If you do much study of the ho’oponopono method, you will eventually hear the directive ‘no expectations’. I used to find this teaching rather confusing, but also contradictory since ho’oponopono is often described as a means to solve problems. If I’m experiencing a problem and am using ho’oponopono, why should I not have an expectation — specifically, an expectation for the problem I’m experiencing to be resolved?
The truth is many people misuse ho’oponopono because they treat it as a wishing well.
I’m going to use ho’oponopono so that I no longer experience poverty. I’m going to use ho’oponopono so that my illness gets cured. I’m going to use ho’oponopono so that I’ll find a mate.
There are some methods that claim a person can alter his or her life experience in any way that they want to, or can attract whatever is desired. Ho’oponopono does not make this claim. To the contrary, ho’oponopono says come to this method with no expectations for outcome whatsoever. There are good reasons for this.
Expectations, which are desires, are resistance against the flow of life. This is not acceptable — I want this instead. Resistance against something is effort, which is energy. So by resisting, you are actually providing energy to the thing that you believe is unacceptable. You are, in fact, nourishing it.
Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung put this phenomenon to words: ‘What you resist, persists.’
Expectations are also the voice of the ego, which is not your true voice. You are not your ego. Your ego is the conscious mind run amok with thinking, judging, labeling, and more. This is right, this is wrong, this is good, this is bad. In fact the ego does not have either the wisdom or the insight to make wholly accurate assessments — although it insists it does.
Desires and the ego also block your experience of the light of presence, the being of God, which is your true identity. This light of presence is always there and always on, but things like desires and ego block your awareness of it. When you are in connection with your true identity, you have no desires and no cares. You are full with contentment and peace, and are completely whole.
You don’t care about a perceived lack of money, or health, or companionship, or any other perceived problems. I know that this sounds impossible to believe, but it is so. People who experience death but are ultimately revived often report that during death (consciousness did not end) they had no cares and concerns whatsoever — even about being dead! Why? Because everything but their genuine identity had been stripped away, and once in sync with their genuine identity they were full with absolute peace and contentment.
For those still in the life experience, this feeling of contentment proves to be a paradox: when concerns about lack have been genuinely released, the life experience begins to fill up. Life becomes cooperative. Things show up, people show up, circumstances improve, and all of it without you applying force of effort. You have come to harmony with the light of presence, the being of God, and are now being provided for.
You have finally allowed presence to give to you, and it gives to you in abundance — not necessarily what your ego desires, but what it knows is right and perfect for you.
And it all started with no expectations.
