I was reading the Mystic's Musings by Sathguru Jaggi Vasudev I was surprised by the question  on Snakes. Like the snake on a plane urban legends making the rounds, I thought it will be dismissed with just a laugh. But surprise surprise! He talks a lot about it. Here is a highlight from the book written as conversation between the Seeker and Sathguru.Seeker

Seeker: You said that in Indian tradition, cows and snakes are revered.  Does it mean to say that there compassion for other animals ?

Sathguru: No, No.  compassion should be there for the others too. All animals are worshipped wholesale here(laughs). See, if you have to eat some animal for food, if you have to kill some animal and eat it, even towares that youshold have compassion; there is no doubt about it. Even for a rudimentary man, the snake and cow have been a taboo only because tese are the compulsory steps in the process of evolution of the soul. It should notmatter; if you have the same compassion for everybody it does not matter, but if you are a rudimentary man who kills, you spare at least these tow animals, because they are potential human beings. It;s like killing a man; it si so close. If you kill a chicken or something else, the police don't arrest you. Only if you kill a human being it is a murder and they arrest you, isn't is? Why? You should have the same compassion for all life forms - it's the same loss for all life forms, is'nt it?
In the Indian tradition, the laws are fixed liek this: if you kill a human being it is murder; if you kill a cow it's murder; if you kill a sanke, it is also murder. That was how it was fixed, but they could not fix it law to say that anything you kill is murder, because the need to kill was there may be for man's survival, for his food. Now the cow is one animal that has human emotions. A cow will shed tears when you have sufferng in you. People have deep relationships with cows in India, and sankes are sensitive to csitain types of energies. Whenever there are meditative situations, or rituals are performed, snakes are drawn there.

Seeker: Snakes, or te symbolism of snakes, is predominant in this culture. They are worshipped here and seem to have a significant meaning in yoga also. How come they are seen as evil in the West, especially in Christianity? Can you explain this, Sathguru?

The answer is long and interesting. sankentions Shiva, Kundalini, Devil and other things. And makes it humorous, packed with wisdom as usual.

 

I was playing at BlogShares and came across an interesting blog by Mina at
http://spaces.msn.com/amcangirl/
There were two entries one on Apr 9 and one on Apr 17 . It was more of a thinking aloud. I was able to see the thinking evolve and I was able to relate.
Wonder how blogs, games and communities can connect people who have never seen each other, and probably never see each other.
I am thrilled.

Have a look at  http://labsji.wordpress.com/filemon/shg20-draft/  to get an idea of what I have in mind.
I will give more details as we go.