Yes I'm still looking, sorry for the slow response. Good points regarding santa claus - I hadn't thought of it that way and it makes sense now.

One thing I was wondering about was the conscious, subconscious and unconscious minds. In psychology they say that a mind of made of those three parts ...

I did the exercises throughout the day, observing thoughts and "just looking or hearing". One thing I've noticed is that I still get thoughts like "I am doing this" or " I am thinking that" or "I did that this afternoon", which involve the concept of self.

If the self is involved in the thoughts ...

I think it differs for different people, and how clearly they see it. For some people its like BAM! and a huge amount of their conditioning and patterns are blasted away. For me its a constant looking, getting caught up in patterns, recognising that I am getting caught up in patterns, and looking ...

So for example, if I have the thought of walking, then there's the thought of thinking about walking, and that thought seems like the self. But in general, all thoughts seem automatic, just like sight and hearing.

More precisely it's like, "if there's the thought of walking, then there's the ...

Ok good. So, you need to spend time throughout the day, whenever you remember, looking at any and all activities that happen, and see if you are doing them, or if they are all on automatic. Talking, walking, eating, cooking, writing, typing, whatever. Look whenever you can, and see if you can spot ...

Ok, but when you look at what is happening, do you see clearly that the only difference between being in control, and on automatic, is that in one, there are thoughts of being in control. Ie, that
1) being in control = automatic action + thoughts of being in control
2) being on automatic ...

What I am trying to point you in the direction of , is that you think you are in control, but , there are times when you "go away" so to speak, but stuff still happens. I am trying to get you to look at the difference between the times when actions happen , and you are "doing" them, and the times ...

Hi Neeeel, thanks for doing this. I did the exercise while I was offline, using finger clicking instead of arm raising.

So I would make a clicking sound by hitting the middle finger on the palm, and it would go like

the thought occurs to make the clicking sound -> the actual click

It's like more ...

But as I have pointed out, there are also times where the same actions are taken, but without thoughts about the action. Are the thoughts giving you control? Or is it that in both cases, the action is happening automatically, but sometimes there are thoughts about an "I" that is doing the action ...

This is all good stuff yes. Spend some more time over the next day or two watching how things happen, and how often you are in control , or how often you are absent, whenever you remember to.

Great thanks, I'll keep doing this exercise :]

So, theres a self thats in charge, that has the thought ...

1) When I willed my arm to raise, first I had the thought of raising it, and the rest seemed automatic. So, the way it seemed to me is that, it was my self having the thought, and the rest happened without the self being invovled as an active participant (it was only an observer). I'll post again if ...

Ok, my experience was like this:

1) when I raised my arm, it was as if I "willed" my arm to raise itself, and it did. Kind of like issuing a command, non-verbally. No, I wasn't aware of the individual muscles. I guess that may have been due to my lack of knowledge of the human anatomy.

2) Yes ...

Yes, I think the thoughts and make the decisions. This morning I decided to take my time going to the meeting, and walk in a relaxed way, because I thought I didn't need to attend the first part of the meeting.

I think I have control over my actions, like what I say in response to your post. I ...

Self is the observer - the seer and the hearer. What I perceive to be reality, it's the self that perceives.

Yes, that's what I've read and I'm totally fine with that. I suppose the word "enlightenment" can be misleading sometimes - what you describe is what I'm after so please continue