I'm reading the Linux Device Drivers book and the section 3.2 explaining Major and Minor Numbers goes on like this:
The minor number is used by the kernel to determine exactly which device is being referred to. Depending on how your driver is written (as we will see below), you can either get a direct pointer to your device from the kernel, or you can use the minor number yourself as an index into a local array of devices. Either way, the kernel itself knows almost nothing about minor numbers beyond the fact that they refer to devices implemented by your driver.
What is the meaning of direct pointer to your device here? And by "you", do they mean the device driver modules or the application in user space?
