God is a snake.

truth
Yes, opposities only seem to have separate reality. Nice imagery.

I knew you'd get it, JL. Anybody else? I suppose calling god a snake is a problem for literalists, to say the least.

I looked in Google for a picture of a snake with its tail in its mouth and found one. It was a stylized drawing of a snake in a circle with its tail in its mouth based on Celtic myth. I see the Celts beat me to the idea.

I wanted to post the picture, but it didn't work for some reason. Instead of posting the picture, the url address was posted. I don't know if it's a problem with A2K—since it was down last night—or it's just one of those urls that won't post. Usually there's just a red x if it won't post.

Thanks, JL. I just knew you'd get it. Anybody else? I suppose calling god a snake is a problem for literalists, to say the least.

I looked in Google for a picture of a snake with its tail in its mouth and found one. It was a stylized drawing of a snake in a circle with its tail in its mouth based on Celtic myth. I see the Celts beat me to the idea.

I wanted to post the picture, but it didn't work for some reason. Instead of posting the picture, the url address was posted. I don't know if it's a problem with A2K—since it was down last night—or it's just one of those urls that won't post. Usually there's just a red x if it won't post.

I think that works well as a literary comparison, but how would you describe that in terms of physics?

here you go:

Isn't this thought even older than the celts? Too lazy to look in google.

Can't stand to leave it without a search. Here it is--an excerpt and a link:


http://www.geocities.com/neovedanta/a83.html

In the classical allegory of Vedanta philosophy, it is like seeing either rope or the snake. When we see the rope our vision and perception is clear, as if we are in the state of divine consciousness - samadhi. But, as soon as some darkness - ignorance - comes we confuse the rope with snake. Again, someone demonstrates to us by throwing light on the object or by picking it up that what one has mistakenly believed to be the snake is in fact the rope. The important point to note here is that at no point of time the rope ever had turned into a snake; the rope was always the rope. It was our ignorance produced due to clouding of our mind by way of darkness, etc. that caused us to mistakenly see the snake in the rope. The ignorance had superimposed snake over the rope. Much the same way our mind is clouded by ignorance in its present sate and we see superimposition of world - the snake - over Brahman - the rope. Only when a Teacher, a Guru throws light and shows us the true nature of this world can we experience the Brahman therein.

The second point is also of immense importance; and what is that second point? When we see the snake we do not see the rope. We cannot accept that object other than snake. We are afraid of it and run away from it. As in a dream we see a tiger and are terrified by the animal, same way in our dream of illusory snake we are afraid of it. A person dreaming of tiger chasing him gets up all sweating and with palpitating heart, but soon realizes then: 'Oh, what a fool I am; I thought that the tiger was really chasing me!' He thus settles down when he awakens; he understands the truth when his ignorance is destroyed by way of awakening. In case of the snake-rope allegory similar explanation can be applied. When we come out of ignorance, we see the rope as a rope, and all our fears about the snake disappear. While we have given one example of fear to emphasize the point, it is equally and easily understandable that all our attachments to this world are like that dream. Love, fear, jealousy, hatred, passion, anger, infatuation, and so on surface only because of our mistaken belief about the Rope (Reality) as something else.
*
C S Shah

truth
Thanks, Diane. My problem with Shah's presentation of the famous snake-rope model of illusion and awakening is that he presents it too much like a mere matter of ignorance about the nature of the objective world: "Is it a snake or a rope?" Stage magicians fool us for a living--we pay them to do so--but our knowledge that their magic is merely trickery does not even touch on the nature of enlightenment. Enlightenment, as I understand it, has more to do with the GENERAL illusion of the separate self, the ego. To be awakened is to realize one's true nature. Let me give an example I've concocted for what it's worth. When I choose to open my eyes in order to see, this is a willed act and as such appears to confirm the ego, an agent that willed it. But compare this to the fact that once one's eyes are open he sees whether he wills it or not. One CAN choose to LOOK this way or another, to focus on one object or another. But one cannot choose to SEE once his eyes are open (any more than a blind man can choose to see when his eyes are open). SEEING itself is clearly a function not of an ego but of a myriad of events and conditions (the nature of optical physics, neurology, everything that supports one's existence at that moment (and what could that exclude?). Now, look at the apparent difference here between looking and seeing. One appears to confirm ego, one's independence and separateness from the world; the other seems to confirm one's interdependence and integration with the world. The first is the snake, the second the rope. Now, just as the awakened individual knows the rope is not a snake, he also knows that seeing and looking are really both expressions of the non-existence of the self and the unity of one's true nature with everything else.
I'm sure I'll regret this--it's off the top of the head. But it's not "my" fault. Blame it on Brahman.

I kind of wonder if the Vendanta allegory may have a little bit to do with God choosing a snake to tempt Eve in the Abrahamic "Garden".

Or would it merely represent mankinds seemingly innate (but probably learned) dislike of "creepy crawly things"

Portal Star: I'd be in deep doo-doo trying to explain this in terms of physics. Fortuantely for me, physics doesn't try to explain subjective reality or spiritual metaphors.

