If you feel the Self is the ‘I’, then you are simply an intellectual ignorant who refuse to accept the 'Self' hidden by the ‘I’.+

Most people have the desire to know the truth but the capacity to understand and assimilate it is limited. The result is that people resolve the conflict by jumping to the first simplest and easiest conclusion as the correct one, and smugly but unjustifiably thinking “I know”: Thus, they commit the fallacy of primitivity.

Truth means certainty. If there is any uncertainty it is not the truth. It does not deal with imaginations. People do not have a scientific attitude because they take things as presented to them. They have rather emotional and sentimental attitudes. 

The correct attitude is to verify all the facts, to see a problem in them, something to investigate and inquire into them.

Truth must be verifiable; unless it is verifiable it is of no value. Those who lack the capacity to doubt are not fit for the pursuit of truth.

Analogical, inductive, and deductive reasoning are good only within the domain of form, time, and space; none are absolutely and universally infallible because they are based on the dualistic perspective. Whatever is based on the dualistic perspective is not the truth because it is a dualistic illusion.

The seeker should always verify the teacher, pundit, or yogi for their statements and claims have to be verified before accepting them as truth.

The Soul, Self cannot be known by intuition but it can be grasped by reason. There is a need to know first the Self is not the ‘I’ but the Soul, the witness of the ‘I’.

If the Self is not ‘I’ but the Soul then the reasoning has to be based on the Soul is not on the ‘I’. the based reasoning is dualistic reasoning. Soulcentric reasoning is necessary to unfold the mystery of the ‘I’, which is the dualistic illusion.

When you learn to reason on the base of the Soul, the Self, then all the clouds and confusion start clearing on its own and finally, you will have no confusion left. When all the doubts and confusion are cleared then there is no room left to say the world in which you exist is a reality.

Whatever you have seen, known believed, and experienced are within the universe. The universe appears as the waking experience (duality and disappears.

If you feel the ‘Self’ is the ‘I’, you are not a wise seeker. You are simply an intellectual ignorant who refuses to accept the 'Self' hidden by the ‘I’.

Bhagavad Gita: ~ “You must first see the ‘I’ as illusory before you see others as illusory. ~ CH.2 v.16

Remember:

The ‘I’ itself is the cause of separation.

The ‘I’ itself is ignorance.

The ‘I’ itself is an illusion.

That is why Ashtavakra Gita 16:10: ~ If you desire liberation, but you still say ‘I’,  if you feel the ‘Self’ is the ‘I’, you are not a wise man or a seeker. You are simply a man who suffers.

The seeker has to come out of the grip of the ‘I’ by realizing using the word ‘I’ to indicate the ‘Self’ itself becomes an obstacle to the realization of the oneness of the consciousness.

The ‘I’ has nothing to do with the Soul, the Self, which is the witness of the coming and going, of the ‘I’.

Until you hold the Self as ‘I’ you will remain in the domain of the ignorance because the ‘I’ itself is ignorance.

Getting rid of ignorance is necessary to unfold the ‘Self’ hidden by the ‘I’.

The ‘I’ is not permanent because it appears and disappears. The Soul, the witness of the coming and going, of the ‘I’, is permanent and eternal.

The Soul, the Self is prior to the ‘I’.

It is foolish to say I AM THIS or I AM THAT’ because the ‘Self ‘is not ‘I’. The ‘Self is the Soul, which witnesses the ‘I’.: ~Santthosh Kumaar