guardian14 - Norhaiyah

She was scrolling through local news on a quiet afternoon in Singapore when the headline stopped her breath: “Singaporean woman who claimed to be a deity jailed for abuse and fraud involving over $7 million.”

The article described a 54-year-old Singaporean who presented herself as a spiritual leader connected to the divine feminine Sri Sakthi Narayani Amman. She wasn’t just collecting donations. She was collecting people. About 30 followers. She beat them. She extorted them. She made some of them swallow human faeces as punishment.

The words felt unreal. She read on, stunned but not entirely surprised. “Why?” she whispered aloud. “What makes a person do such things to another? And what makes people allow themselves to be hurt like that?”

It would have been easy to dismiss the woman as a con artist. Or to see the followers as weak, gullible, pathetic. But that would miss the deeper truth. There is demand. And there is supply. The abuser feeds on power. The abused often craves belonging. In between them, lies the illusion of salvation. And this doesn’t happen in some faraway cult in a remote village. It happened here in Singapore.

In HDB flats and temples. Behind the polite hush of incense smoke and spiritual jargon. She closed her laptop. But the story stayed open inside her. “What happens,” she thought, “when the hunger for the divine is so strong, we no longer care who feeds us? Even poison becomes sacred if it’s offered with a chant.” It wasn’t just this woman.

She had seen echoes of this before on the street, in the ashram and experience it via her husband, who is her boyfriend then. And slowly, the memories began to rise again as she sat watching the cars, busses and vehicle pass by at the main road. Watching the vehicle but her mind goes back to Tai tak estate, as that is where it all began.

It was the early 1990s, a time when she found herself spending almost every weekend at a rural temple tucked deep within the oil palm plantations of Johor Bahru. The temple was unassuming, a zinc-roofed structure with uneven floors, yet people came from as far as Singapore not for the architecture, but for the “priest” who claimed to channel the divine.

Each weekend, the priest would go into trance. Eyes rolled back, voice altered, gestures trembling with urgency as though something beyond him had taken over. Followers believed they weren’t speaking to a man, but to God through him.

Her boyfriend now husband spoke of it often, his voice tinged with devotion and awe. Eventually, curiosity overcame her skepticism. She agreed to follow him. Not because she believed, but because something in her stirred. She wanted to see it for herself. To watch. To listen. To understand.

She had questions about trance, about possession, about the thin veil between psychology and the sacred. She wasn’t looking for faith. She was looking for answers. The temple was simple just a corrugated zinc roof held up by wooden beams, a cement platform under the open sky. Banana leaves fluttered gently in the breeze, a blackened stone idol sat in the center, and the thick, smoky scent of camphor clung to the air like memory.

It wasn’t the structure that drew people in. It was something else. To reach the temple, one had to leave the town behind. From Johor Bahru town, she would take a bus heading toward Kota Tinggi and ask the driver to stop somewhere near the Tai Tak Estate a sprawling oil palm plantation that stretched like a green labyrinth into the horizon.

From there, it was a 500-meter walk through the plantation. Red earth. Buzzing cicadas. Occasionally, the distant clank of plantation tools. But mostly silence, and the rising sense that you were leaving one world and stepping into another.

By the time she reached the temple, sweat would line her back and soak into her clothes, and her sandals would be dusty with the dry red soil. But the temple was already with people waiting for the night to fall.

Men and women sitting cross-legged on the ground, others waiting in anticipation. She looked around at their faces ordinary people. Aunties, uncles, tired workers, students, even a few Singaporeans. “What makes them come all the way here?” she found herself wondering. “What hunger drives people this far into the plantations, just to speak with a man who claims to be god?” They weren’t just here for answers.

They were here for something deeper—validation, hope, forgiveness. A promise that someone, somewhere, could see beyond their pain. That someone had the power to make it stop And in this temple, that power came in the form of a man who shook, muttered, and became a vessel.

As night fell, the atmosphere shifted. The chatter softened. Oil lamps were lit. The scent of camphor grew heavier in the air. And then came the priest. She watched as he began to dress—not in elaborate robes, but in something raw and elemental.

