--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > > ...try to imagine what life would have been like if the > Holy Inquisition that runs the TMO could have called the > local police to evict you from the Dome parking lot and > toss your ass in jail back when you were doing your > (probably imaginary) "sit in" in your car there. > > That's the reality in places like India, where speaking > one's mind about religious figures is literally against > the law, and punishable by large fines and prison terms. > Or in Israel, where the supposedly secular authorities > bow to the will of the most conservative ultra-Orthodox > religionists:
Turq, the contrast and similarities are interesting. The Tmo here has to operate within norms of the West and public opinion too. There is a lot of protective good fortune for everyone in that. While they are not overtly machine-gunning or strip-searching people here they certainly have at times effectively gone after people's lives by administrative coercion. I just recently the other day interviewed an old devotee here from way back with Maharishi in the very early 1960's who told the story of being called in to the President's Office back in those earlier days here in Fairfield for having purchased a book then about EST. The book to just find out about it because EST had become popular then. This book purchase had been found out and this person was brought in and really grilled about 'loyalty' as a TM teacher etc. This person quite simply was only interested to just find out something about what EST was because EST had become popular at that time in culture generally. (Erhard Seminars Training, The est training was offered from late 1971 to late 1984. ) This person learned also then that it was not enough to just be a 'practitioner' to be in the movement as it was then turning to also become about demonstrated fealty in 'faith and belief'. The result of that handling then became an estrangement from the movement because of the style of that administration. The TM cultural terms had changed by then with the coming of Bevan in to TMo administration and the changing out of the old guard. Like a lot of folks here who self-identify as being 'meditator' but also no longer are involved with the 'movement' up there anymore, as they point towards campus. It's a cultural legacy that has yet to be reconciled; it's just part of the 'TM in Fairfield' story-line of the meditating community. Fortunately church and State are not fused in this case. It is interesting though if only because some of us live here in a community and our collective lives are effected by by their behavior up there. It is nicest when they behave well. In FFL, -Buck in the Dome > > http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anat-hoffman/arrested-for-praying-at-western-wall_b_1987099.html > > The article is about how one woman was arrested, strip- > searched, and thrown in jail overnight for the crime > of praying. >
