Spiritual Autolysis Examples: Mega-Thread

[r0ckyreed]

This is for people to share their own experiences in their process of Spiritual Autolysis, which is a way to annihilate the ego. Enlightenment is all about Truth-realization, by becoming less false and less full of shit.  If you negate all that is false, only truth remains.  

For example: “all belief systems are just the stories we create in order to deal with the void. Ego abhors a vacuum, so everybody’s scrambling to create the illusion of something where there’s nothing. Belief systems are simply the devices we use to explain away the unthinkable horror of no-self.” 
― Jed McKenna, Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing

 

 In case you don't know, this is how you do Spiritual Autolysis:

 “Listen! Here’s all you need to know to become enlightened: Sit down, shut up, and ask yourself what’s true until you know. That’s it. That’s the whole deal; a complete teaching of enlightenment, a complete practice. If you ever have any questions or problems—no matter what the question or problem is—the answer is always exactly the same: Sit down, shut up, and ask yourself what’s true until you know. In other words, go jump off a cliff. Don’t go near the cliff and contemplate jumping off. Don’t read a book about jumping off. Don’t study the art and science of jumping off. Don’t join a support group for jumping off. Don’t write poems about jumping off. Don’t kiss the ass of someone else who jumped off. Just jump.” 
― Jed McKenna, Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing

 

So here's how this process works.  Write down what you know for certain, and then tackle that statement and realize that everything you write is false.  All thoughts, words, beliefs, and concepts are full of shit.

 

Here's my example:  "What is true? What do I know for certain?"

1. I know that I am typing right now.

- How do I know that I am typing right now?  What is the I?  What is typing?  The assumption is that my senses are based in reality.  How do I know that I am actually typing on Actualized.org?  I do not know.  I believe!!

2. I am a human being on planet earth that is rotating around a sun.

- I assume that I am a human being on an earth that goes around the sun.  What is a planet? What is a human?  Sun? Rotation?  These are all beliefs that I have never verified.  If I dream that I am a butterfly, does that mean that I am a butterfly or am I just a butterfly dreaming that it is a human, or neither?  

3. I am NOT dreaming right now

- How do I know this?  Since I am so convinced in my dreams that when I wake up, I see its absurd, why am I falling into the same trap when I "wake up?"  How do I know that what we call the "real world" is just but another dream? 

4. The Universe Started at the Big Bang

- Is this really knowledge or is this a belief?  This is a belief.  I believed the mainstream cultural story of creation.  Big Bang is basically the scientists' God.  Science is making the same flaw as religious folks, and yet, I fell into this trap.  How gullible of me.  The Truth is that the origin is unknown, but that assumes reality has an origin, which cannot be known either, or can it?

- Claiming that knowledge is impossible is foolish because there is no way you can know if knowledge is impossible.  If you knew that knowledge is impossible, then that would mean that the statement is false because knowledge is possible.  If it is true that knowledge of anything is impossible, there is no way for you to know if it is or isn't.  This is still the ego trying to grab hold of the tiller.  Some thing is always assumed and taken on faith from that which all other explanations are based.

5. I have a brain that allows me to experience

- I don't know this either.  I have never seen my own brain.  Based on my memory, which may be true or false, I have seen another person's brain.  But I have never seen my own brain.  I assume I have a brain and that experience is rendered by it.  How do I know that the object of a brain that I see on the table is what "my brain" is?  A brain is seeing a brain according to this logic, but since the brain interprets reality, how do we know that our perceptions have any basis in reality.  

- This whole materialistic proposition assumes that consciousness is objectified in a brain.  If this is the case, you cannot know anything.  Even if it isn't the case, you cannot know either.  I know it sounds like I am claiming that knowledge is impossible, hence my fallacy from above, but I am saying that if you do not experience reality directly, how can you know that your sense of reality is reality?  I mean after all, according to this materialistic view, everything is interpreted by electrochemical receptors and neurons firing in the brain that interpret reality.  But if you look for neurons or brains in this experience now, you will realize that in your experience, you never experienced neurons or brains.  You only believe them, and do not actually know them.  If this is a dream, how can we trust anything to be real?  All authority figures are agents in the matrix that prevent us from reflecting inward.  

