The “I” may be reduced to the simple awareness of existing in everyday life.
The “me” is that part of what one is which can be known through introspection or by means of external approaches in various disciplines (psychology, characterological astrology, philosophy…).
If one can speak of the “me” as such, the “self” immediately calls upon both the “non-self” and the “Self” in order to be defined. One may say that the “self” is a “non-self” relative to the Self, to express the reality of the relative in comparison with that of the Absolute.

More precisely

The terms “I,” “me,” and “self” denote distinct levels of identity.

The “I” (the empirical subject) designates the immediate conscious instance, the pole of experience from which existence is lived: “I see,” “I think,” “I act.” It corresponds to the lived phenomenological center.

The “me” refers to the structured psychological instance: personality, character, history, memory, self-representation, affects. It is the object of psychological or philosophical inquiry: it can be analyzed, typologized, interpreted. The “me” pertains to what is conditioned, changing, and empirical.

The “self” already signals an interiorization and an elevation: it is not only what one psychologically is, but what one is in terms of being. The self belongs to the intermediate zone where the individual opens toward the non-individual.
One may say that the self is the “non-self” in relation to the Self, because even the deepest dimension of individual identity remains relative, dependent, and participatory. The self exists only in reference to the Self, from which it proceeds and in which it participates.

The Self—in the metaphysical sense—is not the enlarged ego, but the spiritual Principle: the Absolute, universal reality which grounds and inwardly sustains every particular consciousness. It is the true identity of being, not as an individual, but as participant in the Absolute.

In many traditions, the transformation from “I” to “self” (and ultimately to the Self) is the path of spiritual realization: a movement from psychological consciousness toward supra-individual consciousness. The ego must open, decenter, or even “empty” itself so that the principial Self can be recognized within it.

This is not the annihilation of the individual but the transfiguration of consciousness: the ego ceases to assume itself as absolute and becomes transparent to the Principle. The self, recognizing its relativity, receives its truth from the Self, just as reflected light receives its reality from its source.

For further reading

  • Plato, Alcibiades I — On self-knowledge as access to the Principle.
  • Plotinus, Enneads — On the Intellect (Nous) and return to oneself.
  • Shankara, Vivekachudamani — On the Self (ātman) and the illusion of the non-self.
  • Meister Eckhart, Sermons — On the ground of the soul and the birth of the Word.
  • René Guénon, Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta — On the distinction between ego, self, and Self.
  • Jean Borella, Lumières de la théologie mystique (L’Âge d’Homme, 2002) — On the relationship between person, soul, and deification.
  • Bruno Bérard, Metaphysics for Everyone (Angelico Press); trans. of Métaphysique pour tous (Paris, L’Harmattan, 2022); It. Sui sentieri della metafisica ; Sp. ¿Qué es la metafísica? ; Ger. Was ist Metaphysik? — On the distinction me / self / Self, relative vs. Absolute, and metaphysical participation.