Hotibob: Great picture, but why does it have feet?

Diane: that Vedantic explanation is complicated enough to make a Zen master go screaming to Lolly, whatever that means. (I heard it on some BBC comedy.) When it comes to spiritual matters I prefer simplicity, and the simpler the better. Besides, I don't think that Vedantic essay is saying the same thing that my snake god is saying.

It's probably just over my head. Fortuantely, JLNobody was back there making the catch. Did I just make another metaphor?

Because the big guy with the white beard hadn't punished it yet for interfering with the garden of eden.

Here's a question: Did people fart in the garden of eden?

truth
It would not be Eden if people couldn't fart. The good part of Eden is that they couldn't smell.

I'm not sure what the Garden of Eden represents. At one time I thought it was merely the time before the development of the intellect to the point of the formation of the ego, but Joseph Campbell has a more complicated explanation of this metaphor.

I think the snake is hated in the Western world not because of the danger from some species, but because it is a strong symbol of nature and of the physical. At some point in the history of Christianity Christ was elevated to the supernaturral, so Christianity imposed itself on nature from above and totally alienated itself from nature and the physical. With this unfortunate move, Christianity abandoned the metaphorical interpretation of Christ's words, and the result was the sad history of Christianity's exclusive—at least predominant—literal interpretation. With the alienation from nature, the snake became symbolic of the enemy, so to speak. Note the connection of the snake with Eve in the myth, connotating the evil physicality of the both the snake and women, the latter being also close to nature because of their reproductive capability.

My snake god metaphor explains the two ways of experiencing the world, the intellectual mind—Alan Wattts' "small mind"—consciousness which thinks in opposites, and transcendent consciousness—Watts' "big mind"—where opposites are resolved and personal identity expends past the skin.

The late Alan Watts wrote a number of books trying to explain the metaphorical approach to spirituality via Eastern thought. The late Joseph Campbell was a professor at Sarah Lawrence College where he taught mythology and wrote a number of books on the subject. He had several dialogues with Bill Moyers which are often presented on PBS. My favorite book of his at this time is "The Power of Myth."

truth
I've always thought that the myth of the Garden of Eden and Adam and their banishment should be taken as an "epistemological" lesson. In the natural state of Eden Adam and Eve were non-dualist, seeing reality directly as an undifferentiated continuum. After eating from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of good and bad, true and false, right and wrong, ugly and beautiful, etc. they became dualist, breaking reality into a differentiated continuum and were subsequently and automatically (not as a punishment for disobedience) alienated from the bliss of Eden.

JL, I think that you've got a point (.) but as a naive realist I tend to think that it is merely a remarking on the blisses and blessings of ignorance.

When humans knew no more than the animals they could be easily contented. When they "learned" that a cave was a better place to sleep in then our troubles (challenges) began.

Since snakes and primitive man both preferred caves in the wintertime the stage for an interspecies rivalry was set. Presently codified in religion, from a human viewpoint. I have no information as to how the snakes regard the phenomenon. I suspect that it would be at least as equally flattering.

I like your explanation of Eden, JL. I think Campbell said something like that. Then there's the apple tree, and the apple that represented the entrance into the world of opposites and time. Campbell said that the Cross was the second tree that once again joined what the first tree had separated.

truth
I like the notion of the cross as the healing tree, as bringing together what the first tree tore apart. But "the cross" was a theological trick of St. Paul, part of his attempt to create an alternative church to the one in which he was a moral failure.
akaMechsmith. I don't think I've made the notion of non-dualism clear. It doesn't refer to an inability to distinguish the warmth of a cave from the cold outside the cave. It just means that the outside and inside are not seen as absolutely apart (metaphytically separate) from each other. They are part of an undifferentiated aesthetic continuum (Northrup). Adam could enter the cave on a cold night and sleep comfortably without entertaining notions of inside-ness and outside-ness as antagonistic opposites.

Human
Thinking while I am typing. When Eve offered Adam the forbidden fruit she gave him human consciousness. Satan, the snake talked her into doing this. So, human consciousness is a curse. It brings about suffering. After Eve gained this her brain size increased and so did her offspring's which brought about the pains of birth. We don't know if the human child experiences pain while being born. Did the writer of this story mean to say that being human is not a good thing? Weren't Adam and Eve banished rom Paradise? Didn't they suffer after that?

I don't know what Jews or Christians get out of the story. I get that god didn't want these beings to be humans but Satan, Ex- angel did. Can't figure out why god put this tree there and pointed out to the beings never to eat any of it's fruit. If god didn't want these beings to be human why tempt them? I have always thought that this god portrayed in the bible was a weird being. Would the human race have been better off if Eve hadn't acted upon Satan's persuasion?

truth
PIstoff, let's keep in mind that this is a mythological opportunity for interpretation not a story to be taken literally. In my interpretation God wanted Adam and Eve to be non-dualistic humans, not dualistic humans.