The 'you' that you refer to when you say "I" includes all that you are...
The temporary expression : YOUR body and mind.
Some kind of essence : YOUR soul (or whatever word feels good to you).
The body/mind is believed to be separate from the world, from the ego's viewpoint.
But everything is actually all one - science now proves this.
So whatever all 'THIS' is and 'WHAT' we are, everything must be somehow one with it's source, in reality.
So the 'you' is an aspect of the totality, like a drop of the ocean temporarily having an experience of separation from the ocean.
This 'you' has consciousness, and this gives it the capacity of awareness of this apparent separation.
But at some point on the return home to the ocean, consciousness seems to expand to encompass more than just the immediate body/mind/world, and with this, our awareness begins to include more than just the body/mind/world - we percieve, albeit vaugely to begin with - our essence, and its connectedness.
This happens when consciousness has cleared out much of the dross of experiencing of the body/mind (like fog beginning to lift).
Finally, at some point, the last of the fog evaporates and the consciousness of the soul expands out to infinity and merges back into its source.
John