Today's contribution marks my collaboration with a very prominent and internet active figure in Taoism, Mr Yeo B T (More popularly and affectionately known as YEOBT in internet circles). With his given permission, I hereby present to you one of his many exciting stories. This slightly edited story was about Annie....
Human beings are intelligent creatures. We are so intelligent that we can cook, eat, work and we are thinkers. We have questions... which came first? The egg or the chicken??? Does God really exist? Many questions but some will never be answered. So are we really intelligent? If God really exists, i wish i could ask him why am i here to suffer? Weren't we taught that we are to go through punishment in the hell for all the sinful things we had done in life before we get to be reborn again? If that is true, shouldn't my sins be nullified? If my sins are nullified then why am i here to suffer? Why am I not starting afresh then? If God really exists, I would request to be in the heaven and not here again. I know no one can answer these questions. I wish i was never here. i know i can't change the fact. It all happened when a man didn't use protection and the woman got pregnant. The baby inside was me. I never got to see my biological father. To make the matters worse, i was sent to my grandmother when i was juz a baby because my mum need to work and has no time for me. My childhhood life was very carefree becos my grandmother is an addicted gambler and she spends most of her time on a mahjong table than on me. When she is happy and won some money, she would buy many taoist statues home to worship them for better luck. But if she lost heavily, she would sweep them all away and leave them under a tree in our apartment block below instantly. Maybe becos of what she did, the retribution affected me. If you are old enough, you may still remember that during the early 80's, some of the lifts on the ground floor in the HDB were installed with CCTV and a small TV set would be installed outside the lift for people waiting outside to see the activity inside the lift car. That was to curb lift robbery. I was once waiting for the lift at the foot of my block, I saw someone inside the lift coming down. But, when the lift car opened, there was no one inside. I was too young to feel frightened then. I didn't bother to tell anyone becos i don't have anyone to talk to and no one bothers about me. However, things got worst after sometime. I start hearing someone talking to me so i answered them back. But people around me says i am crazy 'siao'. It was only after one of my grandmother manjong kakis brought me to a temple that saved me for awhile. I was told that my body was possessed with spirit. And that they can ward it off but the solution is only temporary. Becos my body is sort of weak and it can be possessed by the spirit easily. The long term solution is, i have to get a master which is a deity to possess me, another word means i have to be a medium so that the stateless spirit cannot own my body.
We went through numerous times of unsuccessful trance before i was finally possessed by Qian Shou Qian Yen Guan Yin. the god of mercy with thousand hands and thousand eyes. i was 17 then and i went thru juz only primary education. But i could read chinese poem without script and write chinese graphy very well like a pro. Behind every successful temple is always women. With the helps of the mouth of the manjong aunties, words of our temple spread very fast n wide. Many visitors came to our temple juz to take a closer glimpse of me possessing the rare Qian Shou Qian Yen. Some visitors were purely Buddhists. They were there juz to seek direct enlightenment from the guan yin. Many whom are also very young professional. The temple were usually so crowded that peoples were so closed to me and i could feel their existance even when they are standing behind my back becos they were blocking my thousand hands movement. Of course, they were not doing it intentionally becos they can't my virtual hands. However, i feel very tired everytime after i detrance becos the load of the thousand hands were so heavy for me. It was very stressful for a young little girl like me. How many times or how many years do i have to go thru this? I'm only 17. I decided to quit after few months becos i cant take the stress in my body anymore. With little education, i found a job as a waitress in a music pub. With little family bonding, i felt love for the first time easily. With little knowledge of evil in man (i mean some men) i fell unreservedly for him. juz when i thought the weather is fine for the day, it rained and we went without any raincoat. I got pregnant and I was not ready for this. Thus, i aborted the baby. Not only that, my body was weak and painful due to the abortion and I was heartbroken. Just when i'm down and am in need of his love and support at this time, he dumped me. Why does this have to happen to me?
My mother married to a man who was a Christian and she has since baptised. She invited me to live with her so that i could continue to enjoy the home cooked food. I started to feel the family bonding and love after all these years. I getting more mature and the invisible wound in me also started to heal soundlessly. Then, i met John at work. Although John doesn't have a stable job but he was always there for me. Waiting for me in a quiet corner in my working place everynight just to see and send me home. He showered me with lots of love. His sincerity touched me deeply and soon our love blossomed. Financially, John is poor. He has no bright future but he gives me lots of love and care that i have been lacking since young. In return, i didn't mind giving him all i have in exchange for the love i've always wanted. I started paying his debts. From his handphone bill to his football gambing debts. I didn't mind doing that becos money was not important to me but, i was wrong again. Due to the nature of my job, i met many male customers. John started to feel insecure and he feel worried that i might leave him for someone better and therefore he plant black magic on me so that i could be controlled by him. He used the spirit of my aborted child to control me whenever i'm not with him. I would feel sick, restless and moody but when i got back by his side, i felt energetic. It was weird but no one felt anything was amiss with me. As such, this dragged for sometime until people around me started to realise that i sometimes talked to myself. As for me, i know i was not talking to myself. I was talking to a boy. I always see him around. Sometimes playing by himself, sometimes come near to me and then we'll talk. For this, my family sent me to the Woodbridge hospital. I scolded the nurses there for restraining me. I struggled to break free from them and they tied me up and isolated me on a bedpole. My mother and her family are Christian and therefore question like spirit and black magic would never come into her mind. They thought i was too stressful with work. It was my cousin that saved me. My cousin is a Buddhist. There was once when she was in the hospital visiting me, she saw me talking to someone she cant see but my eyes was looking down. She suspect that it is a child spirit talking to me. Quickly, she recalled that i had a history of abortion. As a Buddhist herself, she also believing that child spirits would continue to stay within their mother if ritual for them to re-incarnation is not done after abortion. (Chinese believe that once a foetus is formed in a woman, it has live. That's why, the age starts counting from the month the woman got pregnant and that explained why every Chinese age is added with one more year above the date of birth) With the help of my cousin, the hospital staff was cooperative enough to let me discharged to seek consultation from a medium. By appointment, we went to Dua Ya Tua with my mother. Dua ya was firmed tat the child spirit i saw and talked to was a result of black magic. The child spirit is harmless but i need to do 3 years of ritual for him so that he can be directed back to where he came from. For now, Dua Ya Pek has since broke the spell and instructed the child spirit to stay outside the temple and he will bring him back with him after the session. My mother was beside me.
She asked " i saw black image in our home too, was that the child?" Dua ya says " what is your date of birth, let me check for you". She replied "cannot, my religion dont believe this". Dua ya than answered "then why you ask???" When i stepped out of the temple, i saw the child standing at a corner mean for the wandering soul. I took a glance for the last time. I had not only removed his foetus in me, i had also removed his chance of reincarnation. What i cant remove from him is his sadness. I wanted to say sorry to him but i didnt'tdare not to. I know it would not help ease his pain. I will repay by performing 3 years of ritual for him. I know that is not enough but that is what i can do for him for now. I sincerely hope all the young people out there don't do what i have done so as not to live with only regrets.
