A couple of years ago, a while after my brother passed away, I came across this ancient Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness. Four short phrases that restore balance and heal deeply, making things right:
- I’m sorry
- Please forgive me
- Thank you
- I love you
At first, I was skeptical and thought it was a bit trite. I was not sure it would do anything at all, but as I practiced it, I found its simplicity was its depth. Each phrase has within it the power to release emotions, sometimes conflicting, that have been suppressed — taken together, they form a bridge that helps one cross what seem like irreconcilable chasms in relationships, without needing anything back from another.
My brother’s suicide was one of a cluster of crises that hit me around the same time in 2023. Ironically, I had written When Things Fall Apart before his death, not knowing another wave — a much larger one — was on its way. I stopped writing this blog then, and it took me another year before I could resume. In the interim, of the many things I did to make sense and heal, Ho’oponopono was the gentle and powerful surprise.
With my brother, there was much forgiveness to ask for, and much to forgive as well. Initially, it was hard because I felt wronged in so many ways and guilty of having wronged as well. It seemed like our childhood experiences had set up a false binary that we struggled to shake off, each trapped by a definition we did not ask for. We had just begun to reconcile some of our differences and experience a sense of brotherhood in the year before he decided to end things, and I was suddenly left to deal on my own with the flotsam and jetsam of five turbulent decades.
As I started praying with Ho’oponopono, I suddenly found a whole host of other people besides my brother making a Macbeth-esque appearance: mother, father, ex-wife, daughter, former teacher, neighbour, colleague, friend, random stranger on the road — some dead, some alive, but the list was long — and surprise, surprise, it included me!
So I sat down to work through them, one by one, starting with myself, because moving ahead seemed impossible when so much energy was locked up in the past, with so many people!
The idea of forgiveness is often misunderstood as condoning past misdeeds. Instead, it is an act of letting go of one’s hurt and anger — the story we carry, and the emotions that go with that story — without ascribing blame to either party.
Forgiveness is to relinquish your grievance and so to let go of grief. It happens naturally once you realize that your grievance serves no purpose except to strengthen a false sense of self.
– Eckhart Tolle
Ideally, we need to evolve so as not to get hurt in the first place, but that is a deeper journey that reveals the illusion of a separate self. In the meantime, as the Buddha pointed out, holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the first one to get burned. Despite knowing that, the sense of being wronged can be so strong that many of us spend years holding on to the hot coal, reinforcing an identity of a victim. I, for one, was definitely doing that.
Ho’oponopono — such a beautiful word, isn’t it? — begins with taking responsibility for one’s part in whatever transpired (I’m sorry), before moving on to acknowledging the harm caused (Please forgive me), expressing gratitude for the opportunity to heal (Thank you), and ending with a recognition of our oneness (I love you). With repetition, as you cycle through the phrases, each time something new surfaces, and you simply bring it to the light and let it dissolve, along with your tears.
In time, you begin to understand a deeper truth:
When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That’s the message he is sending.
– Thich Nhat Hanh
Before I started with Ho’oponopono, I did something uncharacteristic — at the suggestion of a friend, I had someone do a reading of my Akashic records — apparently, it is a register of our past lives that some people learn to access.
Despite my skepticism about past lives, let alone the reading of them, I decided to go ahead because I was desperate to understand what was happening with someone I had known for a long time, to make sense of why we were so conflicted, and what to do with this seething sense of betrayal eating me up from the inside.
The reading revealed something totally unexpected — that in three past lives, I had apparently been in some relationship or the other with this individual and done something harmful to them. I thought the reading would confirm my sense of woundedness, but it revealed the opposite, and I got turned around 180 degrees! The most compelling statement I heard during the reading was that in each instance, I had access to light, but I chose darkness (like black magic, neglect and violence) with harmful consequences.
Regardless of the veracity of these stories, the insight that hit me was that I had access to the same light in this lifetime, and if I were not careful, my anger could tip me into the ‘dark side’ (a la Star Wars lore — fear leads to anger and anger leads to hate), only to repeat the same pattern in ignorance.
Recognizing the danger that lay ahead on the path of anger and retribution, while sensing an opportunity to do something different, had a profound effect on what I chose to do next and continue to do to this day: I decided to erase during this lifetime any karmic debt I had accrued over previous lives and this one. Obviously, it is a work in progress, but this resolution remains a guiding light for whatever years remain ahead.
I will end with a pointer to this understanding from the nondual perspective by Francis Lucille:
In forgiveness, you see the fundamental innocence of all beings. That is wisdom.
If you are hurting in some way, try Ho’oponopono, and may it gently heal you. Peace!