Even if you have to give up a meal, do it...but do not give up meditation. The more regular you are, the greater depth you will attain. Meditation is such a delicate thing that it takes months to grow but just a day or two to wither away. A delicate thing needs much regularity, continuity. Meditation is the highest; everything else is secondary.
You will not miss much by missing a day’s sleep. One can do without sleeping for five to seven days. It is okay if you miss a meal; man can survive without food for three months. You can go without drinking water for a day; you will not die.
But usually, people give much more importance to such petty things and think that for a day or two they can do without the things that are really significant. But let it be remembered that nothing will go wrong if you do not fulfil the petty things of your routine. You will not gain anything by doing them; nor will you be a loser by not doing them.
But meditation is of the highest, and through it the divine is attained. If you do not meditate, you will not know what you were to gain and what you have missed; you will really not know what you have lost.
The greatest misfortune that can befall people is that they never come to know what they have missed. Apart from missing, people never come to know what they were to gain, they never become aware of it.
So always devote energy to meditation.
Osho