He stripped to the waist, revealing belly like the amateur Japanese sumo wrestler. Hair unkept and beard in moderate, sinewy torso painted with ash and sandalwood paste Around his neck, a rosary of rudraksha beads dangled, swinging gently as he moved. He tied a long, skirt-like cloth around his waist—an elaborated skirt, its ends tucked tight, the fabric resting just below the knees. It reminded her of a kilt, oddly ceremonial in its masculinity.

Then came the anklets—leather straps with tiny bells tied around both his legs just above the ankle. She could hear the soft jingle with every step he took. Like a warning. Like a call. Finally, he bound a colourful turban across his forehead, the mark of three lines [ a symbol of Siva] marked with streaks of turmeric and vermillion on his forehead.

Then, without a word, he stepped into the inner sanctum, bare feet brushing the stone floor, the bells around his ankles jingling with each slow, deliberate step. He stood before the stone idol Ayyan, the guardian deity of this temple. Rough-hewn, darkened by years of oil and fire, the idol seemed to absorb the flickering light. And the curtain close. From outside everybody could hear his screamed. A raw, guttural sound burst from deep within his chest. It tore through the thick air like a wild animal's cry. Not once, but again and again, louder each time.

The anklet bells clashed with the rhythm of his stomping feet. She flinched. Even from where she sat cross legged on the cement but her back leaning against the half crafted pillars, she could hear it clearly. She absorbed the sound of the scream. The others didn’t flinch. They leaned in. Some started crying. Others pressed their palms together in reverence.

The screaming continued. It rose and fell like waves crashing against something unseen sometimes guttural, sometimes high-pitched, like a language made only of breath and rage. It went on for nearly an hour. She lost track of time but still focusing on the screams and the different sound it emitted from that scream. At times it sound like a gorilla. The air had grown thick with camphor and sweat. The bells kept jangling with every violent movement, hypnotic and jarring all at once. Then suddenly it stopped. Just like that. One last stomp. A final grunt. And silence. Only the sound of cicadas filled the night for a moment, reclaiming the air.

Then, as if on cue, his assistants sprang into action. They moved with practiced ease clearly, this was a familiar routine. One carried a tray of incense, walking in a slow circle, fanning the smoke in front of the deity and the priest’s still-trembling form. Another came forward with a lit cigar, placing it gently into the priest’s hand, the glowing tip catching in the darkness like an ember of divine approval.

Beside him, someone uncapped a bottle of beer and placed it carefully on a small stool, next to a folded towel and a metal tray of flowers. She blinked. A cigar? A bottle of beer? After that violent communion? It startled her not because she judged it, but because it didn’t fit into the image of “god” she had been taught.

Here, the divine didn’t abstain. The divine smoked. The divine drank. The divine rested like a man after a long day's work. Its almost 1am, Then the first group was called in. A family three women and an elderly man stepped forward, heads bowed. One of the assistants announced their names and explained their troubles in Tamil. The priest, now seated cross-legged, eyes heavy-lidded, puffed on the cigar and nodded slowly. He waved his hand over them. Murmured words. Threw flower petals in their direction.

Each of them received what they came for: a moment. A gaze. A sentence. A verdict. Then they were ushered out, and the next group called in. It felt like a clinic. One “patient” out, the next one in. She sat there quietly, watching them come forward with the same need to talk to “god.” Each of them had a story. She listened, observed, and mentally recorded everything. She wasn’t there to pray. She came to understand.

She did this almost every weekend for five years. By the end of it, she had enough. Same drama, over and over again. At that time, she had never come across the terms atheist, agnostic, or free thinker. She was still holding on to the idea of one god from her Muslim background.

But here, in this temple, she was exposed to something else a world where gods came in many forms, some of them shouting, smoking, or drinking beer. She was fascinated. Not by the gods, but by the people.

What made them come here? Why the need to talk to god through someone else? Why allow themselves to be beaten, humiliated, even manipulated?

She saw people getting whipped in front of others. She saw them crying, pleading. Some were professionals educated, articulate, well-dressed. Why? She came to a conclusion.

Most of them were desperate. Stuck. They needed someone to tell them what to do. They needed permission to take the next step in life. She saw how the priest and his circle slowly gained control over them mentally, physically, and financially. And yet, the people couldn’t see it.

Then there was the temple’s annual festival. It happened every year at the end of August. A three-day affair. The first day was for the “Mother.” All vegetarian. Prayer sessions.

