What Next? Consciousness as the Continuation of Equality
On justice, awakening, and the evolution of human equality into consciousness itself
There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. —Nelson Mandela
Nearly twenty years ago, while sitting in quiet conversation on Georgia State University’s campus with my friend and mentor, Dr. Layli Maparyan, she posed a question that has echoed through my life ever since:
“Given your early studies in History and Sociology, how did you come to be interested in spirituality and the matter of consciousness?”
At the time, my response seemed spontaneous, almost casual. Yet in retrospect, it was as if something deep within me spoke first.
I said, “If people were to recognize the equality and thus dignity of all humans, what next? For me, I am focusing on the ‘What next?’ question, as I believe that researching consciousness will provide a roadmap for successive generations beyond our social fragmentation.”
I could not have known, sitting there in that moment, that my answer would become prophetic—that it contained the DNA of everything I would later create.
The Echo That Became a Path
In the years that followed, I would teach, write, and build organizations around the very principle contained within that statement. It was, though I did not yet realize it, a declaration of intent from the deeper Self—an early articulation of what would later find structure as the Seven Layers of Manifestation and the Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress.
The seed of that “What next?” has since unfolded into a network of living expressions:
Radical Scholar Inc., dedicated to consciousness-based research and education;
Connecting the Dots, a short-lived radio program exploring the intersection of spirituality, science, and human potential;
Transcendental Meditation®, which I first learned myself and later deepened by undertaking—alongside my wife—the rigorous, five-month-long sequestered process required to become a Certified Teacher;
Doctoral Research, examining mystical experiences among Freemasons and culminating in the completion of my PhD;
Serat Group Inc., the structural vessel for thought leadership and strategic development;
On Transcendence, the ongoing exploration of mind, spirit, and awakening through essays, podcasts, and teaching;
Book Publishing Projects, refining and expanding my doctoral research for a wider readership while advancing two additional manuscripts currently in development;
and now, Transcendental Brain, the scientific and experiential bridge between meditation and neuroplasticity.
Looking back, I can see how every endeavor, even those that appeared divergent at the time, carried the same interior signature—a subtle resonance that said: continue the inquiry.
It is fascinating, and admittedly humbling, to realize that the question I answered then contained not only my life’s direction but its metaphysical curriculum.
The Arc from Equality to Consciousness
My academic foundation in History and Sociology trained me to observe systems—to trace the visible structures that shape human behavior. Yet over time, I began to perceive a limit in those analyses.
Karl Marx once observed, Philosophers have done a good job of interpreting the world, but the point is to change it. But, how do we change it?
Social justice, essential as it is, could not by itself complete the work. To recognize equality is a moral beginning; to live equality requires a shift in consciousness. I came to see that while human-derived laws can legislate access, only consciousness can generate unity.
This recognition began to reorient my scholarly compass. I started to ask: What lies beyond liberation movements once the outer chains have been successfully challenged and removed? What transforms when the mind itself becomes free? For both the oppressed and oppressor—to whatever degree one may experience either condition.
Here, I am reminded of a passage from an oration delivered by Prince Hall, Founder of Prince Hall Freemasonry, where he stated:
Although you are deprived of the means of education, yet you are not deprived of the means of meditation; by which I mean thinking, hearing and weighing matters, men and things in your own mind, and making that judgment of them as you think reasonable to satisfy your minds and give an answer to those who may ask you a question.
Note Hall’s use of the word meditation and its inherent faculties of mind in the direction of increased discernment and demonstration. By placing this irreducible fact before his 1797 audience, Hall appears to have sought to point attendees in the direction of the underlying reality resident within all; despite social constructs seeking to argue otherwise.
The same truth revealed itself to me in that conversation with Dr. Maparyan and has continued to animate the constellation of my work—each endeavour orbiting the sun of Consciousness.
In that shift, I realized that consciousness is the continuation of equality—the inner revolution that succeeds the outer one. When the human mind awakens to its source in Pure Consciousness, as Hall positioned, equality ceases to be a political demand and becomes an experiential fact.
The work of consciousness is, therefore, not a retreat from the world but the next evolution of justice—a justice that includes the soul.
