Judge on the Heart Doctrine

William Quan Judge · Theosophy and Theosophists Series · 80 pages

*Eighty pages, and one of the three largest files in this batch. Its own title is The Heart Doctrine is Gautama Buddha's Law, and its epigraph, from The Voice of the Silence, states the distinction the whole file turns on: the Doctrine of the Eye is for the crowd, the Doctrine of the Heart for the elect — the first repeat in pride, Behold, I know; the last, who in humbleness have garnered, low confess, thus have I heard*.

The body is arranged in eight numbered sections, each separately paginated, so the file can be used a section at a time. They run: We are all Arjunas, taking the Bhagavad-Gita's reluctant warrior as the type of every student; Each member a Centre; Three great Ideas; Universal Brotherhood: a fact in nature — the point being that brotherhood is claimed as a fact rather than an ideal; Theosophical study and work; How should we treat others?; Mesmerism; and The sheaths of the soul. That mixture is characteristic of Judge and is what makes him readable: metaphysics, practical ethics and organisational advice sit side by side without apology. The second half of the file is a separate anthology — Echoes from the Orient, twenty-one short articles by Judge — which turns the whole thing into a reference volume a reader can dip into rather than a single argument to be followed through. A foreword by the series editor and a page of abridged sources of reference stand at the front.

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