The Strange Behaviour Of People, Search Engines And Ho’oponopono

If you’ve explored this website at all you’ll know that I’ve posted a fair amount of information about ho’oponopono. For example, there’s a description of how to conduct the kind of longer ho’oponopono used by Morrnah Nalamaku Simeona. There’re articles (and there will be more) all about the cleaning tools recommended by Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len in his many books and video presentations.

There is information about the ho’oponopono prayer (sometimes called the mantra), and there’s an entire piece all about the history of ho’oponopono, how it relates to Polynesian culture, with speculations about the origins from approximately the same time as Christianity.

When you go to the on-line encyclopaedia Wikipedia, you’ll find another longish piece that includes some of its early history, as well as some information about Morrnah Simeona and more recent applications.

Now go to Google™ and make a search for ho’oponopono. As on the day of writing this, we’re firstly faced with three YouTube videos. The first has the background music of the ho’oponopono song and an explanation of the workings of the subconscious mind overlaid upon it. I quite like it, yet it doesn’t mention any of Morrnah’s, or more traditional healing methods.

The second and third videos are the ho’oponopono prayer (mantra) set on a track of hypnotic music that are clearly intended to ‘heal’ or ‘allay’ any concerns of those listening to them.

Below these, are a series of people’s commonly asked questions. These are generally personal concerns such as ‘How Long Does Ho’oponopono Take To Work’, or even ‘How Many Times Do I Need To Say the Words’ (Prayer)?

It’s not that Google™ doesn’t attempt to produce good answers to people’s queries. When you click through the links attached to the basic answers, you’ll find that the deeper roots of ho’oponopono are often revealed. The question is, how many people are bothering to click through with their search?

The four phrased prayer popularised by Dr. Hew Len is so deceptively simple and easy to apply that people will cling to it without any real knowledge about what else he taught, or the seriousness of ho’oponopono as a discipline.

Google™ are limited in the answers they may give to user’s queries. They write:

Every day, fifteen per cent of searches are ones that we haven’t seen before, so we use automated systems to get you the most relevant and reliable information that we can find. To help you find what you’re looking for, these systems consider many factors, including the words in your query, the content of pages, the expertise of sources, and your language and location. To measure whether people continue to find our results relevant and reliable, we have a rigorous process that involves extensive testing and the use of quality raters who ensure that our automated systems produce great results as a human would expect.

It’s a laudable aim, yet one suspects that many of you searching for ‘good information’ about ho’oponopono are really seeking a ‘blue pill’ rather than the life-long commitment devoting yourself to practicing ho’oponopono requires.

This must feed into the Google™ algorithms because if Google™ consistently fails to provide its users with what they want (for example, rather than what is required from them when they practice ho’oponopono) then it is likely to lose consumer reach to other search engines (such as Bing™, and DuckDuckGo™) which each compete with the Google™ gorilla every day.

It’s a system that reminds me of the early days of GPS when some users found themselves to be diverted across unmade roads, or even fields, because a few days previously there had been road works and the diversion put in place as an expedient. Their GPS devices hadn’t been updated that the closure had long since ceased, and as people seemed to be using the diversion it assumed that this was the best route to travel.

As for this website, we will continue to provide the very best articles that aim to answer user’s questions, whilst letting you know that there’s more to the practice of ho’oponopono than the four phrases of the ho’oponopono prayer.

No offence is intended for the Ai, or the human beings engaged with the Search Engines mentioned in this article.