Question: I dreamt of a very lustrous, bright orange serpent shortly after becoming your disciple. What does this mean?

Sri Chinmoy: Your dream of a very lustrous, bright orange serpent is very significant. But the colour that you saw was not orange; it was gold. This gold has a special significance. As you know, blue indicates Infinity and gold signifies divine manifestation.

A snake means energy. You will see snakes around Lord Shiva’s neck, and that means that energy is around him. Each snake has a meaning of its own. If they are not black, then they are all good. If you see a black snake, you have to know that it is a wrong force, an undivine force, a hostile force. But if you see a snake with a golden colour or a red colour, the gold signifies divine manifestation and the red signifies power. A gold snake means the manifestation of divine energy. Divine energy entered into you, into your spiritual life, and it wanted to flow through you in the form of manifestation. The first manifestation is your total surrender to the Will of the Supreme. The second manifestation is your conscious and constant service to the Will of the Supreme. The third manifestation is not to have any individual feeling of yourself but to feel the Supreme at every moment and to feel that you are of Him all the time and you are for Him all the time. You are of His Dream-Reality and you are for His Reality-Dream.