There’s two metaphors for the difference between personal and universal identity or consciousness.The first metaphor is the idea that universal consciousness is an ocean, and that we’re all waves.In the second metaphor, your personal consciousness is a little droplet of water within the ocean, experiencing itself as separate from the fullness of the ocean of universal consciousness. What keeps us feeling like we're just a wave or just a water droplet is our personal story, the story that we use to describe who we are.