This happens during the process of the descent.
Then what happened? After the human form, the soul continued seeing everything, here, there and everywhere during its 84 lakhs of reincarnation.1 During the reverse process of Realization, when it gets the seven new twists, its eyes become dazed. It begins to see downwards toward itself; first, from the legs upward, until it sees itself completely. This looking toward itself is during the process of ascent.
We will take the soul "A" and make it "Z," intellectually of course. Another new point is to be cleared, and then we will take up the chart. Everything is to be disclosed.
These seven "pinches" are twists of sanskaras, and they have seven chief forms — stone or metal, vegetable, worm, fish, bird, animal and man. Every twist of the sanskaras gives the next form. So, there are seven twists for seven forms, and there are six previous forms before the stone form. The first form the soul got was the bubble, which was in the gas state. Then there are five other minute forms, until the stone form. From stone to metal and from metal to vegetable — each has seven stages.
So, the real twisting began from the stone form, and there are seven twists up to the human form. There are 14 lakhs of species of each of the chief forms from stone to human. That is to say, in six forms (not including human) there are 6 x 14 lakhs = 84 lakhs [8,400,000] of species = 84 lakhs of bindings. There are 84 lakhs of bindings and seven twists. And after every seventh stage, [form] there is a twist.
The soul first gets the gas form [of a bubble]. Until it gets to stone form, it passes through seven forms. That is why the rishis who knew things but could not reveal them to the world established worship of the last form of each chief form, such as the Tulsi plant for vegetable, the monkey Hanuman for animal, et cetera.
Because of the twists that the soul gets, it attains consciousness of Self. But this consciousness of Self is only partial and just for a second. The consciousness is not full and does not last long, similar to the experience of a pinch. At every pinch, or twist, this consciousness is used for knowing the Self. It is for this reason that the twists come into importance.
Footnotes
- 1.One lakh equals 100,000; 84 lakhs = 8,400,000.