Please can you explain the meaning of a coordinate of Consciousness?

Answer:

Let’s understand the milestones of direct seeing on the spiritual path, which will also reveal the milestone of the coordinates of Consciousness:

Ignorance:

• • One who sees himself as a body sees others as bodies too.
  • One who sees himself as the mind sees others as minds too.

Both are ignorant as they assume themselves to be name and form.

Milestone 1: The beginner is encouraged to attempt to see himself as the Witness of the body-mind person.

• • One who sees himself as the Witness Consciousness or the ‘I-sense’, sees others as knowledge waves inside his Witnessing Awareness field.
  • One who struggles to see others within himself is advised to see the others as Witnesses to their bodies and minds. This reveals to him that, ‘If I am the witness of this doer, he/she is the witness of that doer’. That erases the blame game of doership.

Milestone 1.5: One who is unable to recognize others as Witnesses but strives to progress further is given this in-between milestone, of seeing himself and others as coordinates of Consciousness.

• • He who sees himself as a coordinate of Consciousness sees others as coordinates of Consciousness, too. Then the conflict between ‘I’ and ‘You’ dissolves, enabling one to see others as mere reflections of oneself.
  • The coordinate of Consciousness teaching pointer is also used to explain higher wisdom pointers, e.g., the inner conflict between Non-Doership and Doership. When the coordinate is outward turned, there is a desire to pretend to be the doer; when inward turned, there is the realization of natural non-doership; this creates inner conflict. When misdirected, the inner conflict is projected onto the external.

Milestone 2: One who establishes in and as the Witness Consciousness or as a Coordinate of Consciousness, he attains Turiya Awastha or the Fourth State naturally on the self-realization of being the common witness to the Waking, Dreaming, and Sleeping states.

• • One who sees himself as Turiya or the Fourth sees others as merely knowledge waves of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, sensation, feeling, or thought.
  • There remains only ‘I-the-Turiya’ which may or may not address itself as Turiya. It may still recognize itself as a coordinate of Consciousness, but the ‘I’ does not see others as coordinates. ‘I-the-Turiya,’ see others as knowledge waves of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, thought, feeling, and sensation, that appear and disappear within it.
  • At this milestone, only the ‘I’ is a coordinate of Consciousness, while the ‘You’s’ and ‘It’s’ are mere Knowledge waves.

Milestone 3: When Turiya Awastha steadies, there is a dissolution of the ‘I’ into the Beyond. Self-realization of Pure Consciousness arises. Such a one does not see others as coordinates of Consciousness. 

• • He sees himself as Pure consciousness. He sees all as himself. Non-duality leaves no room for recognizing another as separate. Thus, there remains no question of seeing others as coordinates of Consciousness.

Why see the recognition of others as coordinates of consciousness when it must be renounced?

For the purposes of progressing on the spiritual path, the ‘I-sense’ must honor others as coordinates of Consciousness until they are seen as mere knowledge waves. This enables inward turning. The other, as a coordinate of consciousness, is a stepping-stone teaching only, not an absolute reality. One must not stop until one crosses Milestone 3. That completes the Brahman Satyam journey!

Bask in the bliss of knowledge!