Then trance. Not just one person but several women. Especially the ones believed to be possessed by the Kalis and the nagas. She would stand at the side and watch as they went into trance one after another. It was loud.

Drums beating. Cymbals clashing. They danced in a frenzy, eyes wild, tongues sticking out. Some screamed. Some cried. Some collapsed. It felt like a performance. But for them it was real. The second day was for the guardians and the “big” father.

This was a non-vegetarian day. A male goat was sacrificed not at the front, but behind the temple. She watched as the priest, in trance again, drank the blood straight from the goat’s head. Then he climbed into a massive pot big enough to cook for a hundred people filled with beer. The crowd roared. Several men hoisted the pot and carried it toward the main temple. Inside it, the priest still shaking, chanting, cigar in hand. When he got out, he danced again.

With a sword, a whip, and a cigar. Others joined him. The drums grew louder. She just stood there. Watching. Then she noticed people lining up at the pot. They brought empty bottles and cups. Scooping out beer mixed with the blood of the sacrificed goat. She asked one of them, “Why are you drinking that?”

The man replied casually, “It’s medicinal. Good for health. Can cure illness.” She watched as person after person took a sip. Some closed their eyes while drinking. As if it were holy. She didn’t judge. She didn’t believe either. She just stood there quietly trying to understand what all this meant. Why people needed it so badly. What emptiness this was trying to fill.

The trance sessions at the temple were loud. Chaotic. Dramatic. But her mother’s trances were nothing like that. Hers were quiet. Subtle. She was told there were seven siblings who would come through her mother. Four boys. Three girls. Each had a name: Luqman, Zulkarnian, Rosli, Aisha, Katijah, Fatimah, and the last one Bisu, who was deaf and mute. She always found that strange. They were supposed to be Bugis orientated, but none of those names sounded Bugis.

Still, she never questioned it out loud. Only kept that observation to herself. Her mother’s trances usually came during extreme emotional distress. Arguments. Long silences. Fights. Then suddenly, her mother would faint—just collapse. But not for long. Moments later, she would sit up. Eyes closed. Body still.

Mouth mumbling in a low voice. No screaming. No dancing. No music. Her father knew the routine. He’d quietly come and sit next to her, like he had done many times before. What followed wasn’t preaching or prophecy. Just… conversations. The “siblings” would take turns complaining about her father. What he did. What he didn’t do. Sometimes scolding. Sometimes advising. She used to sit nearby, just listening. She wasn’t scared. But she didn’t understand it either. “Split personality?” she used to wonder. “Some kind of coping mechanism?” “Is this real or just something passed down?”

She tested it a few times. Called her mother’s name. Touched her arm. No reaction. But there was one time she took it further. She held a pin in her hand. Waited until the “sibling” had come. Then quietly, she pressed the pin gently into her mother’s leg. Not enough to injure but enough to feel something. No scream. No flinch. Just one thing, Her mother turned her head slowly… and stared right at her. That was enough. She didn’t try it again. “Okay,” she thought. “Point taken.”

But truth was she still wasn’t satisfied.

One experiment couldn’t be considered conclusive. That’s not how science works. You need repeated testing. Controls. Variables. She needed more. There was something else that always puzzled her. These… whatever they were she called them “the spirits” for convenience had preferences.

Each had a favourite item. They would ask for things. The girls wanted young white jasmine buds. The boys liked raw eggs. And the youngest Bisu, the mute one loved bananas. He would eat them whole, skin and all. But the strangest was the milk. It had to be pure cow’s milk. Not boiled. Not warm.

Straight from the fridge, cold. Her father always made sure to have it at home fresh from the Indian milkman on a bicycle who delivered to the estate. She knows her mother does not drink cow’s milk whether in the box or fresh from the delivery man.

One day, she decided to run a test. Her father had asked her to go buy the milk, so she did. But instead of just one type, she bought two. One the usual fresh cow’s milk in a plastic bag. The other a small carton of boxed milk.

Pasteurised. Supermarket stuff. Night came. And so did the spirits. One of them asked for milk. She poured the boxed milk into a metal cup and handed it over. The spirit took the cup, sniffed it, made a face… Took one small sip then stopped.

