How to overcome your karma

or: How to overcome the law of sin and death

Neville’s response to a request for prayer from a Buddhist relative

Prayer and meditation can leap over space and time and I shall intensify my prayers and meditations, not just for the one person you have in mind, but for the whole family, because the whole family’s karma is involved in that person’s condition.

First, let me explain to you the basis of my prayers and meditations.

I believe that everyone is under the influence of karma, not just one’s own karma but each other's karma as well. This means that I have not only my karma to carry but the karma of my parents and the karma of all my siblings, and so it is with them also. So each one of us is caught up in an infinitely interlocking system of karma, which is why the Buddha said that no one can come out of the karmic cycle. Not only that, we are also all caught up in the karma of our societies. That is why thousands of innocent people are caught in wars, in bomb blasts, in 9/11 attacks, in tsunamis, in earthquakes and in accidents.

According to my spiritual understanding, there is no way we can – by ourselves – overcome this mountain of karma. To the contrary, every time we are born on earth, we accumulate more negative karma and thereby increase our total karma. That is why we have to return again and again and again, to this earth, millions of times (rebirth), to pay off our karmic debts.

However, here is the real problem. When we return to this world to pay off the karma of our previous birth we actually accumulate more karma so that our karma keeps growing and growing, and we keep going round and round in sansaara, like a squirrel in a cage. That is why the Buddha likened our life in sansaara to a wheel. Up today, down tomorrow, up again, down again, and so on, like the wheel, endlessly. As the old Sinhala song goes – riya saka lesa loke. The Buddha himself preached that there is no way out of this karmic cycle, except when the Maitri Buddha comes (Maitri Buddhun dheka Nivan sampath) or through long years of meditation, over millions of lifetimes. Although most Buddhists believe that the arya ashtangika marga will release them from rebirth and sansaara, actually, at best, it only gives us a better and more comfortable ride through sansaara but not release from it.

The Buddha gave a graphic illustration of how long it will take to obtain release (galaveema) from sansaara through self-effort. He said that every time one is born on earth, and dies, and is cremated, and the ashes are collected into a pile, the time it takes for that pile of ashes to reach the top of Mount Everest will be about the time it will take someone to obtain release from the karmic cycle through self-effort. Actually, through that illustration, the Buddha was saying that however much one may meditate (bhavana) perform good deeds (pin) give to charities (dhaana) or practice virtue (seela) – arya ashtangika marga – it will never be possible to break out of the karmic cycle through self-effort.

According to my faith, we require an Infinite, Omnipotent, all-Loving person, who is Himself without karma, to absorb the weight of my karma and the world's karma, and that person is Jesus Christ. He said, "Come to me all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30). The burden He referred to is our karma. 

I believe that promise absolutely. It is my faith that throughout His 33 years on earth, although He was Himself God Almighty and need not have suffered the ills of the world, Jesus Christ took upon Himself the sins of the world and brought it all to a grand climax on the Cross. This is why born-again Christians believe that when we have faith in Him, our karma is also taken away by Him. Or at least it is greatly reduced, in proportion to our faith in His ability to do so, and in proportion to our waiting and meditating on Him daily. In my faith, the Cross of Jesus is the greatest cancellation of all karma available to the human race.

So, when I say that I am praying for you all, what I mean is that I am taking you all, your mountain of karma, and am placing it all at the foot of the Cross and asking Jesus to give me in exchange the new persons who are liberated even partially from karma, and who are made in the image and likeness of the Risen Christ – who has promised to live within us and impart to us abundant and eternal life, and love, joy and peace, fulfilment and completeness. When His image appears in us, we will find that our illnesses are healed and our problems dissolved.

This is not just a faith that I inherited from anyone, but a state of consciousness which the Holy Spirit has bestowed on me, through years and years of meditation and prayer. You know that for the first 42 years of my life, along with my parents and my brother and two sisters, I was a devout Buddhist and have studied Buddhism deeply. The Christ came into my life in 1972 when I was in meditation, and since then my faith in Jesus Christ has grown and grown. The efficacy of my faith has been proved, time and time again, in my own life, in the life of my own family, and in the lives of those who, having placed their faith in Jesus Christ, have asked me to pray to Him on their behalf.

I hope you will not think that I am trying to convert you. I do not believe that anyone can truly convert another. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. I am merely explaining to you how I pray and the basis of my meditation life, so that you might be able to tune into my frequency and receive the benefits of my prayers.

When I meditate and pray, I am like a radio station transmitting the Spirit of Christ, who is all Love, on a particular frequency. However, unless those for whom I am praying can tune into my frequency and receive me, my prayers will be like radio transmissions which no one picks up. To receive the benefits of my prayers and meditations you have to tune in. It is like sending down crystal clear water through a pipe. If you do not have a tap in your house to receive the water, of what use is my channelling it?

I shall take to the Cross daily the mountain of your individual and collective karma, accumulated over generations in sansaara, and claim from the Lord, in exchange, your new and resurrected family members (including you), freed from karma and living under the grace of God.