Chapter 55The Animal World · Snake or Serpent

The serpent is the symbol of energy, it may be a bad or hostile energy — but it may also be a good, even a divine energy.

* The snake indicates some kind of energy always — oftener bad, but also it can indicate some luminous or divine energy. It is [in this case] the ascent of some such force from the physical upwards. The other details are not clear.

* About the snake you saw in your meditation — serpents indicate always energies of Nature and very often bad energies of the vital plane; but they can also indicate luminous or divine energies like the snake of Vishnu. The one you saw was evidently of this latter type — a luminous divine energy and therefore there was no cause for alarm, it was a good sign.

* A snake is a bad symbol only when it comes from the vital or other lower plane.

* What you saw was not what is in yourself, but a symbol of the things that are in vital Nature. Scorpions and usually snakes also are symbols of harmful energies; the vital nature of earth is full of these energies and that is why the purification of man’s outer vital nature also is so difficult and there are so many wrong movements and happenings in him, — because his vital is easily open to all these earth movements. In order to get rid of them, the inner being must wake and grow and its nature replace the outer nature. Sometimes serpents indicate energies simply, not harmful ones; but more often it is the other way. On the other hand the peacocks you saw were powers of victory, the victory of the energies of light over the energies of darkness.

* The serpent Ananta is the infinite energy in infinite Time-Space which supports the universe.

* It is in answer to your aspiration that the Mahakali force de-scended — the Serpent is the Energy from above working in the vital answering to the Serpent Kundalini which rises from below.

* The Serpent is the symbol of energy — especially of the Kun-dalini Shakti which is the divine Force coiled up in the lowest (physical) centre, Muladhara — and when it rises it goes up through the spine and joins the higher consciousness above.

Energies are of all kinds and the snakes can also symbolise the evil powers of the unregenerate vital nature — but here it is not that.

* The serpent symbolises an energy good or bad, divine or un-divine according to its nature. Here, it looks as if it were the Kundalini trying to ascend to the Brahmarandhra, but it has not yet reached beyond the vital and is stopped — probably because the time has not yet come.

* This [vision] is the symbol of the opening of the centres to the Light.

The swan is the Indian symbol of the individual soul, the central being, the divine part which is turned towards the Divine, descending from there and ascending to it.

The two serpents interlaced are the two channels in the spine, through which the Shakti moves upward and downward.

The serpent with the six hoods is the Kundalini Shakti, the divine Power asleep in the lowest physical centre which, awakened in the Yoga, ascends in light through the opening centres to meet the Divine in the highest centre and so connect the manifest and the unmanifested, joining Spirit and Matter.

* The golden serpent in the Muladhara is a symbol of the energy of the transformed physical consciousness.

* The cobra is a symbol of the Energy in Nature — the upraised hood and light indicate the illumination and victorious position of the emerged Energy.

* The opening of the hood indicates the victorious or successful activity of the Energy indicated by the snake.

* The serpent with the hood over the head generally indicates future siddhi.

* Snakes and scorpions always indicate attacks or threats of attack of one kind or another, more often threats from the vital plane or hostile influences on the physical.

* The serpent is a symbol of force, very often a hostile or evil force of the vital plane. The sea is a symbol of a plane of consciousness. The white light is a manifestation of pure divine force descending from one of the truth-planes leading to the supramental.

The indication is that of a hostile vital force being expelled and the purifying light from above descending to illumine and deliver the part of the plane formerly occupied by it.