Pili (Lyn ‘Unihipiliowailelepualu Moreno Hilliard) is a traditional healer, musician, and kumu (teacher) of ‘Ōkupu, a path of meditation and spirituality deeply rooted in the traditional wisdom of Hawai‘i. He is of Filipino, Spanish, and Celtic ancestry, and Hawaiian by adoption. Pili’s father moved from the Philippines to the Hawaiian island of O‘ahu in the 1930s. He later settled in California, where he met Pili’s mother, who was originally from Massachusetts. Pili was born and raised in California and spends much of his time in the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern Oregon.
While still in his teens, Pili became immersed in the quest to understand the nature of reality, and to discover the source of life, love, and awareness. This journey took him abroad for a year and a half of roaming in Europe and Asia. While in Nepal, he heard about a three-month residential yoga teacher training course soon to begin at Ananda Ashram in Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu, South India. He completed the course in 1971 under the guidance of Yogamaharishi Dr. Swami Gitananda Giri. His travels also took him to the Greek Islands, Afghanistan, Indonesia, and to his spiritual home, Hawai‘i.
Nā mele o ka ‘āina aloha: Aunty Bea and Pili
Pili is the hānai (adopted) son of Aunty Bea Nakapuahi Christian-Perin, originally of Niumalu, Kaua‘i. Aunty Bea is related to a number of famous Hawaiian songwriters and is the niece of Aunty Emma Kāne, a prominent Kaua‘i Kahuna Lapa‘au (master healer) of the early twentieth century. From Aunty Bea, Pili has learned much about Aunty Emma’s work. Both of these kūpuna are a continuing source of inspiration and understanding for him. Aunty Emma gave him the name ‘Unihipiliowailelepualu, through Aunty Bea, as an inoa pō (name given in a dream).
‘Elele O Nā Kūpuna Aunty Māhealani
Kuamo‘o-Henry and Pili
He has had the honor of brief but significant and aloha-filled studies with Loea Kumu Kawaikapuokalani Hewett and ‘Elele O Nā Kūpuna Aunty Māhealani Kuamo‘o-Henry. Pili’s experiences with Aunty Māhealani were particularly inspiring. ‘Elele O Nā Kūpuna means “messenger of the ancestors”, and Aunty Māhealani graciously conveyed to Pili a powerful message from her ancestral spirit guides: that it was his responsibility to pioneer the reintroduction of the traditional path of meditation that is Pili’s spiritual heritage, and that had been lost to the world for generations.
In 1991 he began his studies with master hypnotherapy teachers Randal Churchill, Marleen Mulder, and the legendary Ormond McGill at Hypnotherapy Training Institute in Corte Madera, California. He found that hypnotherapy was a perfect match with his worldview and skills, and joined HTI as an instructor that same year. Since then, thousands of healing arts professionals from around the world have participated in Pili’s popular classes, which explore the connections between indigenous healing traditions and cutting-edge hypnotherapy. He is proud of his long association with HTI, which he feels is one of the world’s finest resources for healers of all kinds.
Studies with Huna master Serge Kahili King in the early 1990s deepened Pili’s experience of shamanic journeying, inspired him to expand his knowledge of Hawaiian culture and traditions, and demonstrated how effectively traditional perspectives on healing and cosmology can be communicated in the modern world.
Pili is a certified hypnotherapist (Hypnotherapy Training Institute, 1991, certified by the American Council of Hypnotist Examiners), and a certified yoga instructor (International Centre for Yoga Education and Research, India, 1971). He has worked as a graphic designer, used book dealer, jewelry importer, and software guru.
Complementing his formal studies, contemplation, introspection, and meditation is the knowledge and inspiration he has gained from the sadhus, mystics, visionaries, vagabonds, artists, activists, rikshaw drivers, rice farmers, rug merchants, and warm-hearted folk of all kinds whom he has had the good fortune to meet in various places around the world.