150 Evolution of Life and Form. 



that form, He begins also to strengthen very much 

 the centre which the form is for a while to protect. 

 L,et me say in passing one thing that I have omitted, 

 that whenever a form has reached its highest possi- 

 ble point, its limit of expansion, He breaks it, in order 

 that, in a new form better adapted, the ensouling 

 life may continue to grow ; for He knows when to 

 break as well as when to hold ; He knows when 

 to destroy as well as when to preserve ; and the 

 moment that the limit of a form has been reached, 

 and its matter can yield no further, He bursts the 

 form asunder, that its materials may recombine 

 themselves, under the impulse of life, into a more 

 plastic organism, and that the life may thus gain 

 further evolution, ensouling a higher form more 

 fitted for the expression of its increasing powers. 

 We call this breaking of the form death, and we 

 fear and shrink from it, and if people talk to us of 

 death, in the flush of our life, it comes as a jar and 

 a shock. But, as I told you in the beginning, you 

 may see very plainly that death is that beneficent 

 aspect of Ishvara, which breaks a form that has 

 become a prison, in order to give the life a new form 

 in which it may continue to grow ; He breaks the 

 rigid form when it can develop no further, and 

 gives the life the plastic form of a baby, that may 

 be shaped more easily by the moulding forces of 



