The ‘I’ is not Atman.+

Atman (Soul) is the “Self’. The ‘I’ is not Atman. There is a need to know what is this ‘I’ before indulging in the pursuit of truth. 

Dualist Sages including many sages and thinkers could not distinguish between ‘I’ and ‘formless witness.’ They hold ‘I’ as the witness. Their highest was the Jiva. One is so much 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 the awareness, the consciousness, behind the very statement. You will also go, and die. One has to rely upon that which is permanent. 

The Soul, the s witness of the ‘I’ alone is permanent. Anything that one says is a witnessed (waking), but there is the formless witness (consciousness) there before any statement can be made.

They mean the body by “I", but it is the Soul formless witness of the ‘I’.  The Soul is the real Self.  Theist 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