There is a growing interest in the modern world toward a new possibility of human consciousness to be integrated around a higher center of consciousness, and in a field of the Humanities for all branches of knowledge to be integrated around One Knowledge. There is a need for a new educational environment, where all major faculties of human consciousness could be studied and exercised in the most comprehensive and intelligible way. University of Human Unity aims at discovering new ways of learning which may result in a tangible change of consciousness.
If we examine the faculties of our cognitive consciousness we will find that there are only a few fundamental faculties, as in the field of the Humanities there are only a few fundamental subjects. What determines this limited number of faculties and subjects is the very nature of our cognitive consciousness – that is we have only three accesses to reality: Seeing, Hearing and Touch, with their active counterparts Thinking, Speaking and Feeling.
Study of the Faculties of Human Consciousness
It is important to first study our individual faculties of consciousness (including the senses). Here we can learn how we actually see, hear, speak, think, feel etc., and also how we could use these senses more effectively. Courses such as: How to Think and to be conscious in our thoughts, How to Speak and to be conscious in speech, How to improve visual memory, How to improve mental concentration etc., could offer interesting explorations into the re-discovery of the senses. The major objective of these studies is to train our consciousness to act within its faculties. This type of approach has its roots in Vedanta where the cognitive faculties (to see, to think, to hear, to speak, to breath and to touch) were seen as the primary functions of consciousness. Such an approach to our faculties sheds some light on the profundities of their nature. The major subjects of the Humanities also bear their own distinct features which can be identified as those belonging to a particular faculty of consciousness.
Study of the Humanities
The six faculties of our consciousness have essential correspondence with the main humanitarian subjects: 1) Psychology deals with our subjective processes of thinking and self-evaluation; 2) Philosophy deals with our mental ability to overview and conceptualize; 3) Linguistics deals with our faculty of Speech, as a device of communication and self-expression; 4) Sociology and History deal with relationship as such: how the individual and collective relate to one another, on the scale of space (Sociology, Ethnography etc.) or time (History); 5) Art and Culture deal with the refinement of our feelings and senses. 6) Science of Nature deals with Matter as such – the Physical in an objective way.
Every key subject can be combined with another subject, giving it a new dimension. For example, Philosophy of Science, Psychology of Art, History of Philosophy, History of Linguistics, etc. These key disciplines, of course, may include other subjects and topics related to their field of concern. For instance, History of Psychology could include Mythology of Self-discovery (Vedic Mythology, Egyptian Myths, etc.), History of Occultism and Yoga, History of Religion; etc.
Such an approach to knowledge, where all major cognitive functions and capacities of our consciousness could be integrally exercised, is needed for modern education. Having identified the nature of different studies with their cognitive faculties of consciousness, the scholars themselves in their subjective approach could become the field of research. The self-education then would be direct and effective. The division on subjective and objective approach to knowledge would have only a classifying value within the field of studies and the humanitarian disciplines would become a means for self-education, necessary to develop Metaphysical, Psychological, Social (Historical), Artistic, Linguistic and Scientific modes of Consciousness, tuning them to the One Consciousness beyond. Such an integral approach might prepare a wider ground for a truer perception of our life, and lead us eventually to a globalisation of our faculties, opening them up to higher possibilities.