Spiritual Autolysis
This is not journaling. It is a demolition process designed to burn away everything that is not true until only what is real remains.
Introduction: The sword of intellect
Most people use their minds to build defenses. They use logic to justify their fears, rationalize their failures, and construct elaborate stories about who they are.
Spiritual Autolysis is the process of reversing this machinery. It is the use of the intellect not as a builder, but as a blade. It is a method of aggressive, written self-inquiry designed to slash through the layers of delusion you have accumulated over a lifetime.
It is not meditation. It is not prayer. It is not a way to feel better. It is a way to know what is true.
The process
The mechanism is simple. You sit down with a blank page or a screen. You choose a belief, a fear, or a statement you hold to be true. And then you attack it.
You write it down.
"I am afraid of failing."
Then you ask: Is this true? What does failure mean? Who is the "I" that is afraid?
You do not write to express your feelings. You write to dissect them. You follow the thread of the fear back to its source. You ask "Why?" and "What is this?" until you hit a wall of nonsense or a hard floor of truth.
Writing as a filter
The mind is slippery. When you try to think your way through a problem, the ego hides in loops and fog. It distracts you with emotions. It changes the subject.
Writing freezes the mind. It forces the ego to state its case clearly. When you see your fears written down in black and white, stripped of the emotional fog, they often reveal themselves as ridiculous.
"I need my father's approval to be worthy."
When it stays in your head, it feels like a heavy truth. When you write it down and look at it, you see the absurdity of a grown man waiting for a permission slip.
The goal is reduction
You are not trying to learn something new. You are trying to unlearn the false.
You chip away at the beliefs about who you are.
"I am a designer." Is that true? No, that is a job.
"I am a good person." Is that true? What defines good? Who is judging?
"I am my body." Is that true?
You keep cutting until there is nothing left to cut.
Example from my spiritual autolysis
During my SA, I realized that I am playing and identifying as a victim. I used to blame my parents for things I wasn’t satisfied with. When I recognized the pattern, it burned, and I felt liberated from that crap and thought loops that poisoned my life for ages.
I felt liberated because I saw the cage for what it was. The "victim" was a heavy, suffocating costume I was wearing. When I saw it, I took it off.
That relief? That lightness? That is the feeling of subtraction.
I didn't add "freedom" to my life. I subtracted the victimhood.
Spiritual Autolysis is just that process, applied to everything.
- You subtract the "Performer."
- You subtract the "Good Son."
- You subtract the "Failed Entrepreneur."
Every time you subtract, you feel that same liberation. The emptiness is only scary to the part of you that thinks the costume is real. To the real you, it is simply fresh air.
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The resistance to truth: Self-sabotage
Back to Self-inquiry page.