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posted January 20, 2005 01:56 PM         

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why do some spiritual people do it? monks, hare krishnas.....

what does a shaved head confer upon one's spirit?

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From: Ontario, Canada
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posted January 20, 2005 02:07 PM         

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Less time in shower, more time for prayer?

Close confinement, no lice?

Your hair looks bulky underneath that robe?
Just throwing some out there.....

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posted January 20, 2005 02:13 PM         

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makes perfect sense.....

i think orthodox jewish women also are required to shave their heads...and keep them covered. (hasidic?)

still wondering, how does this render one more spiritual or religious?

perhaps pixie's right....just for the sake of convenience?

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posted January 20, 2005 03:01 PM         

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Maybe its a vanity issue. I think in ancient times, monks and priests used to denounce anything that was vain and could distract them from their focus on reflection and meditation.

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posted January 20, 2005 11:49 PM         

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Yes, and maybe it's distracting - itchy etc. My theories are that the monks want to denounce the material world and hence shave to "standardise" who they are - ie people without expectations etc. The baldness is a way of becoming a member of the brother hood. Less maintenance. Less separate identity. Muslim women cover their hair for different reasons - I think because they don't want to distract the men, hence they also prayer on the other side of a wall etc. They can't speak in mosques for fear a man will hear them and become distracted.

As for monks, I think maybe mostly for convenience. And maybe lice. However, I'm not sure if they shave body hair. I guess they would but that'd be really itchy. Removes the bumps from the cloaks though hey Pixie?

Dean.

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posted January 21, 2005 01:10 AM         

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It is often difficult to distinguish a vow from an oath. Thus in Acts 23:21, over forty Jews, enemies of Paul, bound themselves, under a curse, neither to eat nor to drink till they had slain him. In the Christian Fathers we hear of vows to abstain from flesh diet and wine. But of the abstentions observed by votaries, those which had relation to the barbel's art were the commonest. Wherever individuals were concerned to create or confirm a tie connecting them with a god, a shrine or a particular religious circle, a hair-offering was in some form or other imperative. They began by polling their locks at the shrine and left them as a soul-token in charge of the god, and never polled them afresh until the vow was fulfilled. So Achilles consecrated his hair to the river Spercheus and vowed not to cut it till he should return safe from Troy; and the Hebrew Nazarite, whose strength resided in his flowing locks, only cut them off and burned them on the altar when the days of his vow were ended, and he could return to ordinary life, having achieved his mission. So in Acts 18:18 Paul had shorn his head in Cenchreae, for he had a vow. In Acts 21:23 we hear of four Jews who, having a vow on them, had their heads shaved at Paul's expense. Among the ancient Chatti, as Tacitus relates (Germania, 31), young men allowed their hair and beards to grow, and vowed to court danger in that guise."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vow

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“A priest whose hair had grown long was forbidden to enter to the place of the Altar and inward. If he did enter and minister, he was punishable with death by the hand of Heaven, just as one who ministered while drunk.”
• Code of Maimonides, Book 8, Book of the Temple Service (Yale Press, 1957), pp 59

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Tonsure
(Lat. tondere, "to shear")

A sacred rite instituted by the Church by which a baptized and confirmed Christian is received into the clerical order by the shearing of his hair and the investment with the surplice. The person thus tonsured becomes a partaker of the common privileges and obligations of the clerical state and is prepared for the reception of orders. The tonsure itself is not an ordination properly so called, nor a true order. It is rather a simple ascription of a person to the Divine service in such things as are common to all clerics. Historically the tonsure was not in use in the primitive Church during the age of persecution. Even later, St. Jerome (in Ezech., xliv) disapproves of clerics shaving their heads. Indeed, among the Greeks and Romans such a custom was a badge of slavery. On this very account, the shaving of the head was adopted by the monks. Towards the end of the fifth, or beginning of the sixth, century, the custom passed over to the secular clergy.

As a sacred rite, the tonsure was originally joined to the first ordination received, as in the Greek Church it still is to the order of lector. In the Latin Church it began as a separate ceremony about the end of the seventh century, when parents offered their young sons to the service of God. Tonsure is to be given by a candidate's ordinary, though mitred abbots can bestow it on their own subjects. No special age for its reception is prescribed, but the recipient must have learnt the rudiments of the Faith and be able to read and write. The ceremony may be performed at any time or place. As to the monastic tonsure, some writers have distinguished three kinds: (1) the Roman, or that of St. Peter, when all the head is shaved except a circle, of hair; (2) the Eastern, or St. Paul's, when the entire head is denuded of hair; (3) the Celtic, or St. John's, when only a crescent of hair is shaved from the front of the head. In Britain, the Saxon opponents of the Celtic tonsure called it the tonsure of Simon Magus. According to canon law, all clerics are bound to wear the tonsure under certain penalties. But on this subject, Taunton (loc.cit.inf.) says: "In English-speaking countries, from a custom arising in the days of persecution and having a prescription of over three centuries, the shaving of the head, the priestly crown, seems, with the tacit consent of the Holy See, to have passed out of use. No provincial or national council has ordered it, even when treating of clerical dress; and the Holy See has not inserted the law when correcting the decrees of those councils."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14779a.htm

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From: Ontario, Canada
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posted January 21, 2005 02:07 AM         

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Shaving body hair isn't so bad, as long as you do it religiously.

You know, like daily.... lather it up really good, get the stubble soft, and use the right blade and grain. moirture is very important too.
Religiously!! I am sooo whacked!!!

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posted January 21, 2005 02:20 AM         

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she says as she lights candles + incense, says the ritual mantra over the sacred razor.....

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posted January 21, 2005 02:41 AM         

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thanks petron.

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posted January 21, 2005 06:58 AM         

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thats right....
monks who train in martial arts also shave to prevent getting their hair pulled....

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