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Page 5 of 5 The Romani worldview In this context, the emergence of the absolute purity rules and the clarification of the real identity, once arriving in Diaspora, can be understood as a moksh in the Dharmic context, a liberation of the Romani people. This would be the first known collective moksh. Usually, there are known cases of individual liberations, of persons who until now, neither could they explain to the others what means moksh from the point of view of the Maya, nor could they organize a coherent social life from a liberated point of view. The only thing they could do was to live their life by considering the reality or, some of them, to organize guidance systems towards moksh for the rest of the people. In the same time, the discussions about the liberated view tended to produce only negations, denials of connections with any idea that would resemble it, the principle known in Sanskrit as neti…, neti… (neither…, nor…). At this his point, probably it is necessary a clarification about what means moksh. It is not a fulfillment of something previously known, an ideal that would correct an unbalanced World, as most of the contemporary people imagine the ultimate religious goal. In fact, it cannot be even a goal, since, if it is considered as a goal from the point of view of the Ego, the result would be an endless succession of circumnavigations, as described above. As explained in the article Romani society, if it would be considered the integration of the Romani worldview and also of the fundamental Dharmic point of view in the public sphere, then the contemporary notion of religion should undergo major changes, it should be truly multipolar. The Dharmic liberation is not something new, when compared to a static vision, because there is no such continuity, it does not change anything, it just reveals the vision of the reality as it is. The path to the liberation does not appear by selecting one way and rejecting the others, but by relativizing all the nomenclaturized products of the mind. Thus this relativisation does not mean that something changed or a new mechanism was discovered in the realm of the ideals, only their functioning becomes obvious. The names for the reality and for its vision by the Self are only conventions for pointing to something known but not easy to express, not an abstraction organized by the Ego. There is accepted the existence of more opinions about what they really mean and their simultaneous multiplicity is respected. For example, in the Dharmic literature there is a debate about the results of moksh, about what happens to the Self: does it have the correct view or does it become the correct view (as expressed in the metaphor “tasting sugar or becoming sugar”)? The fact is that the static view is not fitted to describe the World as it is, in motion. The static style of presentation and categorization is usually misleading in this sense, trying to describe something that does not exist from its point of view. Continuing the series of negations, the moksh is not necessarily something spectacular, extraordinary, as are described usually the religious phenomena. From a localized view, it tends to be not such a meaningful event. In fact, many times, it is presented its simplicity and the not-so-conspicuous, usual life the liberated live. Thus, the moksh simply happened for the Romani people, from the point of view of the reality. The subsequent identity clarification created ethnic names, Roma/Chave, Manusha, Kale, expressing the desired fundamental, basic identity of the Dharmic people, beyond any casteism and sectarianism. However, this Dharmic cultural luggage did not include also the knowledge of a public life from this liberated view, since previously it was focused only on how to attain it. The individual nature of the previous liberations did not produce this necessity. It proved also not to be an easy task to find possibilities of expressing the clarified Romani view. They continued to live from the point of view of the Maya, they continued the Dharmic-specific organization based on casteism, community prestige and honor. However, all remained relative, no new karm was added, there was and there is a deep sense of relativity about the Maya type of organization, always the basic, fundamental Romani identity remained foremost. On the one hand, the intercaste relations did not officialize, they were confined at an informal level, on the other hand, the Romanipen could not find a written form, being incompatible with the Maya style of expression. From the temporal point of view, it continued the continuous present used in South Asia until the Muslim invasion, focused rather on finding the abstract patterns, than on a mental creation of a succession of meaningful events, a linear history. The migration itself out of the Subcontinent was not a particular event notable for remembering, since it did not suppose a fundamental change of perspective, it just settled an issue of the Dharmic worldview. They did not find something new, like in the Jews’ case. The latter retained the remembrance of a breaking-off with the original civilization; before leaving Mesopotamia, Abraham destroyed the gods of his father. Among Dharmic people the gods were considered already inherently relative, accepted as such and respected for their place in the World. For the Roma, the life in Diaspora meant the beginning of a different relation between particular/local and fundamental/basic, between the relative and the absolute purity rules. A social life cannot exist without the emergence of all kind of particularities, but also the existence as a minority among people with different worldviews keeps remembering the relativity of these particularities and brings to the forefront the real identity. One may wonder, if there appeared non-static and non-localized perceptions at the synchronic and diachronic levels, why couldn't it appear immediately a public expression of this worldview? In this sense, it should be reminded, as also Ferdinand de Saussure noticed, that these