Someone asked: does making an aspiration asking a teacher for help count as going against the law of karma?

Back when the Great Reverend Teacher was still alive, people used to write letters asking him for help with various matters. There is a story that the Reverend Teacher would pick up each letter and say, "This one can be helped; this one cannot." Someone once asked him what determined whether something could be helped or not. He replied, "The person hasn't even helped themselves — what could I possibly do for them?" For example, in a case where someone asked for help winning out over a rival so as to become the primary wife in place of the existing one — a request of that kind, he would not help.

If a matter is not right, not reasonable, a teacher naturally will not help with it. But in cases where help is warranted — for example, a cancer patient lying in a hospital bed who, whenever the pain struck, cried out asking the Reverend Teacher for help, calling out again and again — the Reverend Teacher eventually appeared beside the bed and said, "I already know. You only had to tell me once and I already knew — you don't need to keep telling me. I am already helping." One who has reached the Triple Gem within, and become one with it, is endowed with the virtue of wisdom, the virtue of purity, and the virtue of great compassion — because such a person is transformed by these three virtues.

So when we ask such a person for help, there is no case in which they would refuse. Being endowed with the virtue of wisdom, they already know how to help appropriately. Being endowed with the virtue of purity, they truly have the power to help, because they have reached the power that exists within. And being endowed with the virtue of great compassion, there is no way they would fail to help — as long as the matter itself is right, does not go against what is proper, and is not driven by delusion.