Lecture quote:

"The Arcanum Seven depicts a warrior standing in a chariot. This warrior holds in his two hands a staff or a rod and a sword. The chariot has four columns which he stands in the midst of and the chariot is drawn or led by two sphinxes, one black and one white. This Arcanum symbolizes the chariot of war, which is also represented in the famous epic story of ancient India called The Mahabharata. This is an ancient story describing a huge conflict amongst the members of a family. The most famous extract or portion of this epic story is called the Bhagavad Gita, which means “The Song of the Lord,” and is a dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna.  They have this dialogue in a chariot on a battlefield at the very precipice of the greatest war the world has ever known.

Of course typically, traditionally, the story is interpreted as merely a story and the symbolism is missed by the majority of the readers of the Mahabharata. The war symbolizes the struggle that the spiritual initiate has to undergo within the mind; the war amongst the psychological family, between the virtuous brothers and the greedy and proud brothers. Of course, the greedy and proud ones outnumber the virtuous ones, in us and in The Mahabharata.