He may always rightly close his prayer by soliciting guidance and sometimes by asking for forgiveness. Such a request can find justification, however, only if it is not a request for interfering with karma, only if it comes after recognition of wrong done, perception of personal weakness, confession leading to contrition, and a real effort to atone penitently and improve morally. The eternal laws of karma will not cease operating merely for the asking and cannot violate their own integrity. They are impersonal and cannot be cajoled into granting special privileges or arbitrary favours to anyone. There is no cheap and easy escape from them. If a sinner wants to avoid hurtful consequences of his own sins, he must use those very laws to help him do so, and not attempt to insult them. He must set going a series of new causes which shall produce new and pleasanter consequences that may act as an antidote to the older ones.
-- Notebooks Category 18: The Reverential Life > Chapter 2 : Prayer > # 81
