In celebration of Native American Heritage Month, Manulani Aluli-Meyer spoke at the University of Idaho, focusing on finding a balance and learning the differences between knowing, knowledge and understanding.
She encouraged attendees to set down their phones, computers, pencils and paper, so they could pay better attention to the conversations she facilitated.
Aluli-Meyer’s presentation — “Indigenous Education and the Purpose of Aloha” — created a space for the audience to dive into epistemology.
“(Indigenous epistemology) has been my path, it’s been my goal, my purpose, my elan vital,” Aluli-Meyer said. “It’s about worldwide awakening. We do it collectively — this is a movement of collective emergence.”
Aluli-Meyer is an associate specialist with the University of Hawaii Department of Student Affairs in West Oahu. She is a scholar and an activist for Native Americans, especially Hawai’ians.
Aluli-Meyer requested the attendees pair-up and start conversations about the topics she introduced.
First, the pairs were instructed to ask each other how they were doing. This served as an exercise to show the audience the difference between the “how are you” greeting that has become common in this society as an alternative to “hello” and what “how are you” can mean when a different energy is invested into the question.
Aluli-Meyer then discussed how the world functions similar to a hologram — which is known as holographic epistemology.
According to Aluli-Meyer, the world is made of the physical (the realm of knowing), the mental (the realm of knowledge) and the spiritual (the realm of understanding).
She made it clear the spiritual portion of reality is not purely religious. She referred to religion as the “bureaucracy of spirituality” — while an important portion of the whole, it is not the entirety.
Through further discussion, Aluli-Meyer continued to describe how everything that exists is interrelated. She said everything in existence is similar because they are different.
Aluli-Meyer also said part of the reason everything is so interconnected because of the many connections to the physical, mental and spiritual realms.
She said people have described reality as a trilogy for a long time.
Aluli-Meyer encouraged the audience to explore the connections within the world, as well as what makes everything simultaneously similar and different.
“I can’t do (this) alone. We do (this) together,” Aluli-Meyer said. “That’s the collective emergence part — I don’t emerge by myself.”