---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote:
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.
I don't agree. Dressing conservatively, ie in a business or work attire,
implied the wearers of such attire at least had a few bucks to their name and
were probably employed, if not employable. It indicated, through their style of
clothing, that they were productive and therefore upstanding members of
society. Back in the early days it was still hippy time so many younger adults
were more likely long-haired and festooned in tie dye, Moroccan embroidery and
sandals (which, at the time, was considered rather shocking and revolutionary).
As far as the women were concerned your "theory" on why MMY recommended their
conservative attire is out to lunch. It's just some mean-spirited projection.
No one was forced to wear gunny sacks and those that did would have most likely
chosen them anyway whether they were in the TM movement or not. Once
fashion-challenged, always fashion challenged. In fact, the entire western
world in the 70's and 80's was pretty hideously attired.
--- 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."
> >
> >
> > :-)
> >
>
