An Occult Key to Understand
the Rhythm of Life
Helena P. Blavatsky
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Editorial Note:
As in other
writings on Esoteric
Philosophy, there
is some “implicit
wisdom” in between
the lines of the
following article
by H.P.B. This wisdom
can be better
assessed if the student reads
the text at least
two or three times, in
different
occasions, with calm attention
and in an
meditative state of mind.
(Carlos Cardoso
Aveline)
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A deep significance
was attached to numbers in hoary antiquity. There was not a people with
anything like philosophy, but gave great prominence to numbers in their
application to religious observances, the establishment of festival days,
symbols, dogmas, and even the geographical distribution of empires. The
mysterious numerical system of Pythagoras was nothing novel when it appeared
far earlier than 600 years B.C. The occult meaning of figures and their
combinations entered into the meditations of the sages of every people; and the
day is not far off when, compelled by the eternal cyclic rotation of events,
our now sceptical unbelieving West will have to admit that in that regular
periodicity of ever recurring events there is something more than a mere blind
chance. Already our Western savants begin to notice it. Of late, they
have pricked up their ears and begun speculating upon cycles, numbers and all
that which, but a few years ago, they had relegated to oblivion in the old
closets of memory, never to be unlocked but for the purpose of grinning at the
uncouth and idiotic superstitions of our unscientific fore-fathers.
As one of such
novelties, the old, and matter-of-fact German journal Die Gegenwart has
a serious and learned article upon “the significance of the number seven” introduced
to the readers as a “Culture-historical Essay”. After quoting from it a few
extracts, we will have something to add to it perhaps. The author says:
“The number seven was
considered sacred not only by all the cultured nations of antiquity and the
East, but was held in the greatest reverence even by the later nations of the
West. The astronomical origin of this number is established beyond any doubt.
Man, feeling himself time out of mind dependent upon the heavenly powers, ever
and everywhere made earth subject to heaven. The largest and brightest of the
luminaries thus became in his sight the most important and highest of powers;
such were the planets which the whole antiquity numbered as seven. In
course of time these were transformed into seven deities. The Egyptians
had seven original and higher gods; the Phœnicians seven kabiris;
the Persians, seven sacred horses of Mithra; the Parsees, seven angels
opposed by seven demons, and seven celestial abodes paralleled by
seven lower regions. To represent the more clearly this idea in its
concrete form, the seven gods were often represented as one seven-headed
deity. The whole heaven was subjected to the seven planets; hence,
in nearly all the religious systems we find seven heavens.”
The belief in the sapta
loka of the Brahminical religion has remained faithful to the archaic
philosophy; and - who knows - but the idea itself was originated in Aryavarta,
this cradle of all philosophies and mother of all subsequent religions! If the
Egyptian dogma of the metempsychosis or the transmigration of soul
taught that there were seven states of purification and progressive
perfection, it is also true that the Buddhists took from the Aryans of India,
not from Egypt, their idea of seven stages of progressive development of
the disembodied soul, allegorized by the seven stories and umbrellas,
gradually diminishing towards the top on their pagodas.
In the mysterious
worship of Mithra there were “seven gates”, seven altars, seven
mysteries. The priests of many Oriental nations were sub-divided into seven
degrees; seven steps led to the altars and in the temples burnt
candles in seven-branched candlesticks. Several of the Masonic Lodges have, to
this day, seven and fourteen steps.
The seven planetary
spheres served as a model for state divisions and organizations. China was
divided into seven provinces; ancient Persia into seven satrapies.
