Huna Article

Huna International

Understanding Judgement
by Graeme Kapono Urlich

I’ve been hearing some discussion about this recently and it started me wondering about how different people respond to the word and the different contexts in which it might be used. For many it seems to have become an emotive and pejorative term to accuse other people of “judging them.”

Two different meanings come up when I search the internet, and I confess I haven’t searched more deeply at this point. The hope here is to inspire people to think about the interpretations they personally are using and perhaps expanding their awareness of context. It is a worthwhile exercise to really understand the words we use.

1. The ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions.
2. A misfortune or calamity, viewed as a divine punishment.

The first refers to the mental ability to consider information and understand it sufficiently to be able to form an opinion and reach a decision. A decision is a judgement unless you rely on a coin toss to reach a decision for you, for example. This could also apply to someone baking a cake and “judges” the amount of an ingredient to put in. If it works out and tastes good, they might feel their judgement was appropriate and feel good about it. Here the word is being used in a constructive sense in terms of evaluating the worth of information or the results of a decision.

The second meaning refers to the religious context where an external authority makes things go wrong as a punishment for breaking a universal edict and things will continue to go wrong until we repent. Repent simply means “change our way,” which is similar to what we teach in huna when things aren’t working. Some people fear “repenting” because they mistakenly understand it to mean paying back for wrong doing. This may be connected to repenting but it isn’t the same thing.

All power comes from within so if what we are doing is not effective, we are free to change it as a matter of choice. For many religious people though, it means “do what you are told and everything will work properly.” From the outside looking in it seems that this really isn’t the case for some and things continue to “go wrong” no matter how closely they follow the rules.

To judge, as Jesus used the term, means to act in place of God, as if one knew all the secrets of another's heart and could take wise and inclusive action in regards to their heart. This is where people really start to get into deep water because it has become an assumption by many that they know what’s in the heart of another and that they have the godly right to pronounce “judgement” on others. Here it is the “judgement” of a person’s goodness or evilness, rightness or wrongness, often followed by punishment in the form of harsh criticism or banishment.

It is extremely rare for anyone to really know what is in the heart of another, even for highly trained and experienced people if it happens at all, and it is arrogant to believe that we do and treat people according to what is basically and assumption that could well be hopelessly unfounded. People do this based on rumour, skin colour, gender and all sorts of criteria that may or may not be valid for an individual let alone as a general rule.

People with low self-esteem fear such judgement and often strive to earn approval from people who have no clue and no capacity of offer such approval. This can lead to desperate spirals of self-loathing in extreme cases. Guilt (anger directed at self) and shame (fear of rejection) can grow out of control. Adverse self judgement becomes overwhelming.

I tend to be cautious when using the word ‘judgement” because no matter how I intend to use it, people will often react to it in unintended ways depending on what interpretation they assign to it and what personal experiences they associate with it. For someone from a very “hellfire and damnation” style religious backgrounds, it could be quite disconcerting. I tend to go for observation, evaluation and discernment more often as I have found that these tend not to have as many unexpected associations for most people.

The fifth principle of Huna is Aloha, to love is to be happy with. Part of the meaning here is that love increases as judgement decreases. Here we are using word in the context of rightness or wrongness. When we “judge” in this way and create separation rather than focusing on healing and harmony, it is simply not effective. There may be a temporary sense of power in such behaviour but it tends to create a lot of tension and be short lived.

In Huna we teach the Aloha Spirit, the spirit of loving cooperation, because nothing works better. It certainly goes against the most prevalent attitudes in modern society but it is worth cultivating the attitude of Aloha and allowing that to influence our lives. We tend to attract people and situations that reflect it more and more. Huna International has provided and extensive library of video and articles with guidance on how to do this and there is a growing community of people to support this growth.

Graeme Kapono Urlich (August 2024)

Aloha New Zealand - School of Huna and Hawaiian Shamanism