You cannot have a sense of self without also simultaneously having a sense of other. Identity served universal expansion because source (otherwise known as united consciousness) could not become conscious of itself from a platform of non-identity. There was no contrast inherent in that. Oneness cannot comprehend oneness except from a vantage point of separation. Just like a fish cannot conceive of water until it has experienced air. And so, identity was conceived. A more practical way of explaining this as it relates to you is that the separate self, or ego is the necessary condition for you to experience oneness or enlightenment. Whenever we associate something with our self, we identify with it. It becomes part of us. We make it the same as us. This is what attachment really is. It is identification. And if that thing we identify with is ever threatened, we experience it as a threat to our own survival (a personal attack). One could argue that identification is a good thing when we identify with things that cause us to feel good. But the thing is, the minute we identify with something that causes us to feel good, it contains within it the seeds of it’s own opposite. Worthiness carries the seeds of unworthiness; excitement carries the seeds of disappointment. Far more troubling however, is that we often identify with things that cause us to feel bad and as such, we must keep those things alive in order to keep our own sense of self alive. A great many spiritual teachers will emphasize the importance of dis-identifying from things outside you, most especially other people. But it is my opinion that when it comes to identification, it is not other things external to us that cause us the most amount of suffering. It is identification with things we perceive to be internal to us. We are the most identified with the three primary aspects of ourselves; our body, our mind and our emotions. Each of these three aspects is inherently a different expression of source consciousness. We mistake these expressions to be the totality of who we are. A bit like a painter who has become so identified with his painting that he has forgotten that who he ultimately is, is more than his painting. We think we ARE our emotions, we ARE our body and we ARE our thoughts. And as such, we are so attached to them that they affect us immensely. They cause us to suffer. Those of us, who have painful emotions, painful thoughts or a painful body, suffer to the degree that life is a torment.