An Echo in the Forest: Andersen’s All-Knowing Mind
Recently, while rereading U.S. Andersen’s Three Magic Words for the umpteenth time, a passage leapt from the page like an old friend returning with news from the past:
“Each of us embarks on life’s projects like a man who stands in front of a forest and desires to go through to a lake on the other side… The man who conceives his goal with faith and never falters, no matter the bends in the road, will surely arrive at his destination—and always by the most perfect path.”
It struck me that Andersen’s image of the man crossing the forest is a precise reflection of that “What next?” question—a metaphor for humanity’s walk through the thickets of social evolution toward a more luminous state of being. The same may be posited for each individual choosing to plant their feet on and thus consciously walking what I have come to understand as the perfecting path.
We have long imagined the shortest route to human fulfillment as a straight line: freedom, equality, prosperity. But history shows that our path is never linear. Each generation faces the fallen tree, the culvert, the swamp—the obstacles of fear, ignorance, and division.
And yet, as Andersen reminds us, these deviations are not evidence of failure but expressions of the All-Knowing Mind at work—the intelligence guiding us toward its next refinement.
The forest, in this metaphor, is the realm of human experience; the lake beyond is awakening itself.
The “What Next” Impulse as Evolutionary Code
Every civilization reaches a threshold where it must ask itself: What next?
The question is not born of dissatisfaction but of expansion—the natural restlessness of consciousness seeking its fuller expression. And I believe the western world in general, and the United States of America in particular, is fast-approaching such an event horizon.
In every era, a few hear that call more distinctly. It becomes their life’s work to translate it into form—through art, science, philosophy, or teaching. The individual who listens deeply enough becomes the bridge between epochs.
Looking back, I realize that my own path—from historical observation to sociological analysis to spiritual inquiry—mirrored that civilizational pivot. I was, in effect, moving from the outer systems of the world to the inner systems of consciousness, tracing the blueprint of transformation itself.
Each project I built became a different octave of the same inquiry:
Radical Scholar explored the intellectual infrastructure of consciousness.
Connecting the Dots, my short-lived radio program, featured interviews at the intersection of spirituality, science, and human potential;
Serat Group structured it for practical leadership and application.
On Transcendence gave it voice and narrative.
Transcendental Brain seeks to ground it in science and direct experience.
Together, they form an ecosystem of evolution—a constellation pointing back to that single conversation two decades ago.
The Consciousness of Continuity
There is a point in every seeker’s journey when patterns emerge from what once seemed disparate. The threads between past and present tighten, and one sees—sometimes with wide-eyed astonishment—that life has been weaving coherence all along.
In Sanskrit, this phenomenon is called smṛti: remembrance not as nostalgia but as awakening to continuity. It is the realization that nothing was ever lost; everything was preparing for recognition.
I have come to understand these “echoes” as evidence of a deeper intelligence at play—what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi might call the support of Nature. When the individual mind aligns with the universal, even memory becomes guidance. The past begins to function as an organ of revelation. In essence, that past becomes prologue.
Each re-encounter with a forgotten idea, each resurfacing theme, is consciousness reminding itself of its own design.
From Fragmentation to Field
Our present moment, socially and globally, is defined by fragmentation. Nations fracture into tribes of ideology; individuals drown in digital noise. The more interconnected we become technologically, the more divided we appear psychologically.
And yet, beneath the surface chaos, a countercurrent flows—the quiet, collective intuition that there must be something more.
That “something more” is consciousness awakening to itself.
What if the turbulence we experience is not the breakdown of civilization but the birth contractions of coherence—humanity’s nervous system recalibrating to a higher frequency?
If so, then the study of consciousness is not peripheral philosophy; it is the blueprint for humanity’s next phase. It is where sociology and spirituality converge—where the external structures of society must eventually meet the internal architecture of mind.
In that light, my early interest in history was not an accident; it was prelude. History was teaching me to trace the unfolding of consciousness through time—to see that every era’s struggle is a manifestation of the collective mind seeking its next realization.
From Personal to Planetary
When we speak of consciousness, we often imagine a purely personal journey—meditation, introspection, awakening, right-action. Yet consciousness is not individual; it is field-based.
The same intelligence that orchestrates galaxies orchestrates the neural harmonies of the human brain. Each individual who awakens to that field participates in amplifying coherence for the whole. Here, I am thinking of the palpable power produced when sitting in group meditations—be they online or in-person as well as “morphogenetic fields” as posited by Rupert Sheldrake, PhD.