 

So this is my example of Spiritual Autolysis.  I came to the conclusion that we don't really know anything, and this includes that I don't know if we can know anything.  Anything that is believed to exist, cannot be known to exist.  This process is basically like Cogito Ergo Sum.  The only thing you really know is that you exist.  That's it.  Anything else is concept and imagination.

 

I would like to see some of your threads on how you all tackle Spiritual Autolysis (I assume there are other people who will respond lol!)

Good luck with this work.  I still realize that my journey with Spiritual Autolysis is not even close to complete because I am still so full of crap.  In fact, I already see the bullshit in trying to explain why I am full of shit.  Everything I wrote on this form, will be attacked the next day (assuming a next day exists or "day" in general).

 

 

 

Edited October 9, 2020 by r0ckyreed

[The0Self]

How can you know any of that when there isn’t a you?

Thats not a criticism, just an added inquiry. Looks awesome.

Edited October 9, 2020 by The0Self

[r0ckyreed]

Thanks! I realize it’s hard to type without using first person language. I also realize that I am hiding from awakening every time I post my crap on these forums. I have the tools to do it but I’m avoiding it by seeking refuge and comfort on Actualized.org. I discovered that Actualized.org is serving me ego in a way. What I need to do is go into a dark forest and just find the Truth like Jed McKenna says. everything else is just a distraction from truth.
 

 

[The0Self]

14 minutes ago, r0ckyreed said:

Thanks! I realize it’s hard to type without using first person language. I also realize that I am hiding from awakening every time I post my crap on these forums. I have the tools to do it but I’m avoiding it by seeking refuge and comfort on Actualized.org. I discovered that Actualized.org is serving me ego in a way. What I need to do is go into a dark forest and just find the Truth like Jed McKenna says. everything else is just a distraction from truth.
 

 

Again, just adding an inquiry here, but who could possibly find truth if there is nobody?

Theres a reason why the dark night is so widely reported as being quite a harrowing experience.
 

It seems like it couldn’t really be that bad, and then boom, divine hopelessness. But hope and hopelessness are the same. Everything is the same.

Edited October 9, 2020 by The0Self

[r0ckyreed]

Good point.  I guess the point I was trying to say in "finding" the truth is about unlearning all that I hold that is untrue including the "I" at the center of inquiry.  

 

I have been thinking about Memento Mori, but I realize that I am not sure if death can really be known to be a reality.  Are we really mortal?  What does mortality mean?  If there is an afterlife, then wouldn't life be like a dream?  If there is afterlife, there is no mortality.  Even if death is a reality, what does that mean if there is no experience?  I assume that if or when this ego dies, it would be like it never existed, like nothing ever existed.  It was all just a dream.  

I try to do memento mori every waking moment, but all I can be certain of is that NOW is the only reality.  Time is illusion.  

The assumption is that death is the end and that it is a reality, but I realize that death is just my belief.  It is the ego's story that it tells itself I guess.

 

Edited October 9, 2020 by r0ckyreed

[The0Self]

Good plan.

If someone knows they’re dead, who’s dead? If someone doesn’t know they’re dead, who’s dead?

[r0ckyreed]

I guess since I was never born, there is nobody that dies.  The question that arises for me is that how can there be any knowledge about death if all knowledge dies in death.  But I guess maybe knowledge is an illusion because it assumes there is a knower to what is known.

I see death like the silence in which sound is born and then dies.  The impermanence of things is the death of things you could say I guess.

Edited October 9, 2020 by r0ckyreed

[Persipnei]

18 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

This process is basically like Cogito Ergo Sum.  The only thing you really know is that you exist.  That's it.  Anything else is concept and imagination.

I failed to understand Cognito. My ego said "That's me!" and I believed it. I would like to rephrase it to "Sum Ergo Sum".

[Persipnei]

17 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

Thanks! I realize it’s hard to type without using first person language. I also realize that I am hiding from awakening every time I post my crap on these forums. I have the tools to do it but I’m avoiding it by seeking refuge and comfort on Actualized.org. I discovered that Actualized.org is serving me ego in a way. What I need to do is go into a dark forest and just find the Truth like Jed McKenna says. everything else is just a distraction from truth.

It is what you make of it. It can serve your ego or you could learn about your ego. The choice is yours.

[r0ckyreed]

 

8 hours ago, Persipnei said:

It is what you make of it. It can serve your ego or you could learn about your ego. The choice is yours.

