Where’s your head?
New York City, as you know, is the home of Wall Street and therefore Occupy Wall Street. Someone wrote and invited me to blog about the current movement. I didn’t have anything immediately. She had written something about feeling as if her head was in the sand- as if she were avoiding the reality of what was happening around her. She wanted to know what my stance on this was and how or if I was using my platform as a teacher to help people get their heads out of the sand. I responded that my focus was more on helping people get their heads out of their asses.
This colorful phrase “get your head out of your ass”, is a kind of mystical aphorism that goes right back to the beginning of my spiritual training. I entered spirituality as a very young man. I was 16 and trying to get my life together, get my self , -dare I say- get my shit together. One of the great men that took me under his wing was a substance abuse counselor named Rick Mast. I wasn’t in rehab, but he worked in one and from time to time I would visit him in his office. 
Over his desk he had a poster with a version of the picture to the left. Beneath the image were the words, “Your Problem is Obvious”.
It is an oft-used phrase and one that I love, so I thought we could examine it. Usually, the phrase is simply an insult. Sometimes, it is the best way to describe our un-awake way of being. It is an image of someone who is lost, blind, and deeply unaware of reality.
The head-in-your-ass syndrome -HIYAS- occurs when people are deeply self absorbed. When people are wounded, or triggered in some way, they will get blind to everything else around them. People become mere objects in their melodrama. Without some kind of spiritual life and training, people hardly experience life. They mostly experience their minds and emotions.
HIYAS also occurs when people live in a dense fog of concepts -like when someone is hell-bent in some philosophy. People who are very religious also exhibit this quality, even if their religion is a particular meditation or yoga path. Even hard-core 12 Step people -where the phrase is most often used- have their heads in their ass when they get dogmatic about their recovery philosophy. HIYAS almost always afflicts people with strong political agendas. It really doesn’t matter if they are at a Tea Party rally or Zucotti Park.
When we are deeply identified with some trip- religious, political or other- then people become part of “our camp” or “their camp”. People who know and people who don’t. Yoga people, non-yoga people. Wizards and muggles. Conservatives and liberals.
Getting your head out of your ass in the mystical tradition is called awakening. I love this term. It’s not about substituting a more enlightened bunch of concepts for the unenlightened ones. That may be a good intermediate step. But our attempt to get free by joining something often turns into just another HIYAS. We get indoctrinated. It sounds like a super-strong word, but it is true. We get convinced of a new doctrine. A new dream. Awakening is so different from indoctrinating. It is waking up from a dream. It is snapping out of our trance. It is seeing beyond our personal wounds. It is seeing beyond our concepts. It is living life on life’s terms.
Suffering from HIYAS is nothing to be ashamed about. Studies show that 100% of all people experience recurring symptoms of HIYAS. We all go back and forth over the course of our spiritual life. We all have things that put us into a trance or allure us into a trip of some sort or another. Then something wakes us up. If we are sensitive, sometimes we hear the barely audible pop of our head coming out. It’s a sweet sound.
Meditation is a great way to help clear away the fog of our concepts and habitual feeling patterns. You are most welcome to join us for one of our classes, retreats and workshops. There you will get training in meditation practice and meet others who are getting free. I promise not to indoctrinate you (too much). Have a look.
So where is your head?
If you examine yourself in this way, what do you see? I would love to read your comments.
What coaxes your head into your ass? What helps you to get it out? Please share.
If you enjoyed this conversation, join our online course The Way of the Crow. It’s a 4 month exploration of Spirituality in Daily Life. This post is drawn in part from the first lesson of the course. This week is the last chance to register. Click the link on the right for details.
“It is seeing beyond our concepts. It is living life on life’s terms”
Love that part!
Yeah Mea, Life is so supremely wise. If we can be in the stance of a disciple, it will reveal itself as “the Guru”.
I love this. Thank you for reminding me to greet accountability with gentleness and dedication with a sense of humor. I suspect that working myself into an anxious, judgey lather about anything, including spiritual work, is probably a symptom of severe HIYAS.
To me, the strangest thing about HIYAS is that it can be so addictive. Given the freedom of the beautiful, wild world versus the suffocating misery of anal head-shackling, it seems like a ridiculous and miserable choice to keep putting my head there. But when I’m mid-HIYAS, the longer I stay in that shitty (zing) claustrophobic space, the stronger the impulse becomes to take it all very seriously and personally and ram my head ever further into the dark. What is that about?
My favorite part: “If we are sensitive, sometimes we hear the barely audible pop of our head coming out. It’s a sweet sound.”
Sweet, indeed.
i experience HIYAS as complete loss of consciousness. utter self-obssession and fear usually induced by doubting the power of grace or assuming that i know what is next. with HIYAS, i am nowhere near now. forgotten. the trance is more like a dance of distance between me and the moment – i’m still here but veiled, skeptical, suspicious, foggy… if i am awake enough, it can be a signal that i’m just about to put my HUMA.