Shiva and His Naga

 Indian mythology is full of beautiful fables and interesting tales. Now they have very mystical meanings if we analyze them, interpret them as per the higher laws of the bigger dimension defined by high vibrational frequencies. I always wondered why do they depict Shiva with a naga, mostly a black cobra, around his neck. My individual interpretation is something on the following lines.

A snake is one of the most perceptible creatures on earth. Their entire body is in a position to perceive things to a level that is almost impossible to even imagine for we human beings. For example, suppose there is a snake in its hole and there is an earthquake thousands of kilometers away. Now there is a high possibility that the snake will perceive the tremors because it is so sensitive to even the softest reverberations coming across its body. We humans have almost a primal fear when it comes to snakes. Just think of a snake and you get goose-bumps. When we come across a snake it can perceive the fear in us. It can perceive and feel the change in our blood chemistry because when we get excited, get fearful our blood chemistry changes and the breathing pattern also turns abnormal. Now a snake is so perceptive and sensitive as to feel the slightest disturbance in the vibrational frequency and chemical change in anyone or anything around. Even if we don’t show any outer sign of being afraid, but are scared inside, it can perceive the biological or chemical changes in our bloodstream. It then reacts to that fear.

It is commonly believed that wherever there are meditating spiritualists the snakes really like their company. Maybe they feel comfortable among those higher energies emanating from the yogis. I have read stories about meditating ascetics in the forests and as their mind goes into that state of equilibrium, that equanimity of temperament, that balance of mind and the consequent lessening of fear, a snake (especially a cobra) really likes those waves of higher frequency.

In the neighboring village there was a realized soul, Narayan Maharaj. He left this body about 25 years ago, but people accepted him as an enlightened human being. He used to meditate a lot when he arrived in this area as a young wandering ascetic. He used to meditate in a little scrub forest in the countryside. In his memoirs he has clearly written that when he would meditate there was a black cobra that would continue moving in a circle around him and that continued for at least five or six years. So it proves that a cobra has a special liking for those who are spiritually evolved or who are on the path of spiritual evolution because there are certain biological changes as a result of the spiritual practices, which create a kind of divine atmosphere where there is no fear, where the snake loses its instinct of fear and biting. In this divine little space around the meditating yogi, in the spools of unqualified love, he tells us that he saw opposites melting and getting unified at certain nights—a snake and a mongoose playing like children; a little fox and a fearsome wolf playing on the grass nearby where he had set up his asana.  

I think the reason they show a naga around Shiva’s neck is that Shiva being a realized soul, a supreme  being who was hundred percent established within himself, so there was no fear and the snake would find him just like a warm rock during cold winter days, where it could relax since there was no fear, no change in that great yogi’s blood chemistry  or emotions or thoughts or energy field. As established as a rock he was. A live rock! So a snake would be near lord Shiva the way it would prefer to crawl on a rock. According to me, the main purpose they show Shiva with a naga is that he was a supreme personality that was hundred percent realized and established like an unmovable rock within his human body; there was no turbulence either in his emotions or in his body or in his energy field and a snake would be so comfortable around his neck as it would be relaxed on a rock during harsh winter days in order to soak the warm sunrays. The adiyogi established his chitta in all forms, to be like a living rock, a supreme fluidity inside a supreme stability. And with someone so blissful why won’t a naga fall in love. It abandoned its fears and biting instincts. And there we have our beautiful Shiva with a naga around his neck.