The Eagle and the Snake

Change the battleground, win the battle

There was something making its way across the Internet yesterday that caught my eye. I don’t know who originally wrote it, but it’s great and I want to pass it along.

The eagle does not fight the snake on the ground. It picks it up into the sky and changes the battle ground, then it releases the snake into the sky.

The snake has no stamina, no power and no balance in the air. It is useless, weak and vulnerable unlike on the ground where it is powerful, wise and deadly.

Take your fight into the spiritual realm by praying, and when you are in the spiritual realm God takes over your battles.

Don’t fight the enemy in his comfort zone, change the battle ground like the eagle and let God take charge through your earnest prayer.

You’ll be assured of clean victory.

Natalia Barashkova

Wow!

So what is that “other level of thinking” that the eagle represents? It’s a level “above,” where we extend our perceptions beyond what our physical senses perceive to what we know to be true in our hearts.

It’s as though there are two parallel universes, and we are constantly at choice which one to inhabit. One is the realm of the three dimensions, a radical materialism in which only what can be seen with the physical eyes is accorded true reality at all. Yet in spiritual terms, that world is not what is ultimately real. In fact, it forms a veil of illusion in front of a world that’s actually a truer reality though unseen with the physical eyes.

The realm of the material is the realm of the snake, and the realm of the spiritual is the realm of the eagle. The realm of the material is where fear resides, while in the realm of spirit there is only love. A miracle is a shift from the snake to the eagle, or from fear to love. It lifts the mind to a higher level of wisdom and power, hardly weakening us but rather giving us victory over worldly forces that might otherwise defeat us.

This also reminds me of Einstein’s notion that the problems of the world will not be solved on the level of thinking we were at when we created them. We are being called to a higher level of thinking, not irrational at all but simply non-rational. In A Course in Miracles, it says “Love restores reason and not the other way around.” There is nothing sane about the way we are living today - raping the planet, spending more of our resources on ways to harm than on ways to heal - yet many would argue that such behavior is reasonable.

Neurosurgeon Dr. James Doty, in his wonderful book Into the Magic Shop, discusses how the heart turns out to be as pivotal in directing the functioning of the body as is the brain. Scientists and mystics agree: the heart is as important as the brain in determining not only what is real, but at this point, what is survivable. A brain disconnected from the heart is not an instrument of higher consciousness; it is reptilian. It is the proverbial snake.

But we are going to defeat the snake, the forces of lovelessness that dominate so much of our individual and collective functioning in the world today. How? By rising above, by changing the battleground, by rendering the snake powerless. Love is to fear what light is to darkness. Where one is present, the other cannot be.

The snake is ever present in the world, but the eagle lives in each of us. It is the power of forgiveness, and compassion, and mercy, and love. And yes, we’re assured of “clean victory.” Henceforth and forevermore…