to
represent some of the aspects of the Highest. And may it not be that
from His standpoint those great differences that we see between
ourselves and those which we call the lower forms of life may be almost
imperceptible, since He transcends them all? A little child sees an
immense difference between himself of perhaps two and a half feet high
and a baby only a foot and a half high, and thinks himself a man
compared with that tiny form rolling on the ground and unable to walk.
But to the grown man there is not so much difference between the length
of the two, and one seems very much like the other. While we are very
small we see great differences between ourselves and others; but on the
mountain top the hovel and the palace do not differ so very much in
height. They all look like ant-hills, very much of the same size. And so
from the standpoint of I'shvara, in the vast hierarchies from the
mineral to the loftiest Deva, the distinctions are but as ant-hills in
comparison with Himself, and one form or another is equally worthy, so
that it suits His purpose, and manifests His will.

Now for the Matsya Avatara; the story you will all know: when the great
Manu, Vaivasvata Manu, the Root Manu, as we call Him--that is, a Manu
not of one race only, but of a whole vast round of kosmic evolution,
presiding over the seven globes that are linked for the evolution of the
world--that mighty Manu, sitting one day immersed in contemplation, sees
a tiny fish gasping for water; and moved by compassion, as all great
ones are, He takes up the little fish and puts it in a bowl, and the
fish grows till it fills the bowl; and He placed it in a water vessel
and it grew to the size of the vessel; then He took it out of that
vessel and put it into a bigger one; afterwards into a tank, a pond, a
river, the sea, and still the marvellous fish grew and grew and grew.
The time came when a vast change was impending; one of those changes
called a minor pralaya, and it was necessary that the seeds of life
should be carried over that pralaya to the next manvantara. That would
be a minor pralaya and a minor manvantara. What does that mean? It
means a passage of the seeds of life from one globe to another; from
what a we call the globe preceding our own to our own earth. It is the
function of the Root Manu, with the help and the guidance of the
planetary Logos, to transfer the seeds of life from one globe to the
next, so as to plant them in a new soil wh