Whom does ‘I’ refer to in Bhagavad Gita?

First let us be clear that ‘I’ refers to a person. 

This is not complicated and is how people refer to themselves. It is straightforward grammar. I refers to me. My and mine refers to things that belong to me. When I, me, my and mine, are used in speech, a person is involved, and the person is referring to themselves and their possessions.

Brahman is not a person. I repeat, Brahman is not a person.

Krishna is a person.

As we read through Mahabharata we become acquainted with the person Krishna. He is a major character in the great history Mahabharata and, just before the battle commences, He speaks with Arjuna. That’s what people do. They talk to one another. That conversation is called Bhagavad Gita. It is a conversation between two people, Krishna and Arjuna, and Krishna repeatedly says I, me, my and mine.

What Krishna says in that conversation is, frankly speaking, stunning. He reveals that He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He is the highest Truth and there is nothing and no one that is superior to Him. He reveals that Brahman does not exist independently from Him, and that He is the basis of Brahman. He proves His position by exhibiting His universal form which contains everything that exists in His creation, past present and future, all at once.

Why it is stunning is because Krishna does not move around the planet exhibiting all of His many opulences at all times. He doesn’t come with ‘shock and awe’. That role is played by Lord Narasimhadeva. Krishna comes quietly and fits in with what is happening. His supremacy is downplayed by Him. When He does do something extraordinary people are left thinking “Did I just see what I thought I just saw, or is there some other explanation?”

So when Krishan reveals that He actually is God, it’s a surprise for many, but there is still a little wiggle room for those that don’t want to believe it.

When you know who God is, and understand His position, then there is little option but to do as He says. This is not palatable to everyone because some people don’t like being told what they should do, so they use the ‘wiggle room’ to deny that Krishna is God and say that when Krishna says ‘I’ and ‘My’ He doesn’t actually mean Himself and His. 

But there is not a single reason anywhere in Gita to conclude this. Nor is there any reason to conclude that when Krishna says ‘I’ He actually means ‘you, me and everyone else’. When a person wants to give that understanding they say ‘we’, not ‘I’. Krishna doesn’t do this. He distinguishes Himself from all the jivas stating that we are His eternal fragmental parts. (Bg 15.7). This makes it clear that we are eternally different to Krishna being a part of Him, and not equal to the whole that is Krishna.

If I say “I am writing this.” There is no reason to conclude that I am not. If I were to say that “when I write I go into a state of trance and some power comes through me that I can’t control and my fingers move by themselves,” then there would be some justification in saying that Murari Das doesn’t mean himself when he writes ‘I'.

Since Krishna doesn’t say that some impersonal energy is moving through Him, (in fact He says the opposite saying that He is the source and basis of the impersonal energy Bg 14.27), there is no reason to conclude that when He says ‘I’, He is not referring to Himself, Krishna.

The total material substance, called Brahman, is the source of birth, and it is that Brahman that I impregnate, making possible the births of all living beings, O son of Bharata. Bg 14.3

And I am the basis of the impersonal Brahman, which is immortal, imperishable and eternal and is the constitutional position of ultimate happiness. Bg 14.27

O conqueror of wealth, there is no truth superior to Me. Everything rests upon Me, as pearls are strung on a thread. Bg 7.7