According to the Arabian legend seven angels cool the sun with ice and
snow, lest it should burn the earth to cinders; and seven thousand angels
wind up and set the sun in motion every morning. The two oldest rivers of the
East - the Ganges and the Nile - had each seven mouths. The East had in
the antiquity seven principal rivers (the Nile, the Tigris, the
Euphrates, the Oxus, the Yaksart, the Arax and the Indus); seven famous
treasures; seven cities full of gold; seven marvels of the world,
&c. Equally did the number seven play a prominent part in the
architecture of temples and palaces. The famous pagoda of Churingham is
surrounded by seven square walls, painted in seven different
colours, and in the middle of each wall is a seven storied pyramid; just
as in the antediluvian days the temple of Borsippa, now the Birs-Nimrud, had seven
stages, symbolical of the seven concentric cycles of the seven spheres,
each built of tiles and metals to correspond with the colour of the ruling
planet of the sphere typified.
These are all “remnants
of paganism” we are told - traces “of the superstitions of old, which, like the
owls and bats in a dark subterranean, flew away to return no more before the
glorious light of Christianity” - a statement but too easy of refutation. If
the author of the article in question has collected hundreds of instances to
show that not only the Christians of old but even the modern Christians have
preserved the number seven, and as sacredly as it ever was before, there
might be found in reality thousands. To begin with the astronomical and
religious calculation of old of the pagan Romans, who divided the week into seven
days, and held the seventh day as the most sacred, the Sol or Sunday
of Jupiter, and to which all the Christian nations especially the Protestants -
make puja to this day. If, perchance, we are answered that it is not
from the pagan Romans but from the monotheistic Jews that we have it, then why
is not the Saturday or the real “Sabbath” kept instead of the Sunday, or Sol’s
day?
If in the “Rámáyana”
seven yards are mentioned in the residences of the Indian kings; and seven
gates generally led to the famous temples and cities of old, then why
should the Frieslanders have in the tenth century of the Christian era strictly
adhered to the number seven in dividing their provinces, and insisted
upon paying seven “pfennigs” of contribution? The Holy
Roman and Christian Empire has seven Kurfursts or Electors. The
Hungarians emigrated under the leadership of seven dukes and founded seven
towns, now called Semigradyá (now Transylvania). If pagan Rome was
built on seven hills, Constantinople had seven names – Byzantium,
Antonia, New Rome, the town of Constantine, The Separator of the World’s Parts,
The Treasure of Islam, Stamboul - and was also called the city on the seven Hills,
and the city of the seven Towers as an adjunct to others. With the
Mussulmans “it was besieged seven times and taken after seven weeks
by the seventh of the Osman Sultans”. In the ideas of the Eastern
peoples, the seven planetary spheres are represented by the seven rings
worn by the women on seven parts of the body - the head, the neck, the
hands, the feet, in the ears, in the nose, around the waist - and these seven
rings or circles are presented to this time by the Eastern suitors to their
brides; the beauty of the woman consisting in the Persian songs of seven charms.
The seven planets
ever remaining at an equal distance from each other, and rotating in the same
path, hence, the idea suggested by this motion, of the eternal harmony of the
universe. In this connection the number seven became especially sacred
with them, and ever preserved its importance with the astrologers. The
Pythagoreans considered the figure seven as the image and model of the
divine order and harmony in nature. It was the number containing twice the
sacred number three or the “triad”, to which the “one” or the divine monad
was added: 3 + 1 + 3. As the harmony of nature sounds on the key-board of
space, between the seven planets, so the harmony of audible sound takes
place on a smaller plan within the musical scale of the ever-recurring seven
tones. Hence, seven pipes in the syrinx of the god Pan (or Nature),
their gradually diminishing proportion of shape representing the distance
between the planets and between the latter and the earth - and, the seven-stringed
lyre of Apollo. Consisting of a union between the number three (the symbol
of the divine triad with all and every people, Christians as well as pagans)
and of four (the symbol of the cosmic forces or elements), the number seven
points out symbolically to the union of the Deity with the universe; this
Pythagorean idea was applied by the Christians - (especially during the Middle
Ages) - who largely used the number seven in the symbolism of their
sacred architecture. So, for instance, the famous Cathedral of Cologne and the
Dominican Church at Regensburg display this number in the smallest
architectural details.
No less an
importance has this mystical number in the world of intellect and philosophy.
