Once one man was asking Sri Aurobindo, "You are so cool and so indifferent to things that sometimes a problem arises in my mind: if you are standing on the bank of a river and somebody is drowning, you will not save him." Aurobindo said, "No, I will not save him, unless he asks me to be saved."

That man said, "But this seems to be hard, uncompassionate."
Sri Aurobindo said, "No, I can save him, but he might again drown himself. If he is bent upon drowning himself, he will find another river, he will find another bank, he will find another time and he will re-drown himself. If I save him and if he will re-drown himself, so what is the point? So unless he asks for it he cannot be saved."