IMO any attempt at a standardized dress code or uniform is an exercise born out of fear, and in the direction of suppression of individuality. This is as true in the military as it is in cults. They make soldiers wear the same uniforms so that they'll become "uniform," and follow orders. They do the same thing in cults and religious traditions.
Interestingly, there have been a number of anthropological and sociological studies on uniforms and uniform dress, and they all seem to indicate that one can learn a lot about "groupthink" from how the group tries to costume their thinkers. For example, in the police or the military, the more black and glossy and clean-pressed the uniforms, the more Fascist and control-freak the organization is. In cults and religions, the more asexual or non-sexual the group "uniform" is, the more they fear and are obsessed with normal human sexuality. No one here should be surprised that I don't think much of uniforms, or of the notion of "unisex" clothing as a positive thing. In any environment, but especially in the TMO. Whether it was Maharishi saying "Wear your suit at all times...even to the beach" or the shunning that took place when a woman wore something other than a shapeless, floor-length gunny sack to a meeting he was in, it *always* struck me as stupid and reactive and as a way to try to force the followers to make themselves fit into Maharishi's own desire and limitation pigeonholdes. He wanted his male teachers to look like businessmen because he was always more interested in business and making money than anything else. And he didn't want women looking like women because he was attracted to them, and couldn't admit that. So he wanted them to hide their bodies the same way he hid his desires and his actual predatory seductions. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote: > > From symmetric to asymmetric dress-code, from a uniformity of business suits and schoolmarmish attire at a time in TM over to Raja crowns and robes was useful to the cause and without significant subtle effect in TM history? For group cohesion of consciousness of the lower form? Was bad theatre or brilliant leadership for the cause? Trendline when looked at? > > > > "If they who thus afflicted us, continued to lay Claim to Religion, and were assisted in their Business by others, esteemed Pious People, who through a Friendship with them strengthened their Hands in Tyranny: > In Such a State, when we were (spiritually) Hunger-bitten, and could not have sufficient Nourishment, but saw them in Fulness pleasing their Taste with Things fetched from afar: > When we were wearied with Labour, denied the Liberty to (meditate) rest, and saw them spending their Time at Ease: When Garments answerable to our Necessities were denied us, while we saw them clothed in that which was costly and delicate: > > Under such Affliction, how would these painful Feelings rise up as Witness against their pretended Devotion! And if the Name of their Religion was mention'd in our Hearing, how would it sound in our Ears like a Word which signified Self-exaltation, and Hardness of Heart! -John Woolman > > > > But woe this other aspect of resentment of differentials as detriment in groups in which asymmetric style differentials can bring to a podium. . Thinking of robes, medallions, gold hats, crowns and such arrayed across a stage in front of an audience, an array that embarks on mixed signals to the higher human mind in the theatre of differentials that dress-code differentials can impose when not well used in groups. That proly explains some lot of an erosion in rank-and-file of what were once large spiritual movements. Loss of touch with reality between the podium and the audience. The asymmetric differential becomes too damned haughty. > > > > > > âMay we look upon our treasures, the furniture of our houses, and our garments, and try whether the seeds of war have nourishment in these our possessions. Holding treasures in the self-pleasing spirit is a strong plant, the fruit whereof ripens fast. A day of outward distress is coming and Divine Love calls for us to prepare against it.â > > John Woolman, Journal, Whittier Edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1871), Appendix, p. 307 > > > Yep, certainly Maharishi had us in a uniformity of business suits and schoolmarmish attire at a time. John Woolman and Quaker simplicity or Mao in symmetric dress-code movement too for example. Simplification as a spiritual organizational practice to keep people from running after silly ostentatious standards of extraneous materialism that are so fundamentally superfluous to the central focus in lean progress of necessity and might otherwise take those of young or immature mind away is time honored spiritual instruction. Evidently this principle of simple living has a profound purpose in Natural Law that the simple life keeps getting pulled on by spiritual Unified Field revival movements. > > > > Proly a lot of great millenarians employ and urge uniformity and simplicities, urging and adopting a commonality in symmetric dress-code as device to keep people's attention, energy, time and animal needs focused and thereby concentrated on the large spiritual practice of their movement and its business at hand. There is a practicality in this as utility around group cohesion in formative stages. > -Buck, a plain and common meditator only > > > > > > --- "Jason" wrote: > > > > > > An asymmetric dress-code is bad because it is one-sided and > > > has nothing to do with egalitarian sexuality. It promotes > > > prejudice and bias on a very subtle level. > > > > > > I am a great believer in the uni-sex dress-code. > > > > > > ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, punditster@ wrote: > > Now that's better! > > ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jedi_spock@ wrote: > > > Something like this might be better? > > > > > > > > > > --- "Jason" wrote: > > > > > > An asymmetric dress-code is bad because it is one-sided and > > > has nothing to do with egalitarian sexuality. It promotes > > > prejudice and bias on a very subtle level. > > > > > > I am a great believer in the uni-sex dress-code. > > > --- "TurquoiseB" turquoiseb@ wrote: > > > > Jason, I think you still must be having trouble posting graphics to FFL. > > This arrived in my email just now, labeled "jedi_spock's idea of a > > uni-sex dress-code." > > > > > > :-) > > >
