aurum

This definitely seems like a good start. But the way I see it there's more to SA. Okay, so you're inauthentic. You're a lying, selfish, delusional person like everyone else and that hurts. It hurts to see that everything is ultimately pointless and that life has no meaning. But that isn't enlightenment. That's more ego, more self-image, more opinions. Only the form has really changed. So what if you're selfish and inauthentic. Is that "bad"? "Bad" and "good" is just more duality, more illusion. Why do you even care about that if everything is meaningless and only awareness exists? Why do you care if other people are inauthentic? It isn't even bad to think that something is bad. Hence not even ego is bad, just false. SA will help you dig deeper. There are more assumptions at play here and as far as I see SA is the process which you find them and hopefully see through them.

I'm familiar with Adyashanti but not this technique. Could you give a brief description?

My understanding is that meditation builds mindfulness to see through the bullshit, while autolysis gets the bullshit out of the way. Either way you see what lies beyond. I just presume mindfulness is a skill that needs to be cultivated rather than something that naturally comes with enlightenment. Shinzen Young at least has said that most ordinary people who have spontaneous enlightenment experiences lose them as they don't have enough awareness to understand. As Jed said in his books, once you use the sword of intellect to cut through everything that needs cutting, you don't feel the need to do SA anymore; you're just Done. Done, as in, all of your assumptions about what reality is are destroyed, and what's left is something you can discover in something like sitting contemplation. Yes, the process of seeing through your own worldview can be emotionally disturbing at times, but it's not like that worldview ever had any existence to begin with. And of course it's okay to still have that worldview when operating in everyday life. It's just that you see it as illusory. What I've found is that, yes, you can be absolutely Done with figuring out Truth, but you're hardly ever Done with seeing through the character you play. I've found that SA in the form of uncovering my own psychological hang-ups has been very useful alongside contemplation. That form of SA operates more like journal entries. Just examine any emotions that cause you suffering during the day, and try to get to the bottom-line assumption(s) that fuels it. You can do that before and after becoming conscious of your True nature. I've actually found it to be more useful after the fact. Interesting perspective. But if you haven't seen through your character, have you really arrived at Truth? The character is false and would still be cutting you off from what IS, i.e reality.

Yes this is a good point. Everyone has to do the math for themselves.

As far as time spent, Jed claims the process takes around 2 years of serious work. I can only speculate but I wouldn't be surprised if that's correct. Destroying beliefs is a tough process but it can be done given someone puts in the time. I also would imagine that Enlightenment through SA would leave you just as mindful. What is being mindful but seeing reality as it is? Julie, the girl from the 2nd book, points out that she "never vows to think again" as she sees it as a disgusting habit. That being said I see no reason why it has to be "either or". Why not combine mindfulness with SA? This is what I'm currently doing.

Yes that was my basic interpretation as well. The hard part seems to be, as you said, to not look for an answer. Our minds are always trying to do that. Even saying "x is wrong/false" would be just another belief. The point is that there is no answer. You can't truly know anything as long as you're conceptualizing. Have you continued using SA? If it really works then there seems no reason to stop in till there's nothing left. Did you find it emotionally disturbing as described in the books?