This is why our future depends not merely on social reform but on neuro-spiritual reform—a reeducation of perception itself. Through technologies like Transcendental Meditation® and the emerging insights of neuroscience, humanity is rediscovering its most ancient truth: that peace is not created; it is uncovered.
The next great leap in human progress will not be mechanical or digital; it will be metaphysical—the re-union of science and spirit within the architecture of consciousness.
The Law of Recurrence
In Three Magic Words, Andersen reminds us that the All-Knowing Mind always guides the traveler by “the most perfect path.” That phrase holds a subtle key: the most perfect path does not mean the most direct path, but the most conscious.
When we look back on our own lives and notice recurring themes—relationships, callings, lessons—we are witnessing consciousness revisiting the same ground with greater awareness each time.
In this sense, my early conversation with Dr. Maparyan was the first loop in a spiral that continues to widen. Every major decision since then— the founding of Radical Scholar Inc., learning TM, decamping Atlanta, my doctoral work with its associated frameworks and models, my teaching of Transcendental Meditation, launching On Transcendence, and the design of the Transcendental Brain App—represents a new revolution of that same spiral.
Each turn expands the radius of understanding while keeping the center fixed in the same question: What next?
The Answer Within the Question
Over the years I have come to see that What next? is itself a form of meditation. It arises whenever consciousness outgrows its current container. The question does not demand an answer in words; it asks for a state of being.
For individuals, “What next?” often emerges after success, heartbreak, or awakening—when the old frameworks no longer suffice. For civilizations, it comes after the exhaustion of progress, when technology accelerates but meaning evaporates.
In both cases, the question is the same call: Return to consciousness.
What comes after equality is unity.
What comes after progress is presence.
What comes after knowledge is wisdom.
Toward a Conscious Future
If the twentieth century taught humanity how to think globally and act locally, the twenty-first must teach us how to feel universally. Our evolution now depends less on information and more on integration—on learning how to inhabit awareness itself.
This is where the study of consciousness becomes both science and service. Neuroscience reveals the mechanisms; meditation reveals the meaning. Together, they form the roadmap beyond fragmentation—the very map I intuited two decades ago when I answered Dr. Maparyan’s question.
It is not enough to know that all humans are equal; we must experience the field in which equality originates.
That field is consciousness.
That experience is transcendence.
And that realization is the next great movement of human history.
Closing Reflection
When I first answered Dr. Maparyan’s question, I did not know that I was already walking the path I sought to define. I could not see then what I see now—that every step since has been guided by the same invisible intelligence that Andersen called the All-Knowing Mind. I call it Pure Consciousness.
Each book, each lecture, each essay, each moment of doubt or discovery has been another curve in that golden path winding through the forest of time.
And somewhere beyond the next bend, as the light grows stronger, I sense the faint glimmer of the lake—not as a destination, but as a reflection of the moonlit sky itself.
For the path, after all, already knows the way.
Suggested Practice: Listening for the Echo
Take a few moments to reflect upon your own life and identify one question that has never left you—a question that seems to reappear in different forms, at different times.
Sit quietly, close your eyes, and ask inwardly:
What has this question been trying to reveal to me all along?
Then, in stillness, listen—not for an answer, but for an echo.
The echo is consciousness remembering itself through you.
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About the Author
Dr. Baruti KMT-Sisouvong is a consciousness scholar, executive coach, and Certified Teacher of Transcendental Meditation® based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His work—spanning The Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress and The Seven Layers of Manifestation—explores how Pure Consciousness, neuroscience, and social-systems transformation intersect in the evolution of both the individual and society.
He is the Founder and Director of Radical Scholar Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to consciousness-based research and public scholarship, and President of Serat Group Inc., the parent company of Transcendental Brain, a consulting and educational platform bringing consciousness science into leadership and institutional development.
Alongside his wife, Mina, he co-directs the Cambridge and Metropolitan Boston TM Program and serves as Host and Founder of International Meditation Hour (IMH), a quarterly global gathering dedicated to the unifying power of silence.
He writes from the conviction that the most important race is not between nations or machines, but between the conditioned mind and the awakening soul.
To learn more about him, visit: https://www.barutikmtsisouvong.com/.