Latest revision as of 02:16, 15 April 2006

B. BASIC RELIGIOUS CONCEPTS OF HUMAN EXISTENCE IN LIFE AND AFTER DEATH

Life in Hawaiian */ thought is not restricted to human life in the concrete world felt and seen by the senses of the human body. The Hawaiian idea of the reality of life in the world supersedes the world that is seen and experienced by the material body, and enters into the life of the spirit that is beyond the physical senses of the body. This reality is perceived through the ability of the mind to either envision through the mind asleep or awake or to sense through other psychologically conditioned awareness (through premonition, for example) that the total life of man involves the ability of the spirit through all of material life to move back and forth between the world of the live physical senses and the world of the "extra" spiritual senses. Thus, the Hawaiian mind places greater reality on the life of the human individual in the spiritual realm, the present material life being regarded as ground for discipline of the spirit in preparation for the afterlife. Therefore, a human being, whether male or female, has spiritual origin, material birth, and spiritual eternity of complete unceasing existence—a personality composed of several layers of embodiment. These are:

1) The living material, corporeal body (kino) having life (ola) of the body;

2) The separable, second soul (kino wailua) that moves during sleep causing dreams (moe 'uhane), with the consciousness inert (the kino wailua may also become "disembodied;" for example, the experience by some people of so-called "astral projection," when the personality wholly leaves the body and moves about with the consciousness intact, the corporeal body lies inert but alive);

3) The spirit that is the dormant body, which at death survives the body, that is, the 'uhane (The living human being as a foetus is not considered a "live" person until birth when the kino breathes (hanu) the "air" (ea) of the god(s), so that the material body quicken with the "spirit" (ea) of the universe in the "breath" (ha) of the human being as it ingests the atmosphere (ea) of "god." Abortion of the non-breathing foetus is thus not considered deprivation of life inasmuch as "life" (ea) is a condition of the "spirit" (ea) and requires the ability to breathe (ha) in the god's breath. To be a full, living personality there must be corporeal life (ola), spiritual life ('uhane), the soul personality (</u>kino wailua), and breath (<u>ha). Survival of the 'uhane, however, is not dependent on breath (ha) nor the corporeal body (kino ola); it is intact and continues the existence of the person in another life.)

No Hawaiian has experienced how the spirit ('uhane) survives, inasmuch as all reports of a second life are the

*/ Professor Johnson uses the term "Hawaiian" to signify all Hawaiians of native descent, similar to the terra "native Hawaiian," as used in this Report. (See definition above, page 37.)