Greece had seven sages, the Christian Middle Ages seven free arts
(grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy). The
Mahometan Sheikh-ul-Islam calls in for every important meeting seven “ulems”.
In the Middle Ages an oath had to be taken before seven witnesses, and
the one, to whom it was administered, was sprinkled seven times with
blood. The processions around the temples went seven times, and the
devotees had to kneel seven times before uttering a vow. The Mahometan
pilgrims turn round Kaaba seven times, at their arrival. The sacred
vessels were made of gold and silver purified seven times. The
localities of the old German tribunals were designated by seven trees,
under which were placed seven “Schoffers” (judges) who required seven
witnesses. The criminal was threatened with a seven-fold punishment
and a seven-fold purification was required as a seven-fold reward was promised
to the virtuous. Every one knows the great importance placed in the West on the
seventh son of a seventh son. All the mythic personages are
generally endowed with seven sons. In Germany, the king and now the
emperor cannot refuse to stand as god-father to a seventh son, if he be
even a beggar. In the East in making up for a quarrel or signing a treaty of
peace, the rulers exchange either seven or forty-nine (7 X 7) presents.
To attempt to cite
all the things included in this mystical number would require a library. We
will close by quoting but a few more from the region of the demoniacal.
According to authorities in those matters - the Christian clergy of old - a
contract with the devil had to contain seven paragraphs, was concluded
for seven years and signed by the contractor seven times; all the
magical drinks prepared with the help of the enemy of man consisted of seven
herbs; that lottery ticket wins, which is drawn out by a seven-year
old child. Legendary wars lasted seven years, seven months
and seven days; and the combatant heroes number seven, seventy, seven
hundred, seven thousand and seventy thousand. The princesses in the
fairy tales remained seven years under a spell, and the boots of the
famous cat - the Marquis de Carabas - were seven leagued. The ancients
divided the human frame into seven parts; the head, the chest, the
stomach, two hands and two feet; and man’s life was divided into seven periods.
A baby begins teething in the seventh month; a child begins to sit after
fourteen months (2 X 7); begins to walk after twenty-one months
(3 X 7); to speak after twenty-eight months (4 X 7); leaves off sucking
after thirty-five months (5 X 7); at fourteen years (2 X 7) he
begins to finally form himself; at twenty-one (3 X 7) he ceases growing.
The average height of a man, before mankind degenerated, was seven feet;
hence the old Western laws ordering the garden walls to be seven feet
high. The education of the boys began with the Spartans and the old Persians at
the age of seven. And in the Christian religions - with the Roman
Catholics and the Greeks - the child is not held responsible for any crime till
he is seven, and it is the proper age for him to go to confession.
If the Hindus will
think of their Manu and recall what the old Shastras contain, beyond doubt they
will find the origin of all this symbolism. Nowhere did the number seven play
so prominent a part as with the old Aryas in India. We have but to think of the
seven sages - the Sapta Rishis; the Sapta Loka - the seven worlds;
the Sapta Pura - the seven holy cities; the Sapta Dvipa - the
seven holy islands; the Sapta Samudra - the seven holy seas;
the Sapta Parvatta - the
seven holy mountains; the Sapta Arania - the seven deserts; the Sapta Vriksha - the seven sacred
trees; and so on, to see the probability of the hypothesis. The Aryas never borrowed
anything, nor did the Brahmans, who were too proud and exclusive for that.
Whence, then, the mystery and sacredness of the number seven?
“The Theosophist”, India, June, 1880
[Reproduced from “Theosophical
Articles”, H.P. Blavatsky, Theosophy Co., Los Angeles, 1981, 512 pp., Volume I,
pp. 345-350. Compared when necessary with “Collected Writings”, HPB, volume II,
pp. 408-141.]
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In September 2016, after
a careful analysis of the state of the esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students
decided to form the Independent Lodge of
Theosophists, whose priorities include the building of a better future in
the different dimensions of life.
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