Autism and the attention mechanism
After seeing through the emptiness of personality, old mental or emotional reactions still occasionally arise in the mind. They are recognized early and let go.
What is actually happening: 1. A sensation or thought appears. 2. Awareness sees it without calling it “me” or “mine.” 3. No energy is given to it—attention does not linger or spin stories. 4. It dissolves back into emptiness.
This is not an issue. It is the clearing of leftover habits of identification.
There is no grand intellectual creator behind this; the whole play unfolds spontaneously. No intellect is running it.
Look into your own experience. Spirituality is simply understanding this play of awareness. Try to see through the illusion by tracing it back to its source.
Consciousness cannot exist without Awareness. But Awareness can exist without Consciousness, as in deep sleep. AWARENESS is ABSOLUTE. Consciousness implies a subject and object, a duality. Awareness does not; it is singular.
All world spirituality after the Axial Period is false. It is based on the belief in a personality. This is false. This falsehood creates the cult of a Savior—an external figure to redeem that supposed self.
The Axial Period (roughly 800–200 BCE) saw the rise of major religious frameworks that emphasized personal salvation, relationships with deities, and often reinforced a solid, separate self. The Axial Age (Jaspers’ term) included: Upanishadic Hinduism (though some Upanishads point to non-duality, popular worship turned to personal gods). Buddhism (whose core of anātman was later institutionalized into a religion of seeking). Jainism. Second Temple Judaism (moving toward monotheism and messianic hope). Greek philosophy (with a few exceptions, mostly dualistic). Zoroastrianism (with its cosmic dualism).
The Axial & Post-Axial Deviation: Institutionalized religions, craving structure and mass appeal, built their doctrines around the assumed reality of the individual soul or personality. Once you accept a real self, you create its inherent problems: sin, ignorance, bondage, suffering. The Necessary Savior: A real self with real problems demands a real solution from outside itself—hence the “Savior” archetype (Christ, Krishna as an object of devotion, Amitabha Buddha, the personal God of Islam).
If you watch videos of Magnus Carlsen and all autistic people, you will see that they are people who are turned inward. Except, consciousness once again is a fable; it doesn't exist—there is no subject/object. In fact, all inventors have this behavior. The illusion of a thinking subject holds strong in popular belief; no one thinks. Or rather, the body thinks.
Autistic individuals, certain deep thinkers, and inventors often seem inwardly focused rather than engaged in the typical, outward social projection of personality. They are not preoccupied with the identification with personality that most people display, precisely because their focus is internal.
They don't invest as much energy in: Maintaining a coherent social persona — the curated “personality” that is projected outward to interact, gain approval, or navigate social hierarchies. Reading and reacting to subtle social cues that reinforce the sense of being a separate self in relation to others. Engaging in the mental chatter that is often about self-image, past narratives, future projections, or social positioning.
Because their attention is naturally drawn inward — to patterns, systems, details, ideas, or internal sensory experiences — the habitual identification with the “personal self” is less reinforced for this reason.
For many neurotypical people, a huge portion of mental energy goes into constructing and maintaining a coherent social persona. In autistic individuals, this social reflex is often muted or absent. The mental machinery that constructs the “personality mask” isn't running the same script — not because they've seen through it conceptually, but because their attention is elsewhere.
The autistic/inward-focused cognitive style Here, attention is naturally drawn to: Patterns, systems, details, facts, mechanics — rather than social-emotional dynamics. Internal sensory or ideational landscapes — not externally curated persona. Deep focus on specific interests — where self-consciousness drops away in flow states. Result: The social persona isn't reinforced simply because the cognitive resources aren't allocated to it.
Here is why spiritual traditions suggest that certain personality structures or neurotypes might find it easier to drop identification with the conventional self simply because they’re less invested in it to begin with. Because these people navigate the abstract constantly, for them it is reality. Spiritual teachings are therefore, for them, a more natural language.
For neurotypical individuals, the sense of being a separate self is continuously regenerated through social interaction. Inward focus bypasses that reinforcement loop. Autistic cognition often privileges: Systemic thinking over social thinking. Internal consistency over social conformity. Deep engagement with patterns, objects, or ideas over engagement with interpersonal dynamics.
Less investment in persona doesn't mean awakening, but less to “undo” This doesn’t mean autistic individuals are inherently “enlightened.” They still may have ego structures, fixed beliefs, personal suffering, and identification with body-mind. However, the social layer of ego — which for many is the most active source of selfing — is less prominent.