Every living being on the planet is born with a reserve of life force.
It is like a root of energy linking you with the planet.
In the Indian tradition, the kundalini is represented by a snake coiled in your base chakra.
When your kundalini wakes up, it rises through your spine and energizes the various chakras met during its ascension.
The Buddha’s enlightenment is symbolized by the rising of a cobra opening his crown chakra.
There are many more representations of the kundalini energy in various writings and mythologies.
The kundalini is symbolized in many ways. It can be a snake or other kind of reptile like a crocodile. A dragon can as well be seen as a representation of the Kundalini.
A knight taming a dragon is literally a symbol of him taming his own instinctual or animal nature.
In other representations, the kundalini is represented as a lion. It is visible in various Hindu temples as a Yogi taming a roaring lion.
You sometimes see a Yogi meditating on a Tiger skin. This is the same symbolism of the taming of the animal nature.
Here is how you can summarize all this:
Your being contains a source of instinctual energy.
It is the “raw” life force given to you at birth.
The process of evolution on this planet is a process of awakening and refining of the Kundalini energy.
A plant’s kundalini rises until the etheric level (as well called upper physical plane).
An animal kundalini rises until the astral plane (the plane of the emotions and dreams).
A human kundalini naturally rises until the mental plane (level of thoughts and conceptual thinking).
When you consciously wake up your kundalini, you attempt to break through beyond the natural limits of the mental plane and break through the causal (upper mental plane) and the buddhic plane.
After that, you connect with the nirvanic level of existence.
This is why the rising of your kundalini is associated with an enlightenment process.
You literally take your original raw source of kundalini energy and let it rise through the chakras until it pierces through your crown.
This is what is symbolically called enlightenment.
This break through allows the descent of fresh universal energy into your being.