two levels are interdependent, but they work with different approaches, from different perspectives. One cannot put them, in a direct manner, in the same basket, they interact through their results. These purity rules do not keep a coherence for their own perspective, but for the other one, the limitations of the other view are contested. The absolute purity rules, as an expression of the diachronic perspective, contest the localized understanding of the synchronic one, their fundamental question being: "what is really my place in the World?" (the sychronicity). The relative purity rules, as an expression of the synchronic perspective, contest the static understanding of the diachronic one, their fundamental question being: "who is really me?" (diachronicity). As a result of the relative purity rules, there is no restriction for individuals to think about, experiment ideologies that propose certain visions about the World (as long as these persons maintain good social relations with the other members of the local community). However, there does not appear popular interest in such ideologies, perceived as something partial, never embracing the fundamental Romani identity supported by the absolute purity rules. On the other hand, from the point of view of these absolute rules, if there is a will to come forward with a worldview expressing this fundamental Romani identity, beyond any local limitations, the relative purity rules question the details of the beginning of such an ultimate Thread. For every possible thread there appears the Dharmic question about what gives authority to its beginnings, a pertinent question that cannot be avoided. In this sense, I remember a short poem written by my brother, Ciprian, some time ago, in 2001: Details I’m wasting time Looking for details For a start line… But I found out That I have to claim And that I’m not allowed To let somebody rule me. You’re wasting my self Seeking for details Inside me… If somebody seeks a public presence that should express the personal identity, from the diachronic perspective, there do not exist the exact details of the ultimate beginning (18), from the synchronic perspective, there do not exist the exact details that would describe that individual as compared with others (non-Roma or Roma from other castes). If somebody becomes amazed by the details of a certain point of view, the situation looks like a poorly played Gypsy film (more about such films at the article Rom-Gypsy, the reality vs. the image), where the new additions are totally strange, non-Romani, and the main character(s) do not even have the naturalness of the non-Romani actors. Even other Romani individuals tend to be careful in dealing with such problems, if they criticize the details of such endeavors, they may end up in believing that they have a better set of details. They may become also Gypsy actors that benefit from the magic of a film to mimic the reality, losing the awareness that they arrived in the same issue, a film where the characters debate about films. The usual Romani folk remains out of such issues, nothing became popular yet. Personally, in the year 2000, I had the idea of comparing the social fabrics of the Romani and Jewish people, thus understanding the similarities of what I name absolute purity rules, subsequently arriving to the perception of a duality of identity features, a visible and an invisible set, from a static point of view. This was obviously a much more Romani-friendly perception of the identity, but, as the time elapsed, I saw I remained stuck only in discussions with close people, who knew what we were talking about. Regarding a public expression, as my brother made clear in that poem, the things were not so easy from a Romani point of view. Now I found this way to come with this presentation, employing the static concepts of nomenclature and thread, while clarifying their relativity. My perception is that it is necessary to study the fundamentals of the social structure and thus there will appear the cultural tools that would make possible to enable a public expression, non-static and non-localized. For example, something like the concept of 0 (zero), which appeared some time ago in the Dharmic worldview, a notion inexistent in the classical static worldview, subsequently clarifying and solving so many problems of the mankind. These should be rather obvious notions than personal constructions and in an sufficient number in order to create a functional public expression. This expression would make visible the apparently inexistent focus (from a contemporary perspective) of the purity rules, the more comprehensive understanding of the World and of the Self. Such a public expression would make possible a public Romani life, going beyond views like this Romanian saying, a se îneca ca ţiganul la mal (“to drown like the Gypsy near the shore”), expressing the Romanians’ perception of the Roma as persons who are able to get through any difficulties, but when they are close to accomplish something, to create something with a nomenclature and a thread, they give up for minor issues (minor from a non-Romani view). Such cultural tools would be useful for any other people, just to remind the incompatibility of the Japanese mindset with fixed situations, as expressed, for example, in TV series like Otoko wa tsurai yo (the perspective when the individual becomes involved and suffers for not reaching accomplishments) or Jikō keisatsu (when the individual is detached and does things in a manner that will not get him involved). For some years they too are amassing enough questions about their identity and the possibility to keep a clearly defined space, as a result of the modernity's pervasiveness. --------
(18) And the Roma are not in the position of the Japanese, living in a clearly defined place where it is possible to unfold in time a society of people who all know what they are talking about, without the need to clarify the details of a presence in a static World, so that the details of the beginning wouldn’t matter.
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