This does not mean, though, that you are no longer an individual. You will not lose individuality in the way you might imagine; the individuality will simply be one facet of who you are. It’s like the example of the hand. In the beginning you think you are the finger, moving around, doing things. When your knowledge goes beyond the individual, beyond the ego, you find out you are the hand. You don’t lose the fingers by being the hand. The fingers are still there, the individuality is still there operating; however, it is part of something larger. And you are that something larger. At the same time, you are also the individual. Your attention is sometimes the finger and other times the totality of the hand. Then you live as what is called a cosmic individual. – Diamond Heart Book Five: Inexhaustible Mystery, ch. 4
The wave is part of the ocean, but it is distinguishable from the ocean. When you are a wave, it is true that you are not the whole ocean, but you are also not separate from the ocean. Without the ocean, waves would not exist. You could say that an ego is someone who believes that she or he can be a wave without an ocean—imagine the trouble you’d have sustaining that! The dominant feeling would be that there is no support. You would always be trying to hold yourself up! – Facets of Unity: The Enneagram of Holy Ideas, ch. 12