Yeah! Both are true lol! That’s why I love actualized.org cause I learn more about myself, but I just need to do the work!

[BangersAndMash]

On 10/9/2020 at 9:29 AM, The0Self said:

How can you know any of that when there isn’t a you?

Thats not a criticism, just an added inquiry. Looks awesome.

To piggy back this (and to get it clear in my own mind)...

You think there's a you.  That's ego.  It's not bad, it's just how this dreamstate functions. It's how the whole thing works (Maya).  Conceptually saying you know there isn't a "You" is great if you just want understanding.  Anyone can look and begin to understand (Look at an illustration of your brain/nervous system).  But as said during the final talk in Warfare, understanding doesn't help.  You have to go through the process until you are "done" to know ego isn't real.

The whole point is to look at the you that thinks is you and, layer (belief) by layer, remove the layers until eventually you cross the threshold (first step) and all the layers (beliefs) unravel (if you survive the fall) until their is no longer a you as you thought of as a you.  What remains is the true "you", which is awareness, no-self, Truth.  A good starting point is to seek out that which you fear the most and ask "What must I believe is true for me to fear this so much?" 

e.g.  For some it might be the idea that once we die we dissolve and all our memories, experiences, knowledge, perceptions vaporize to nothing. That this Universe and all those we care about cease to continue and dissolves along with us.  So nothing we do matters, or have real consequence for anyone in the future because there is no future.  The universe didn't exist before I got here, and ends when I die.

Also note that the you that thinks of you as you (why do I sound like Rush Hour now???) can desire Truth (cool party trick - nice conversation starter!), but the you that begins the journey doesn't complete the journey (booby prize).  This is why it's so difficult to get to the first step and then each subsequent step if you're past a certain age.  You (false-self) will fight tooth and nail to survive as it's been thinking it's the one controlling everything for too long and is entrenched.  Hence "Warfare". 

The battle begins when you know what makes up the two armies (false-self vs no-self) and see them facing each other.   

The two armies are made up of...

Hatred of false self (fueled by the little bastard) VS Fear of no self (fueled by ego)

Until you have sufficiently cultivated a hatred of false self, you won't see the armies.  You'll merely remain in the "understanding" phase of the process.

You'll know when you're close because the fear escalates as ego (maya) begins to sense an enemy and launches the antibodies.  Guess lockdown gave me a better vocabulary after all!

Julie's inclusion in Incorrect was to illustrate the struggle to get to the next step as Maya increased her attack to keep Julie from the next step.  As in notebook (I think)...it requires "Purity of Intent, and to continue to pray for the next step".   Unless you move past discomfort and into the realization that the building's on fire, then SA is just another parlor trick to impress people with your so called newly found "spiritual" understanding.  This is where I'm at btw.  Nice one Maya!

 

Edited May 16, 2021 by BangersAndMash

[lmfao]

Cool that this thread was just bumped, le synchronicity

I tried Jed Mckenna's suggestion today of trying to write what's true, and questioning and taking apart things. And you go all the way with it. Pushing your mind's sanity and thoughts to the limit like that, "going meta" (that label is secondary) like that is a very interesting thing. Doing the exercise showed me the limits of my mind which I weren't aware of.

Apparently, doing that sort of thing is what "koans" are about. Concentrating madness and frustration of the mind. I ended up being filled with panic and fear by the end when questioning how I know "I" , "fear" or "suffering" exist, in relation to a specific and intense fear I have. Still feel it. 

I've been perceiving a weird conflict between "depth" and "breadth" in searching for truth. Sometimes "breadth" is an excuse to distract yourself from something you find unpleasant, but is perhaps good for you. Being scattered. Sometimes "depth" is an excuse to get stuck in the same place and be miserable for no reason. 

Edited May 16, 2021 by lmfao

[TreyMoney]

Spiritual autolysis was how I became gobsmacked by enlightenment. I was reading about the holographic universe and discovered Jed McKenna's Enlightenment Trilogy and bam! Like getting hit by a bus. This was in 2014 before I discovered actualized.org.

It is a crazy experience to discover that consciousness is the only certain truth and everything else is a perception that is believed to be true.  I had a taste of Torquise and it was delicious.

But I am now going back to fill in the gaps in my self concept in stages green/yellow of the spiral.