Question: Today I was on the George Washington Bridge and a man was threatening to commit suicide. At first I wanted to pray for his life, and then I remembered your saying once that we shouldn't ask the Supreme to do anything, but only pray for the Supreme's own Victory.

Sri Chinmoy: The first thing you have to do is ask the Supreme, "Tell me what I should do." In a fleeting second your human mind will say that committing suicide is undoubtedly bad; there is nothing as bad as this. So you will go and save the person and everybody will appreciate you. But how do you know that his suicide has not been sanctioned by the Will of the Supreme? Or perhaps the Supreme has chosen somebody else as an instrument to save this person. The Supreme is not only inside you and the rest of our spiritual family; the Supreme is also inside the policeman. Perhaps you are taking away the policeman's job. Perhaps the policeman is going to save the person and in this way his evolution will take place. Who knows the operation of the Supreme?

It takes only a second to know the Will of the Supreme. If you take a second, He will definitely tell you yes or no. Always you have to take inner permission from the Supreme. Otherwise, who knows whether He has commissioned you to save that person? The thing that you want to do and take the credit for, perhaps the Supreme wants the policeman to do. Now you are taking his credit away.

Since you are a seeker, the first thing will be for you to refer the matter to the Supreme. Then He will tell you what is best for you. Morality may tell you to save the man. But in your case, your oneness with the Supreme's Will is infinitely higher than ordinary morality.

In the Mahabharata, Krishna asked Arjuna to kill all his relatives. In the beginning Arjuna resisted with all his moral weapons. How could he kill his cousins and his nephews and his uncles? But finally he surrendered. He said, "Whatever is Your Will I shall do." Then he became a real instrument, a perfect instrument.