Question answered at the San Juan Centre on 13 October 1967

Question: When a person is emotionally disturbed, is there any particular formula, some means, by which one can reach out to help that person regain her composure?

Sri Chinmoy: You yourself have seen that a person needs help, but you see that she needs inner help more than she needs outer help. Outer help consists of consolation or sympathetic, encouraging words which bring to the fore a luminous and reassuring feeling. The person, when she receives this outer, luminous reassurance, feels that she does not have to worry, that she will be all right. This is outer help, but the real help, as you know, is inner help. Inner help is really the invocation of Peace. First one has to bring down Peace into one's mind, then into one's vital, then into one's physical.

Now the person who feels that he is about to be destroyed does not have that capacity. He feels utterly helpless. He feels that he is going to be destroyed in no time. So we cannot expect anything from him. He who is going to be destroyed cannot save his own life; it is somebody else who has to come and save him. The one who is under the water is going to be drowned, so what can he do? He has to raise his hand so that another person can lift him up.

Now, in Whom does the person who feels himself about to be destroyed emotionally have all faith? In the One who is going to help him, inwardly, silently, spiritually. He has to feel that his outer life, which is on the brink of extinction, has to be surrendered either to God directly or to a spiritual person who is able to act as an instrument of God the Absolute Supreme. This spiritual person will infuse the sufferer's entire being not only with Divine Peace but also with the Divine Power, Divine Light and Divine Happiness. So the sufferer must go directly to the Absolute Supreme or to the one who represents Him.

From:Sri Chinmoy,The Master speaks to the Puerto Rican disciples, 1966-1972, Agni Press, 1993
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/mpr