When you ask someone, without thinking too much, to say a number from one to ten, it is not strange that the seven go out very frequently. We all know that It is a special, “magical” number. The examples are abundant and cover all times and places.

The importance of the number 7 in our life

Life in sevens

Every seven years it is considered that the body’s cells have been completely renewed. And regarding the ages of lifethese also tend to follow a septenary rhythm:

• From seventh month of pregnancy The fetus is considered viable.
• The early childhooda covers up to 7 years (use of reason).
• 7×2=14. End of childhood, adolescence.
• 7×3=21. Coming of age.
• 7×4=28. Youth.
• 7×5=35. Adulthood.
• 7×6=42. Maturity.

The seven day week

But perhaps where we see most clearly the importance of the cycles marked by the number 7 is in the week. Made up of seven days, the week is, after all, a reflection of a septenary cosmic rhythm: What those seven days mean for us happens in turn on another scale and on other levels of reality.

the week helps us organize our activitiesgenerating an external but also internal order. Harmonizes studies or work, leisure and rest. It is a cultural pattern that obeys a natural pattern, which gives us allows you to delimit the infinity of time.

Other examples of the importance of the number 7

Other examples of the importance we give to the number seven:

• The 7 colors and the 7 musical notes They are well known.
• In hieroglyphic writing, seven is represented by the figure of a human headreferring to the 7 holes that it presents (two eyes, two ears, two nostrils and a mouth).
• In ancient Greece References are frequent: 7 wise men, 7 strings of the lyre, 7 doors of Thebes… He cult of Apollo It took place on the seventh day of the month. The settlement of Rome on 7 hills It is also significant. In the Bible it is one of the numbers that appears most often cited, being the 7-branched candelabrum the emblem of the Jewish people.
• Inside Christianity importance is also given to the septenary: 7 deadly sins (pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, laziness), 7 virtues (faith, hope, charity, strength, justice, prudence and temperance), 7 weeks between Easter and Pentecost…In the book of Revelation it is a fundamental number for its symbolic understanding.
• The Koran has, for the Sufis, seven hidden senses and seven are the prophets of Islam (Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus and Muhammad).
• In the East the examples are also abundant: 7 wheels on which time dies according to the Atharva Veda, 7 chakrasor subtle centers in the body, 7 periods of 7 days in the Bando (existence between one life and the next according to Tibetan Buddhism)…
• To describe the levels of the spiritual world many sacred texts refer to the seven heavens that souls travel on their return to the single Principle. The expression being in seventh heaven refers to a state of maximum happiness.

What does the number 7 mean

According to Pythagoras, everything is governed by number. Stop at the symbolism of the number seven It allows us to understand, for example, why our lives can be divided into seven-year periods and why they pass in weekly periods..

We will do it in two ways, one aesthetic (spatial), and another dynamic (temporal).

7 is the number of the universe

Our house, the Universe, can be represented by the number seven. What do children do when they want to draw a house? Just draw a square and put a triangle on top of it. If we add those two figures: 4 + 3 =7.

The quaternary governs material manifestation (four cardinal points, four seasons…) and, according to physics, three-dimensional space and time (3+1=4) constitute the universe. The ternary governs, for its part, the spiritual manifestation.

This gives rise to fundamental symbolism of all traditions of humanity: Heaven (triangle, 3) and Earth (square, 4). The sum, Seven represents the entire created universe.

Let us say in passing that the union of Heaven and Earth is often expressed in architectural symbolism of many temples, when there is a square base on which rests a dome (the celestial is round), the triangle (Parthenon of Athens) or the triangular prism (pyramids of Egypt).

The number 7 and its temporal symbolism

From a dynamic symbolism, six is ​​the number of the Macrocosmof creation. In fact, there are six directions of space: up, down, right, left, front and back. Or put another way: zenith, nadir, east, west, north and south. The representation would be a three-dimensional cross. to this another direction must be added: the center or origin of the expansion. That is, 6+1=7.

The North American Indians refer to the seven arrows in their rites, and in the Vedlas of India the Sun (ranya) has seven rays, always referring to a sixfold projection plus the center. Now we can better understand that The first six days of the week represent the cosmogonic dynamic process (creation of the world) and the seventh the return to the origin.

The same symbolism can be applied to the seven days of creation recounted in Genesis («and on the seventh he rested»). Sunday for Christians and Sabbath for Jews is a holy day because it symbolizes peace and rest.

The Mosaic Law ordered sanctification through the cessation of agricultural labor one year out of seven. In that year fallow The wild fruits belonged to the poor, the master had to free his slaves and the creditors waited to claim their debts. And every 49 years (7×7) there was a more solemn sabbatical year, the “jubilee year”in which all lands returned to their former owner.