The Three Kapu of the Spiritual Warrior

The Hawaiian elder Hale Makua looked us over slowly in the fading light of our long day of discussion as the winds around the crater subsided into silence. The air felt soft, and our mood reflected this, creating a sense of ease between us. I was aware as well that Makua had come to a decision about Jill and me.

“As spiritual warriors,” he began, “the path that we walk on is narrow, and it is constrained by three kapu, three sacred directives. Since you have reached that place of knowing, I can offer these kapu to you.

“Love all that you see—with humility. In order to love all that we see, this can only come from a place of humility,” continued the kahuna, with a grin. “I worked on that one for seven years.

“Live all that you feel—with reverence. When we live what we feel—what the mythologist Joseph Campbell meant when he said ‘follow your bliss’—this leads us inexorably toward reverence, an active sense of respect. This is the foundation stone of indigenous mind.” Makua paused as if to see if we understood.

“Know all that you possess—with discipline. And when we know all that we possess—and this includes what possesses us—we find our self-discipline. We cannot walk the sacred path without discipline. This is where so many spiritual seekers as well as teachers have stumbled.”

Together we sat in silence as he completed the three kapus. In those moments, surrounded by flowering ‘ohi‘a trees and small ‘ohelo bushes, with bright green ferns growing directly from the black, stony volcanic substrate in the dying light, I was aware that something quite rare had just occurred. I glanced at Jill and saw tears gathering in her eyes. Makua simply smiled as the quiet deepened and we digested his words. He then ran them by us once more, just to make sure we had it.

“When we come from the place of humility, we connect with the energy of compassion,” he intoned gently. “This allows us to experience the power of aloha—of love.

“When we practice acceptance and live what we feel, we are drawn inexorably toward reverence, an active respect for everyone and everything we encounter in life.

“And through knowing what we possess, we find our discipline. And in order to discover who we are as well as where we are, self-discipline is essential, because without it, we cannot progress.

His words triggered a memory within me, something I had learned through my erstwhile descendant Nainoa. What I was remembering had happened in conversation with another individual of Nainoa’s time, with a man named William, who is a shaman, or in his words a spiritwalker.

“To be a medicinemaker,” William the shaman had said, “one must have strongly developed ethics, and one must have heart—a well-developed heart. We may acquire great power in life, but if we have poorly developed ethics and an underdeveloped heart, we cannot be a medicinemaker.”

Excerpted from The Bowl of Light: Ancestral Wisdom from a Hawaiian Shaman by Hank Wesselman, PhD (Sounds True, May 2010). For more about the author.