In the language of Hindû philosophers it is the original and eternal combination of Purusha [Spirit] and Prakriti [Matter]. As the Advaitîs hold that an external object is merely the product of our mental states, Prakriti is nothing more than illusion, and Purusha is the only reality; it is the one existence which remains in the universe of Ideas. This ... then, is the Parabrahman of the Advaitîs. Even if there were to be a personal God with anything like a material Upâdhi (physical basis of whatever form), from the standpoint of an Advaitî there will be as much reason to doubt his noumenal existence, as there would be in the case of any other object. In their opinion, a conscious God cannot be the origin of the universe, as his Ego would be the effect of a previous cause, if the word conscious conveys but its ordinary meaning. They cannot admit that the grand total of all the states of consciousness in the universe is their deity, as these states are constantly changing, and as cosmic idealism ceases during Pralaya. There is only one permanent condition in the Universe, which is the state of perfect unconsciousness, bare Chidâkâsham (the field of consciousness) in fact.
When my readers once realize the fact that this grand universe is in reality but a huge aggregation of various states of consciousness, they will not be surprised to find that the ultimate state of unconsciousness is considered as Parabrahman by the Advaitîs.[1415]
Although itself entirely out of human reckoning or calculation, yet this “huge aggregation of various states of consciousness” is a septenate, in its totality entirely composed of septenary groups—simply because “the capacity of perception exists in seven different aspects corresponding to the seven conditions of matter,”[1416] or the seven properties, or states of matter. And, therefore, the series from one to seven, begins in the Esoteric calculations with the first manifested principle, which is number one if we commence from above, and number seven when reckoning from below, or from the lowest principle.
The Tetrad is esteemed in the Kabalah, as it was by Pythagoras, the most perfect, or rather sacred number, because it emanated from the One, the first manifested Unit, or rather the Three in One. And the latter has ever been impersonal, sexless, incomprehensible, though within the possibility of the higher mental perceptions.
The first manifestation of the eternal Monad was never meant to stand as the symbol of another symbol, the Unborn for the Element-born, or the one Logos for the Heavenly Man. Tetragrammaton, or the Tetraktys of the Greeks, is the Second Logos, the Demiurgos.
The Tetrad, as Thomas Taylor thinks, is, however, the animal itself of Plato who, as Syrianus justly observes, was the best of the Pythagoreans; subsists at the extremity of the intelligible triad, as is most satisfactorily shown by Proclus in the [pg 634]third book of his treatise on the theology of Plato. And between these two triads [the double triangle], the one intelligible, and the other intellectual, another order of gods exists, which partakes of both extremes.[1417]...
The Pythagorean world, according to Plutarch,[1418] consisted of a double quaternary.
This statement corroborates what is said about the choice, by the exoteric theologies, of the lower Tetraktys. For:
The quaternary of the intellectual world [the world of Mahat] is T'Agathon, Nous, Psyche, Hyle; while that of the sensible world [of Matter], which is properly what Pythagoras meant by the word Kosmos, is Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. The four elements are called by the name of rhizômata, the roots or principles of all mixed bodies.[1419]
That is to say, the lower Tetraktys is the root of illusion, of the World of Matter; and this is the Tetragrammaton of the Jews, and the “mysterious deity,” over which the modern Kabalists make such a fuss!