Question: Is it possible for an airplane pilot to avert an accident that was destined by his own presence of mind and inner qualities?

Sri Chinmoy: When something harmful is going to happen, then the hostile forces know how to enter into us. They will enter into whoever is the main pilot, and they will do something in order to distract him. They will take away his wisdom.

The last time I was coming back from Europe, I was travelling first class. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I travel economy class, but this time I was in the first class. I was sitting very near the pilot and they kept the cabin door open most of the time so I could see him. After two hours of piloting, the pilot and one of the stewardesses entered into romantic life, let us say. This young girl went to him and began talking to him, caressing his head and massaging him. All kinds of things the girl was doing. I was so shocked. There came a time when I was going to tell the pilot outwardly that he could not do these things while he was supposed to be flying the plane. Another gentleman was sitting next to me and there were two or three other persons near us. Everybody was seeing the kind of life they were leading. I was not using my third eye. I didn't have to keep my eyes closed to see inwardly, but I was praying as we were sitting there. I was thinking that the person sitting next to me was going to do something. So many people were there, watching them with open eyes. There were two hundred people on the plane, but the pilot and the stewardess didn't give any importance to our lives.

Then the food came. She brought him food and I didn't hear what she said, but all the food and everything were dropped and scattered on the floor. She was smiling and he was smiling. She was not annoyed, he was not annoyed-no anger, nothing. Now, if this is not romance, what is romance? All kinds of things they were doing in such a careless way. He was the main pilot and we were coming back from Europe on an intercontinental flight. So whose lives were they putting in danger? Is not what they were doing a lack of concentration on the part of the young girl and the main pilot? This was the fate of two hundred people on that plane.

When I went to give a talk at Farmingdale, New York, there was a young girl who worked on a plane. She came to our Centre three or four times. But she stopped coming and she wrote me a note. She said, "I have to be sincere to myself. The life we lead, even on the plane itself, is contrary to your philosophy; so I cannot come." I said to myself, "I am very happy. You remain in your life. Don't come to my Centre."

So sometimes the hostile forces can take away our concentration. Sometimes the fate is sealed, and sometimes we are at the mercy of our so-called helpers. We are in a taxi, let us say. We have implicit faith in the taxi driver, but as soon as he sees another taxi driver, he has so many unbearable things to say. His English is unbearable! What will you do? If you listen to him, you will go mad. So you go into trance while he goes on, goes on. Four or five years ago I used to ride in taxis, and I learned such language from the drivers. I said, "This is their life." One taxi driver would be going in front of another and they would have to talk. Now where is his concentration at that time? It is absolutely in the gross physical. He may think that he is an expert driver, but already he has allowed some hostile forces, some very undivine forces, to enter into him. He may be an expert, but if I am in the car and all of a sudden he does something wrong, my life goes. I am at his mercy. A taxi driver is supposed to take us to our destination, so we must have faith in him. But then some hostile forces have attacked him and he is in another world. I have to remain in this world. At that time only prayer, concentration and meditation can save me.