I have thus explained to you, excellent Muni, six creations ... the creation of the Arvâksrotas beings was the seventh, and was that of man.[724]
Then he proceeds to speak of two additional and very mysterious creations, variously interpreted by the commentators.
Origen, commenting upon the books written by Celsus, his Gnostic opponent—books which were all destroyed by the prudent Church Fathers—evidently answers the objections of his contradictor and reveals his system at the same time. This was clearly septenary. But the theogony of Celsus, the genesis of the stars or planets, and of sound and colour, found as an answer satire, and no more. Celsus, you see, “desiring to exhibit his learning,” speaks of a ladder of creation with seven gates, and on the top of it the eighth, ever closed. The mysteries of the Persian Mithras are explained and “musical reasons, moreover, are added.” And to these again he strives “to add a second explanation connected also with musical considerations,”[725] that is to say with the seven notes of the scale, the seven Spirits of the Stars, etc.
Valentinus expatiates upon the power of the great Seven, who were summoned to bring forth this universe after Ar(r)hetos, or the Ineffable, whose name is composed of seven letters, had represented the first Hebdomad. The name Ar(r)hetos indicates the sevenfold nature [pg 481] of the One, the Logos. “The Goddess Rhea,” says Proclus, “is a Monad, Duad, and Heptad,” comprehending in herself all the Titanidæ, “who are seven.”[726]
The Seven Creations are found in almost every Purâna. They are all preceded by what Wilson translates as the “Indiscrete Principle,” Absolute Spirit, independent of any relation with objects of sense.
They are: (1) Mahattattva, the Universal Soul, Infinite Intellect, or Divine Mind; (2) Tanmâtras, Bhûta or Bhûtasarga, Elemental Creation the first differentiation of Universal Indiscrete Substance; (3) Indriya or Aindriyaka, Organic Evolution. “These three were the Prâkrita Creations, the developments of indiscrete nature, preceded by the Indiscrete Principle”; (4) Mukhya, “the Fundamental Creation (of perceptible things) was that of inanimate bodies”;[727] (5) Tairyagyonya or Tiryaksrotas, was that of animals; (6) Ûrdhvasrotas, or that of divinities(?);[728] (7) Arvâksrotas, was that of man.[729]
This is the order given in the exoteric texts. According to esoteric teaching there are seven Primary, and seven Secondary “Creations”; the former being the Forces self-evolving from the one causeless Force; the latter showing the manifested Universe emanating from the already differentiated divine Elements.
Esoterically, as well as exoterically, all the above enumerated Creations stand for the seven periods of Evolution, whether after an Age or a Day of Brahmâ. This is the teaching par excellence of Occult Philosophy, which, however, never uses the term “creation,” nor even that of evolution, with regard to Primary “Creation”; but calls all such Forces the “aspects of the Causeless Force.” In the Bible, the seven periods are dwarfed into the six Days of Creation and the seventh Day of Rest, and the Westerns adhere to the letter. In the Hindû Philosophy, when the active Creator has produced the World of Gods, the Germs of all the undifferentiated Elements, and the Rudiments of future Senses—the World of Noumena, in short—the Universe remains unaltered for a Day of Brahmâ, a period of 4,320,000,000 years. This is the seventh passive Period, or the “Sabbath” of Eastern Philosophy, [pg 482] following six periods of active evolution. In the Shatapatha Brâhmana, Brahma (neuter), the Absolute Cause of all Causes, radiates the Gods. Having radiated the Gods, through its inherent nature, the work is interrupted. In the First Book of Manu it is said:
At the expiration of each Night (Pralaya), Brahma, having been asleep, awakes, and, through the sole energy of the motion, causes to emanate from itself the Spirit [or mind], which in its essence is, and yet is not.
In the Sepher Yetzirah, the Kabalistic “Book of Creation,” the author has evidently reëchoed the words of Manu. In it the Divine Substance is represented as having alone existed from the eternity, boundless and absolute; and as having emitted from itself the Spirit.