Discharging the Duty of Another Is Dangerous

William Quan Judge · Higher Ethics and Devotion Series · 9 pages

A nine-page compilation of Judge's answers to students' questions, opened by an abstract and train of thoughts in which each answer is preceded by the question that prompted it.

The governing claim is that discharging the duty of another is a most dangerous task, and the positive statement of it comes first: our prime duty is to love our brother as ourselves and to preserve peace and harmony around him, after which we are to discover what we ourselves can do — without judging or criticising the actions of another. Three questions then structure the rest. A student asks how, if many lives are required to ascertain the truth of the doctrines, he is to find the Path and know it when he does. Another asks whether one person benefiting another by altruistic service is not acting vicariously, and so inconsistently with karma; the answer widens rather than narrows the duty, holding that we should be ever ready to help foe and friend equally, without desire for reward or recognition. The third asks whether an individual acting as an agent for karma incurs karmic consequences for the acts committed, and draws the sharpest line in the piece: that whoever considers himself a karmic agent, for any purpose, is a fool. A closing section turns on those who run about pretending to be sages and adepts, saying they will pay dearly for the presumption, and advises students instead to take every opportunity to act in a way that fosters true brotherhood.

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