I told just such a story to Eurynome (Australia is her habitat).

The Snake is associated with the letter Teth of the Hebrew language.
Check the Kabbalah tribe. 9th letter. 9 months in gestation.
See how that is intimately linked with the sexual process?

It means, in part, the subjugation of the male impulses to the female,
those dedicated to the sexual flow. Also, it means, in the imagery of the
Tarot, the female holding the lion's jaws open, submission to the female.
Limiting the destructive effects of male energy gone wild.

We males need to be as resistant to unleashing our desires as much as
women are. Resistance, Limitation, is an aspect of Binah.

Like the new photo.

This Path in Christian kabbalah is between Chesed and Geburah,
The King at War and the King at Peace, ruling from his palace.
Old symbolism. It also is a way to keep Leviathan below certain levels.

I don't know what rituals or secret wisdom the East uses to effect the same
as what is explicable in the West, but certainly it isn't as easily found as it is
on this side.

So many in the West who have taken up the Eastern approach still are with
their women, physically, and yet do their best not to "discharge".

You'd have to get a reply from someone versed in those procedures.

Namaste Nick
I think the use of a snake, is because of the similarity between a crawling snake and the shape of kundalini energy when it flows through
the Sushama Nadi ( or path of conciousness). I dont think , the energy appears like a snake. Its more of a metaphor.

I read an english translation of Dnyaneshwari www.hinduweb.org/home/dhar...hirvaikar/
Dnyaneshwari is a marathi translation of Bhagwad Geeta by Saint Dnyaneshwar en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnyaneshwar , with additional articles on Meditation , Enlightenment and especially kundalini.

It this book , its mentioned that , when the "Ego" sleeps , the "Soul" awakens. I.e If we consider everything that we feel , see, hear, smell, hear as "Maya" or illusion, our Ego sleeps, for it is not threatened, excited or bored by any event or circumstance. In this moment of "No-Thought"
The energy at the base of the spine rises up through the Sushma Nadi and reaches the Sahashra Chakra ( The chakra of universal conciousness), The movement of kundalini through the spine resembles that of the snake. Hence the symbolism like "Lord Shiva is shown with the King Cobra around his neck" meaning he has tamed the Kundalini.

Om

greetings nick!

to me... who is very unschooled ... it is just what i see ... white cobras have been coming into me for a few years ... sometimes with white bird a somewhat scary infusion occurs.

but ... as i began to research a bit ... i saw that this theme occurs with in every tradition i can find books on ... and that is a limited statistic.

the spine is to me like a cobra ... attached to the skull .. the main nerve plexus ... and perhaps the cobra has "wings" or an aura ... in refrence to the hood.

however it is an energy of purity and potency

it is "poisonous" it is "curative"

it is devoured in egypt by the peacock, and the ibis
which are symbolic of high wisdom, and purity as well.

pure energy
pure consciousness


?

I have experienced a literal image upon waking abruptly and seeing a coiled snake striking intensely right over my partners head. it was so real I had difficultly falling back to sleep and had to look on the covers etc. calm my heart down all that. our relationship did end not too long after that...

never figured it out.
any one, any one??

There is lots of differences in between theory & practical .
I am here openly to ch angle any or all so called Gurus.
Come and >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
OM
Hqa Ha Ja

Hi Nick, Hope this isn't too far off topic, but the late popular mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote on this subject. Since I couldn't find my copy of his seminal work "Hero with a Thousand Faces" where he talks about serpent symbols in some detail, I have to settle for an excerpt from the book and TV interviews he had with Bill Moyers, "The power of Myth". Here goes:

Moyers: But Genesis continues: ''Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to
eat?'' The man said, ''The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree,
and I ate.'' Then the Lord God said to the woman, ''What is this that you have done?'' The woman
said, ''The serpent beguiled me, and I ate.''
You talk about buck passing, it starts very early.

Campbell: Yes, it has been tough on serpents. The Bassari legend from West Africa continues in
the same way. ''One day Snake said, 'We too should eat these fruits. Why must we go hungry?'
Antelope said, 'But we don't know anything about this fruit.' The Man and his wife took some of
the fruit and ate it. Unumbotte came down from the sky and asked, 'Who ate the fruit?' They
answered, 'We did.' Unumbotte asked, 'Who told you that you could eat that fruit' They replied,
'Snake did,' '' It is very much the same story.

Moyers: What do you make of it— that in these two stories the principal actors point to someone
else as the initiator of the Fall?

Campbell: Yes, but it turns out to be the snake. In both of these stories the snake is the symbol of
life throwing off the past and continuing to live.

Moyers: Why?

Campbell: The power of life causes the snake to shed its skin, just as the moon sheds its shadow.
The serpent sheds its skin to be born again, as the moon its shadow to be born again. They are
equivalent symbols. Sometimes the serpent is represented as a circle eating its own tail. That's an
image of life. Life sheds one generation after another, to be born again. There is something
tremendously terrifying about life when you look at it that way. And so the serpent carries in
itself the sense of both fascination and the terror of life.
Furthermore, the serpent represents the primary function of life, mainly eating. Life
consists in eating other creatures. The serpent is a traveling alimentary canal, that's about all it is.
And it gives you that primary sense of shock, of life in its most primal quality. There is not
arguing with that animal at all. Life lives by killing and eating itself, casting off death and being
reborn, like the moon. This is one of the mysteries that these symbolic, paradoxical forms try to
represent.

From "The power of myth" (p. 45) . Joseph Campbell, with Bill Moyers