Pushed the cup aside and handed it back to her father. Her father looked down at the cup. “What milk is this?” he asked. “Cow’s milk,” she said. “What cow’s milk?” “The one in the box.” He stared at her for a second too long. “Don’t do this to them,” he said quietly. “Go get the fresh one.” So she did. She poured the milk from the plastic bag. Gave it to the spirit.

This time it drank all of it. “Okay,” she thought. “Experiment #1… not sure if it’s a pass or fail. But they know the difference.”

Another day, another test. Her father reminded her to buy bananas—to stand by, just in case. So she did. But this time, she decided to hide them. She brought the bananas home and tucked them deep into the cabinet drawer, out of sight. No one else was home. No one saw her. She was sure of it. Night came.

The spirits came too. The youngest one Bisu made his usual request. He wanted bananas. Her father turned to her. “Got bananas?” “No,” she said, trying to sound casual. “The fruit shop didn’t have any today.” Her father nodded and turned to Bisu, who was sitting on the floor, eyes closed, mouth moving in his usual silent mumble.

Then he tilted his head slightly toward her. Not quite pointing just… turning. Her father paused, then interpreted. “Bisu said… he saw you earlier today holding bananas. Said you put them in the cabinet drawer. That true?” She froze. There was no way anyone could have known. She hadn’t told a soul. Nobody saw her. No windows open. No neighbours around. She stared back at Bisu.

Eyes still closed. Still mumbling. She sighed. “Okay. He saw.” She walked to the cabinet, pulled open the drawer, and took out the bananas. Handed them over. No comment from her father. No smirk. Just a quiet “thank you.” Experiment #2: Spirit = 1 She = 0

Eventually, she let it be. She still didn’t know what those “spirits” were. Why they came. Why they chose her mother. What they wanted.

One day, she asked her father directly.

“What’s the purpose? Why do they come to her?”

He replied calmly, “They’re like the guardians. Here to help us.”

“Help us with what, exactly?” He didn’t give much. “Certain things. And… they seek shelter.” That was it. No elaboration.

She pressed a little more. “Shelter from who and what? How did they end up with us? I mean with mother?” Her father nodded. “According to what I was told it came from your grandmother. Your mother’s mother. Passed down from the family, but only on the mother’s side.

She let out a short exclamation, “Ooooh! Inherited? Have you ever seen them physically?” He didn’t answer right away. Just stared ahead quietly, as if flipping through old pages in his mind.

Then he said, “Yes. I’ve seen them.” She looked at him. He was never one to exaggerate. “I asked them once… to show themselves to me,” he continued. “And they did. All seven. They stood just outside the house. I could see the outline of their bodies—human figures.

Boys and girls. But their faces… I couldn’t see. Only shadows. Like they were wearing black robes. Still. Watching.” She felt a chill. “The youngest one,” he added, “was small. Like a child. Or a dwarf. Shorter than the rest.”

He said it calmly, like it wasn’t anything strange. No drama. No fear. Just matter-of-fact. She stared at him. “And what did you do?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Just stood there and watched them back. Then they disappeared.” That was it. No rituals. No prayers. No instructions. Just silence.

That moment stayed with her. They weren’t just ideas passed down. Her father had seen them. That made it harder to brush off.

But also harder to understand. Were they real? Were they symbolic? Were they projections of human pain, or beings from another layer of reality? She didn’t know. She only knew they came. They chose. And they stayed until they didn’t.

“They will only be passed over to the girls.” Her father continues. Another “ooooh” escaped her lips. But this time, not out of understanding. Out of something else. Discomfort. Passed on to the girls. That line stayed with her. Looping quietly in the back of her head like an unanswered riddle.

She wasn’t sure what she feared more, That it might be true. Or that one day, they might come knocking on her too. Momentarily she has kept her distance from them.. If her mind was a cupboard, then these things—the trances, the spirits, the inheritance were tucked deep inside.

Right at the back. Behind the things she used often. Out of sight. Out of concern. She wasn’t afraid. She just wasn’t ready. When the time was right when she was mentally prepared she would deal with it accordingly. But not yet.

One night, she was sitting in the living room, watching TV. Her mother was in trance again nothing unusual. She had grown used to it by now.

But then, out of nowhere, the “spirit” turned and pointed a finger at her. “Your youngest daughter does not believe in us,” it said. “She thinks we are evil. That we are the devil.”

