Enter a spirit.

I know you would not believe what I am going to tell you.

Let me relate to you an incident almost nobody would believe. In fact it has taken me a long time to decide to write this as I myself would understand if nobody believed me. In fact, I would not believe myself if not for the fact that I witnessed it with my own eyes in one of the most sober moments of my life.

What happened was an eye-opener. It gives us further understanding of things around us. It also brought up a lot of questions which are still quite sensitive when it comes to religious beliefs. Be it as it may be, I feel I ought to let you be the judge and allow you to give your experiences the opportunity to derive at any possible understanding.

It happened when I was still a young bachelor in Penang. I had followed a friend to one of the streets near the Penang Free School Association. The friend had stopped his car to search for a friend and I was left to sit on a long wooden bench outside one of those Taoist prayer houses. Inside the prayer-house, two men were chanting and beating a small drum and a kind of cymbal. Seated in front of the statue of a Taoist deity was a man waiting for the spirit of the deity to enter him. He was dressed in a kind of yellow robe.

Just as this was going on, another car stopped nearby, Two young Chinese youths went to one of the houses opposite the prayer-house while a third person, a Malay youth, came and sat on the bench near me. So, we sat facing the road, waiting for our friends to return.

What took me by surprise was the Malay youth jumping up off the bench, heading into the prayer-house, his head and body shaking as in a trance. For a moment, the two chanting men were just as surprised. Then, one of them quickly grabbed a bowl of water, took the water into his mouth and sprayed it out into the face of the Malay youth. The youth seemed to awaken, realised that he was in the prayer house and abruptly ran out towards the house his friends had gone into.

All this while, the medium had not yet gone into a trance. Why had the spirit of the deity gone into the Malay youth seated outside and not the regular medium?
That a spirit did exist then; I was sure. It even went into a person who did not believe it exists!

It was a case of possession. There’s no doubt about that. But why did it choose the Malay youth and not the usual Chinese medium?

From my own experience and knowledge (I’ll tell you about them in later postings), I would say that both of them, the Malay youth and the deity, had a previous association; perhaps in an earlier reincarnation. (I know, there may be some who may scoff at the mention of reincarnation. If you have my knowledge, you would certainly not. Never mind, I accept all sincere opinions. Perhaps, people who have their doubts could relate their experiences and knowledge in the comments section to show how they reach their disbelief.)

If you accept my belief, then you have to accept that there is this possibility that the Chinese deity and the Malay youth were of the same race in one of their previous reincarnations. In the olden days, seldom do people of a different race become close. If you believe in reincarnation, then being of a certain race is never permanent except in one particular life time.

If you believe in reincarnation, you also have to believe that religion could be different in the different lives that we could have had.

However, examine the history of this vast universe and we see evidence of God’s presence in the many creations, in the orderliness of life and the universe and in the many miracles that could only be possible with God.

Yet, so many of today’s problems are caused by racialism and religious beliefs. However, if we look deeper; it is not God or religions which cause them but human ego for supremacy and human greed for power and recognition.

Unless Mankind devise a means to propagate proper knowledge of ‘Who he really is’ our problems continue.

Fortunately for us, there are people and organizations set up to uplift humanity. One of them is The Art of Living which is a non-profit educational and humanitarian NGO with a presence in over 140 countries. It is engaged in diverse initiatives aimed at uplifting humanity by bringing peace at the level of the individual, society, nation and the world as a whole.

Thank God for them.