I’m from Myanmar and also Chinese descender but I'm a little bit confuse with Chinese New Year festival. Before Chinese New Year, Kitchen god and all the gods go to heaven to report heaven god about good and bad of human beings.
Q.1) Some said when all the gods go to heaven, other gods from heaven comes down, so my question is which gods come from heaven?
Q.2) But some said there is no god left on the earth so lion and dragons come and protect human beings when the gods are in heaven? My question is "it is true"?
Q.3) Even we said there is no god on the earth why everyone goes to chinese temple on the new year’s day ( the day after new year’s eve)
Q.4) We said there is no god on the earth why the god is possess to spirit medium ( ki tong )? In myanmar a temple’s spirit medium possess the god 清水祖師 (祖師公) and go around the town with his bodyguard tiger and together with dragon dance members.( people believe 清水祖師 have tiger bodyguard i don’t know it is true or not).
Q.5) If you have time please explain more about difference between pure Taoist religion and Min-Nan Culture folk practice. (I thought it was the same).
Q.6) The southern Min-nan folks worship deities and pure Taoist worship Three Pure One. Am I right?
----------------- Aung Thu, Myanmar
Reply from Taoist Sorcery Master (super.kumantong@gmail.com):
From ancient records, Pure Taoist Religion will only do major ritual to send off the Kitchen God during end of the Year, before Chinese New Year. In Min-Nan Culture Folks Practice, all heavenly gods were sent off to heaven to do their yearly reporting of their own duties. The spiritual soldiers will be guarding the temples. The earth bound deities are staying back on earth.
Reply to Q.1) There are deities that are originally from heaven, humans who became deities that went to heaven and there are earth bound spirits (ghosts that are deitified out of good deeds) that stay on earth.
Reply to Q.2) The spiritual soldiers of the deities are staying back on earth to guard the temples.
Reply to Q.3) The spiritual soldiers of the deities are staying back on earth to guard the temples. Example, when the human bosses are taking leaves to enjoy life, there are acting-boss / managers and other workers helping the boss to manage.
Reply to Q.4) The truth is, during the spiritual possessions of spirit mediums, the "deity" is the representive of the original deity. There are many spiritual beings, who are also caltivating good deeds (by helping man kind), given the "licence" to represent the particular deity to help people on earth. Therefore, there will be Tang Kis trancing deities, even the deities are sent off to heaven.
Another way of using modern science of explaining is when there is one souce of wireless access, many computers can hook up to it, not just one. Different people can access to different internet websites from the same source of wireless internet wifi connection. One radio station can broadcast to millions of radios. It is the same as spirit world or energy.
Therefore, during spirit posssession ritual , You can see a group of spirit mediums "jumping" the same god at the same time.
Reply to Q.5) For pure Taoism Religion, You may look into Quan Zhen School (全真派), Zheng Yi School (正一派) and Mao Shang Shang Qing Lineage(茅山上清宗).
The folk religion of Min-nan (The Southern Min Folks) - today Fujian People , which the practice include Spirit Mediumship that You see in Taiwan, Thailand Chinese (Phuket Vegetalian Festival), Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesian Riau Islands, are uniquely the Southern Chinese Practice, not found in Pure Taoism.
Reply to Q.6) Different communities of Chinese have their own deities related to their own culture and also they include the Pure Taoist Religion. Pure taoist religion focus on Taoist Scriptures. There are many other deities in Pure Taoism, not just the 3 pure ones. For the layman level / ordinary folks, they will simply focus on praying to particular deities related to their own culture and does not bother (or not interested) to understand the Pure Taoist Scriptures. On the other hand, the Priest level (even to the Min-Nan / Hokkien / Fujian Culture) will include the usage of Pure Taoist Scriptures and do ritual to venerate the highest level deities of Pure Taoism.
During Spirit Medium Procession, the deities (or spirits representing the deities) will also respect the priests, by guiding the worshippers to pray or kneel down before the highest level deities, while the priests are doing important rituals.
Conclusion: When deities go to heaven for reporting (during CNY), the spirit soldiers stay on earth to protect and do recording of Your problems. Many Spirit Mediums can trance the same deity at the same time. Pure Taoism do not include the folk culture deities and practice but Folk Taoism / Folk Chinese Religion includes both the deities / practice of their own culture and also the Pure Taoist Deities and Scriptures.
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