Would you consider it a loss to step out of a small, cramped cave with little sunlight into the open air with full sunlight? That is what happens when ego recedes and your True Self comes forward. You lose something, thankfully. The loss makes the gain possible. In that empty space, something comes forth - you. As Jesus says in the Gospels, "Those who lose their life shall find it." We do not lose Life; we lose our one little, isolated life. We experience our particularity like a brief bubble on the water. The self simply loses its centrality and assumes its place as a reflection of the one Presence. Our particularity is Spirit playing a unique role among other beings, each unique, too. We can choose. The options: the self playing with its toys in the muddy puddle, or the Self at-one, so in-Love, with the Ocean.