions as it fits the needs of those involved. Thus, you could call my aloha “abstract aloha” and yours “emotional release aloha” –aloha that is dominated by individual priorities and conditions, connecting these two realms in “enlightened aloha” which is aloha through total awareness.

Enlightenment is the traveling, the traveler, and the point to which one travels, the journey. It is the doorway and the experience of triangulating on aloha beyond the physical. Aloha actually knows no boundaries and through total awareness, it can open vastly divergent panoramas from those to which you have become accustomed.

Aloha can be the point of interaction around which all else ferments. Aloha is, indeed, the appropriate and, in fact, the only relevant vehicle for increasing man’s vistas of harmony on Mother Earth and harmony within the Universe.

Understanding aloha as it exists is interesting and important for engendering feelings of connectedness to the “future” as well as one’s place in the universal picture. However, my serious intent in discussing aloha is to offer you the opportunity to recognize the physical aloha in order that you may transcend it into something far more expansive.

Total awareness with aloha is the magical link where man sees himself as one with all things. Harmony grows from chaos (what may be metaphysically seen as the light of aloha which emanates from darkness and transfigures it) causing the chaos to organize and become reflective or radiant to all connected and concerned. When man is able to see that, he will see that the other he kills is himself.

Individually and collectively, maturity is gained only as each person reaches, through aloha, recognition of his own living connection to all other living energies of the universe such as the animal kingdom, mineral kingdom, vegetable kingdom and human kingdom.

A few stand at this juncture of recognition, the elders of the indigenous peoples, ready to live through peace and unity. Indigenous peoples, under their current political systems, will never have the population numbers nor the economic clout and material human resources needed to save their next generation. If indigenous peoples, with their cultures, like many of the world’s native cultures, are allowed to become just a mere source of entertainment and local flavor, then indigenous peoples may one day become expendable in their own ancestral lands. The new economic upheavals are making ethnic groups throughout the world fight even harder to protect their own people in this extreme cacophony of Mother Earth.

Future growth is dependent upon lessening the confusion, tension, and dependency that is currently so widespread. Man looks to the heavens for answers but sees only the reflection of his own desires, for his vision has become myopic and dulled. Man no longer sees clearly. He does not seem to comprehend the obvious, that the way out of his conflicted and tormented state is to envision himself as integrally linked to all life.

Aloha, that elusive and yet essential breeze that blows through all life (kohola lele) exists as the core of all revelation. Aloha comes from the heart is a metaphor that points the way to a new beginning through recognition of the heart as the seat of man’s “I am” awareness, man’s link with others of his kind and the Creative Force.

The “I am” represents awareness of one’s self as a harmonious part of the whole. “I am” signals –I am responsible for deepening connection between all peoples and the Creative Force—for improving the harmony of Mother Earth on which we live in order that all may find fulfillment –unity, love, light, and joy. This is the heart of the evolution of the spirit.

I leave you with the power of these words to ponder: Love all that you see, live all that you feel, and know all that you posses in the heart of aloha. I wait for you in the future, for the past to intersect with our present and catapult all of us to a higher octave of consciousness, spiritually, in the love and the light of one Infinite Creator.

You have been most conscientious. Thank you. Aloha…

Hale Makua.