A lie has seven ends, as the Swahili proverb has it. Despite this menacing remark, seven is a universally accepted mystical number, a number of time and a number of fullness. The fullness of creation (7) is the synthesis of matter and body (4) and spirit and soul (3). Its cosmological, that is spatial, meaning is the seven planets known to the ancients – Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn – while the Moon's course, changing in 4 x 7 days, makes seven the natural unit of time-reckoning. Seven is also the number of Apollo, to whom seven bulls – Sun-cattle! – were sacrificed. According to the sacred tradition of India the Sun God has seven horses, and the universe is divided into seven lower and seven upper planetary systems, while on Earth, too, seven continents and seven seas are identified.
Among natural phenomena, the colours of the rainbow, for example, or the orbital cycle of Saturn are linked to it. When we say that the sun is shining with all seven rays, we seldom stop to think that it is precisely on the seventh ray that man passes from one world into the other. In Egypt it was held that the underworld has seven houses with 3 x 7 gates, the seven branches of the menorah stand for the seven planets and their orbits, and the cult of Mithras leads its candidates through seven levels of initiation. After the six working days of the biblical story of creation the seventh is the day of rest, and seven is also a frequently recurring symbol in the Book of Revelation, hence, for example, the phrase ‘a secret sealed with seven seals’. The seven sorrows and joys of the Virgin Mary sometimes appear in paired images, and it is interesting that according to Pythagoras the number seven is a veritable mystery and, being a prime number – divisible only by 1 and by itself – it is also the number of innocence and virginity. In Islam the Kaaba stone is circled seven times, in remembrance of God's seven attributes.
Besides its cosmological, natural and religious meanings, seven is a significant number for man as well. Solon divided human life into seven-year cycles – perhaps following the orbit of Saturn? – and after four such seven-year cycles a man's character comes to fullness, and it is then that he becomes truly fit to take on his part in family and society.
It is interesting that in the Hindu marriage ceremony the bridegroom leads his bride through seven ritual steps, amid prayers and vows, and so their lifelong covenant is sealed.
Seven is also the number of a high degree of illumination, and the seven levels of human existence run parallel to it, their highest degree the enlightened, Christ-like man. In the realm of knowledge there is a curious parallel between the seven Greek sages, the philosophers, and the seven primeval sages of the Indians. The latter are also identified with the seven stars of the Plough, and through their sacred knowledge they have become all but immortal: their stars are ‘indestructible’, visible in the sky all year round. Interestingly, after his enlightenment the Buddha, too, took seven steps, and his steps symbolise the conquest of the world-spheres, of space and of time.
The sevenfold ascent of consciousness, degree by degree, is also symbolised by the chakra system of yoga, which can be grouped in a 3 + 1 + 3 division. The lower three chakras (root, sacral and solar plexus chakras) concern man's bodily nature, the upper three (throat, third-eye and crown chakras) touch his spiritual being, and between the two fields the heart chakra creates the connection. That is why the emotions are so important in man's life – if the heart chakra's connecting medium is not pure, it may even cause a rift between our bodily and our spiritual selves.
And since we speak of awareness, the seven liberal arts belong here, the three of the trivium: dialectic, grammar, rhetoric, and the four higher arts of the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy, and so, in the hope of knowledge, do the seven virtues, the three theological: faith, hope, love, together with justice, fortitude, prudence and temperance. The Iroquois strove to make their decisions having weighed their consequences unto the seventh generation.
Seven is also perfection, security, tranquillity, to which seven qualities lead: courage, patience, discipline, purity, compassion, eloquent speech and non-harming.