She froze. It caught her off guard. Because that was exactly what she’d been thinking in silence. No one had said it out loud. She hadn’t told anyone.

So now they could read minds? Her father turned to her. “Is that true?” She shook her head. “No. I never thought that.” Silence. Her mother still in trance stared at her. This time, both eyes wide open. Unblinking.

For a few seconds, they locked eyes. She knew. She knew she was lying. And honestly so what if she was?

What mattered now was not the lie. It was the fact that something or someone knew.

And so, the Tai Tak temple and her mother’s trance sessions became things of the past. She left them behind each for different reasons. The temple at Tai Tak left a bad taste.

It was an experience she had no interest in repeating. In fact, she was told not to come back. She still remembered the last night clearly. She had been called in again for a “consultation.” Same format : sit, speak, explain your problem.

The priest, in trance, looked at her and asked, “What’s bothering you? What’s your problem?” That irritated her. “Of course I have problems,” she thought. “Who doesn’t? Every relationship has issues. But why should I talk about them in front of strangers?”

Her refusal to open up made the priest more insistent. He pushed again. That’s when she lost her patience. “I thought you were god,” she said flatly. “If you’re god, then you should already know what’s in my heart and mind. No need for me to say it out loud.”

The priest went silent. Stared at her. Then called her boyfriend over. They exchanged words in Tamil fast, low, and tense. A few minutes later, she was told to leave. That was the last time they called her in.

She was never a spiritual person. Her parents weren’t religious either just practising Muslims, like many others. She grew up like any other Muslim girl. Went for Qur’anic classes. Attended religious lessons. Learned how to pray, how to fast, what to say and when. It was more about rules than meaning.

But among all her siblings, she was the one who sought more. She asked questions and wanted to understand. She thought religion would give her answers. But the shift began when she entered nursing. That’s when the questions got louder.

That’s when the answers stopped making sense. She started asking things no one around her wanted to answer. Not the ustazahs, who were more obsessed with condemning non-believers than guiding the living. Not the preachers, who spoke more about heaven and hell than about life and suffering.

She wasn’t looking for paradise. She was looking for clarity. And she wasn’t finding it. The trance sessions with her mother and the Johor temple didn’t give her answers. They only confused her more. She needed to know why. How often had she been told by her religious teachers that idol worshippers were ignorant? That they were misguided. Stupid. That they would all end up in hell. Those words played in her mind for years.

But one day, everything shifted. She was walking along Chinatown, like she had many times before. And there it was the Sri Mariamman Temple. One of the oldest Hindu temples in Singapore. She had passed it countless times on her way to work at SGH. But on that day, she decided to stopped. She didn’t go in, just stood by the main gate and looked in. She wasn’t looking at the idols. She was watching the people.

They stood quietly. Praying. Making offerings. Bowing. And it hit her they weren’t ignorant people. They weren’t stupid. They were educated. Doctors. Lawyers. Accountants. Students. Nurses like her. They knew the statues weren’t real in the literal sense.

But they prayed anyway. “Why?” she asked herself. And then, like something buried rising to the surface, a question came up from somewhere deep inside: “What did they see… that I don’t?”

That was the beginning of her search for answers.

It took her to many places online and physically. One of them was India, another an online spiritual group called Shakti Sadhana

She had the opportunity to be in Pune, where the ashram of Sai Baba—the one with the afro hair—was located. The hall was massive. People sat in neat rows, waiting.

Men on one side, women on the other. No mixing. The air was heavy with incense and quiet excitement. Before the man himself appeared, a group of Sufi musicians performed on stage. Songs of longing and praise filled the space. Everyone listened in stillness, but their eyes kept drifting to the corridor—waiting for him.

Then he came. Sai Baba, in a wheelchair, being pushed slowly down the centre aisle. As he moved, every head turned. All eyes locked onto him. And as he passed each row, bodies shifted, eyes followed no one looked away. She watched this with deep interest. It reminded her of the Hugging Mother in Singapore—how the devotees sat still, eyes wide, focused only on her. Same thing here.

