How does personal suffering or worldly distress lead a person to seek a spiritual guide like a saint?

Chapter 18 illustrates that when a soul falls into great distress and finds the threefold miseries of this world to be false, it often remembers God. This is shown through the story of a devotee who, after a great business loss, felt a deep distaste for life. It is noted that one cries out to God in misery, but the name of God only comes to the lips when the "tide of bad deeds recedes." At that point, the Lord, seeing the person's weariness, lovingly arranges a meeting with a saint. In the story, the devotee's friends recognized his state and guided him to seek the darshan of Sainath, a "cloud of mercy."