The ‘I’ is not Atman. The cause of the 'I' is Atman.+

Atman is the Sanskrit word. Atman means the Soul in English. Atman is the Self. The ‘I’ is not Atman.

There is a need to know ‘what I’ before indulging in the pursuit of truth.

People who hold the Self as the ‘I’ are holding the dualistic illusion as a reality.

Dualist Gurus, including great thinkers, could not distinguish between the ‘I’ and the ‘formless witness.’ The 'I' was the witness. Their highest was the Jiva. One is so attached to the 'I' that he does not want to think that 'I' does not exist. Again, one is unable to detach the ‘I’ from the Real witness.

The dualist object: - If everything else is false, then the statement I am Brahman is itself false, but when one says nonduality is false, there must be awareness, consciousness, behind the very statement.

You will also go, die. One has to rely upon that which is permanent. The invisible Soul, the Self, which is the witness of the ‘I’ alone, is permanent. Anything that one says is a witnessed (waking state), but there is the invisible Soul, the Self, which is present in the form of consciousness there before any statement could be made.

They mean the body as 'I', but it is the invisible Soul, the Selfwhich is the witness of the ‘I’.

The invisible Soul is the real Self. The orthodox Advaitin and dualists did not, or could not, analyze further than ‘I’ on this point because they thought the ‘I’ without the body as the Self. : ~ Santthosh Kumaar