Evolution of Form. 149 



my belief in the strange things that come down to 

 us from the times when truth was less veiled than it 

 is now. Sol dare to recall the story to you, although 

 you may think that it is but a fable or legend. 

 There was a boy who believed in Vishnu or Hari, 

 in whom his father believed not, Prahlada he was 

 named ; and that boy went through many trials, but 

 in all his faith in the Supreme defended him ; at 

 last his father, scoffing, said, turning to a pillar in 

 his room : " You tell me that Hari is everywhere: 

 is He in that pillar ? " " O Hari, Hari ! cried the 

 boy, and forth from the pillar in the form of a L/ion 

 burst an avatara of Vishnu and the pillar was 

 shivered into pieces. Truly is He everywhere, in 

 every particle of matter ; there is no one particle 

 from which He cannot come forth in all the might 

 of His Godhood, in all the majesty of His Deity. 

 But He will not, because if He did, the form could 

 not bear that revealing, and would shiver into pieces 

 as the God appeared. A profound truth, even if 

 you regard the story as an allegory, a truth which 

 teaches us what evolution means. 



Thus Ishvara worked on age after age and aeon 

 after seon, with that marvellous patience of which I 

 spoke, until matter was made sufficiently plastic to 

 build it into the form in which His highest life was 

 to begin its development, the form of man ; building 



