It is impossible to separate any aspect of our lives from our habits of thought. For, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains, “all these highly varied phenomena, these concepts, this knowledge, these technical procedures and philosophical systems, these sciences, arts, industries and inventions,” the very elements of human civilization, “all are emanations of the human mind.”  The great social transformations marking history’s path are thus the expressions of shifts within the depth of our habits of thought. For example, the Founding Fathers of the United States were all deeply immersed in the new republican social philosophy of their times, which itself arose out of the novel conceptions of self and nature advanced by Descartes. “From age to age,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá describes accordingly, “the temple of existence has continually been…distinguished with an ever-varying splendor, deriving from wisdom and the power of thought” (Secret of Divine Civilization, p. 1).  As the fundamental purpose of the Bahá’í Faith is to build a unified global civilization, one of its most pressing tasks is to cultivate habits of thought adequate to this aim.

It would be foolish, though, to imagine that the Bahá’í community could somehow develop such habits of thought in isolation from society, and wrong to think that it should. Bahá’ís are called upon to enter deeply into the life of society, to draw upon and advance its educational systems, commerce and trade, scientific and technical knowledge, to share in its struggles and rejoice in its triumphs. Yet, Bahá’u’lláh did come to build civilization anew, and Bahá’ís must therefore remain ever conscious of the inescapable limitations of every contemporary mode of thought. Out task, then, is to develop remarkable powers of critical reflection, becoming conscious of the habits of thought prevalent within society, evaluating their limitations and merits, and cultivating thereby habits ever more expressive of Bahá’u’lláh’s message.

Bahá’í’s efforts in this direction will inevitably follow an organic rhythm of crisis and victory. Limiting habits of thought will make their way into the Bahá’í community, and sooner or later bring about undesirable consequences. These habits will eventually be recognized by the Bahá’í community, and patiently surpassed towards more adequate ways of thinking. At any given moment of its evolution, then, the Bahá’í community will face a number of such intellectual challenges, though, when seen in a different light, these challenges are actually opportunities for growth and development.  Today, as the Universal House of Justice explained in its December 28 2010 letter, many within the Bahá’í community are limited by fragmentary and dichotomous habits of thought, and not surprisingly so, as these habits are widely prevalent within contemporary society.  In order to move to the next stage of development, they tell us, we must cultivate the ability to think in terms of wholes and processes.

Over the next weeks I will examine these four habits of thought – the 1) fragmentary, 2) dichotomous, 3) holistic, and 4) processual – describing how they function, considering their role in both society and the Bahá’í community, and providing insight into their philosophical and historical development where useful.

Check out my blog, In the Midst of the Plan: A Bahá’í’s Philosophical Reflections