“The last thing I would do before I transition is doing my cleaning.
When I transition, I will do my cleaning”

Ihaleakala used to say to me.

I first met Ihaleakala in 1997.
I was having a lot of problems at the time, and a good friend took me to Ho’oponopono class.
Looking back now, I realize that the best choice I made for myself in this lifetime was to go to class that day.

Back then, classes were still small, and they were held at someone’s house.
I sat in the front row and opened the manual handed to me by the staff and read through it, trying to make sense of the fact that I had bothered to attend in the first place.

Before I knew it, Ihaleakala approached me, peeked over me in my chair, and said

“If I were you, I would not be able to read the manual”

To say the least, I was shocked.

Having always believed that it was the right thing to do to carefully read a book, textbook, or instruction manual when it is handed to me, my mind was filled with question marks. However, I decided to listen to what this older man said and closed the manual first.

And after that, I listened to what was spoken in class. 
In that class, Ihaleakala said,

“All you have to do in Ho’oponopono is to use the cleaning tools, that’s all.
There is nothing to understand, nothing to remember. It will help you.”

To be honest, I found it difficult to accept those words easily, but I decided to accept them because I already had a feeling of freedom from the stress I had been under by that time.

That was my first encounter with Ihaleakala. I will never forget that moment.
But at that time, I did not realize how much I was benefiting from this problem-solving process that Ihaleakala had taught me.

The next time I met Ihaleakala was when I took my wife Marian to a class as a review student.

It was near Mt. Shasta, a very long 4-hour drive from home.
When we arrived there, the sun was already setting and it was pitch black and we could not see anything. My wife seemed a little scared of the situation.

In the past, Ihaleakala used to hold a mini-lecture on Friday night, the day before the two-day weekend class. When we arrived, the lecture was about to end, but Ihaleakala noticed our arrival and invited us to join in the “closing prayer,” which is always read at the end of the lecture.
The beautiful scene at that time is still vivid in my mind like a warm fire.

I was fortunate to be able to prepare myself for Ihaleakala’s passing. Long before Ihaleakala’s passing, he said to me in a conversation

“I am going to transition. I want to make sure that everything is set up so that even if  I transition, cleaning will continue.
That’s why I need people like you. I want you to teach a class.“

In fact, at the time, I had no desire to teach classes.

However, Ihaleakala seemed to have anticipated my feelings and went on to say

“Divinity will guide you through everything.
The cleaning will guide you through and help you with the class.”

“So you only get to the cleaning.”

Let me share one episode with Ihaleakala, which is a personal experience.
 
One day, I had an opportunity to tell Ihaleakala about my recent situation. At the time, my oldest son was about to enter college. To be honest, I was worried because going to college in the U.S. is very expensive. 
I had no idea how I was going to pay for the huge amount of tuition fees I would need to pay, and I was talking about my vague frustration and anger about why it was so expensive in the first place, as if I was trying to vent my financial worries.

After a while, Ihaleakala said

“The most important thing here is that your son goes to the right place for him.
That is what is important.
As long as he is in the right school, he can learn to be happy and perfect.
In order for that to happen, you need to clean with the insecurities, frustrations, and expectations you have right now and you need to be free”

I was reminded of my own cleaning by hearing it and cleaning any emotions or reactions I was experiencing.
As a result, my son was accepted to UCSB UC Santa Barbara as a scholarship student.

“He’ll get a scholarship.”

Ihaleakala said this before my son had applied for the entrance exam. 

And indeed, the school waived all tuition and fees, as well as all books and other activities necessary for his studies, through a full scholarship until my oldest son graduated from UCSB.
And he did, in fact, proudly graduate and go on to a career in engineering.

When he graduated, we gave Ihaleakala a baseball cap and shirt with the university logo on it.

I still remember Ihaleakala laughing and saying, “He [Marvin’s son] went to the right school.”

To paraphrase Ihaleakala, we are always clinging to something. Because we are clinging, we cannot be free. What we cling to are all kinds of feelings and thoughts: anxiety, fear, anger, sadness, happiness. And they are memories.

But with the practice of cleaning, we can let go of them right now, in this very moment.
We can connect to the Divine. We can let go and be free.

In closing, here is one more quote from Ihaleakala.

“Cleaning is the one moves us forward.
You can do this“