As soon as Sai Baba moved his hand or nodded or spoke, the crowd responded—smiling, nodding, tears in their eyes. “What is it about certain people,” she wondered, “that makes others believe their presence alone holds the answer?” She didn’t know. But she knew this wasn’t the end of her search. It was just another chapter. And this was the same spiritual guru her husband’s aunty once went to. A desperate mother, clinging to any chance.

Her youngest daughter was dying of leukaemia. She was told this man could save her child. And like any desperate mother, she believed it. When she finally got her audience with the guru, he told her the girl’s name was wrong. It should be Yamuna, not Jamuna. So she went to the registration office and changed it legally. He then told her to shave her head bald and carry the milk pot during Thaipusam. She did that too.

Most of all, he promised her “your daughter will get better” But she didn’t. She got worse. And not long after, she died. Overnight, the mother’s faith collapsed. Everything, divine intervention, gurus, rituals died with her daughter during the cremation. What amazed her was this: why make promises you can’t keep? Was it a desperate attempt to pacify the mother? Or did he truly believe in his own power? She never found the answer.

But the words of her own guru surfaced again, clear and calm: "Be careful when you make promises to people. We’re here to help, but we have limitations. Know your limitation." Now she understood why her guru was sometimes hesitant when people came to him asking for advice or divine insight. She saw the hesitation in his face, the heaviness in his eyes.

She once asked, "Why the pain? You’re just saying what’s right." His answer stayed with her: "What feels right now may not be right later. That’s the danger. People will cling to your words as if they’re divine truth. They stop thinking for themselves."

She understood it better now. The pain wasn’t from not knowing what to say. It was knowing the weight his words could carry and how easily they could be misused. On her way back to Kuala Lumpur, at the airport, she saw it again. This time, on a smaller scale.

A group of Western devotees, seated on the floor in a tight circle. In the middle an elderly man in orange robes. She recognized the style instantly: followers of Osho, the controversial spiritual guru. It wasn’t loud. There were no chants. No rituals. Just a circle of people who seemed completely removed from the rest of the airport.

All eyes were on him. She watched from a distance. The man spoke softly barely audible above the airport noise. Yet, the group leaned in as if hearing something sacred. Every time he opened his mouth, they inched closer, as though his words were pieces of truth they couldn’t afford to miss. The world around them disappeared. It was the same pattern again. Different god, different place, different culture. But the same look in their eyes. She didn’t judge it. She didn’t fully understand it either. But she watched. With interest.

And a growing awareness that her search was no longer about finding God, it was about understanding why we keep looking for one. Amidst all these thoughts, another memory surfaced a quiet conversation she once had with someone in the arts circle. It was about a beloved cultural figure.

A man admired by many. Founder of an institution known for music, dance, and healing. “I didn’t believe it at first,” the woman had said. “I defended him. Until one day, I saw something I couldn’t unsee.” She hesitated. “He was crossing a line. It was in private chamber. The girls were too young to understand. They stood near him as if in a trance, and do nothing when he start to fondle their breast.

He giggle and they followed along as if it’s like a ritual he’s performing” The woman had tried to raise it with the others. “They told me not to talk about it. That it was spiritual. Symbolic. Like Krishna’s Lila,” she said, her voice flat. That was when she walked away for good. It haunted her. The way communities protect their icons.

How easily silence becomes complicity. How devotion can sometimes blind. “Maybe this is how it works,” she thought “When the truth is too painful, they rewrite it as something holy.” Perhaps this is the norm. When a popular figure especially a spiritual one gets caught doing something questionable, the community reacts like clockwork.

They shut it down. Mentally. Emotionally. They rationalise, minimise, justify. “He’s above us. We don’t understand his ways. There’s a higher meaning behind it. Don’t let doubts pollute your faith.” They protect the guru, not the truth, because the truth is disruptive. It shakes the foundation of their belief. And when belief becomes identity, truth feels like a threat.

As she walked down the aisle and took her seat on the plane, a familiar voice returned, her guru’s voice. “Never put me on a pedestal,” he once told her. “If I ask you to do something you’re not comfortable with reject it. You must question me. Never follow blindly. That is not the path.” She remembered how clear he was about it.

There was no performance and no need for worship. Just clarity, discipline, and responsibility. And it struck her that’s what real teachers do. They don’t ask for surrender. They ask for awareness.

In the name of the divine

nmadasamy@nmadasamy.com