The Bible, prayer and meditation.
There is a shift from the dependency of a child to a sense of self and self actualization as the human soul grows.
Then in midlife crisis the sense of self diminishes and begins to merge and synchronize with the emotional child consciousness. This creates wholeness and is a precursor to “Transcendence “, the next stage in life. Transcendence is necessary to experience God.
In Transcendence you first experience God, and then you surrender to God. That is when you will say “My Father and I are One.”
There’s an awful lot of “self” in your explanation.
How does this reconcile with “deny yourself”?