From some book I remember this sentence: "For the pilgrim to reach his destiny, it's essential to move instantly, but without hurry. It is so urgent that he reaches his destiny, that there is no time to hurry." Could you please comment on this?

Osho:

"You have got caught into a verbiage; otherwise the message is very simple. And it should be simple to you, because that's what I'm saying in many, many ways.

" First...the situation is every moment urgent for the simple reason that you cannot rely on the next moment; whether it will come or not is not in your hands. So every moment we are living in urgency. If you want to do something, do it now and here, because how can you postpone it?

"Secondly, you say, "From some book I remember this sentence: `For the pilgrim to reach his destiny, it is essential to move instantly...'"
Certainly if you want to come to yourself you should not lose a single moment, because there is always a possibility that death may interfere. But you must have got into trouble because the sentence certainly comes from some great mystic... "but without hurry."

Move instantly because it is urgent, but without hurry, because in hurry you are not together, in hurry you are always late, in hurry you forget the essentials, in hurry you need time. Just to be in a hurry you will require time – and there is no time. This moment is all and all, and the situation is urgent .

"You have been born without your agreement, without a contract, even without your permission; that was not in your hands. You will die without any advance information, without fixing a date and time – that is not in your hands. Once dead you cannot complain; and not yet born you are nowhere. To whom should existence ask, "Do you want to be born or not?"

"So what you have really got in your hands, solid and real, is only this moment, in which you can act intelligently or stupidly; in other words, in which you can act as a meditator or as a mediocre....

"But the statement is really beautiful. You got into a puzzle because you cannot think what kind of madness this is. First you say it is urgent, and urgency creates hurry; then you deny that there should be hurry, but the question is so urgent that you should start instantly. You got puzzled into the words. I will tell you how one can get puzzled into beautiful words.

"Two men met at a bar and struck up a conversation. After a while one of them said, "You think you have family problems? Listen to my situation. A few years ago I met a young widow with a grown-up daughter and we got married. Later, my father married my stepdaughter. That made my stepdaughter my stepmother, and my father became my stepson. Also, my wife became the mother-in-law of her father-in-law.
"Then the daughter of my wife, my stepmother, had a son. This boy was my half brother because he was my father's son, but he was also the son of my wife's daughter, which made him my wife's grandson. That made me the grandfather of my half brother.
"This was nothing until my wife and I had a son. Now the sister of my son, my mother-in-law, is also my grandmother. This makes my father the brother-in-law of my child, whose stepsister is my father's wife.
"I am my stepmother's brother-in-law; my wife is her own child's aunt, my son is my father's nephew and I am my own grandfather. And you think you have family problems?"

"Just don't get caught into words!

"The statement is very clear: the situation is urgent because you have no guarantee for the next second. You have to start instantly because you cannot postpone – the future is not insured – and yet you cannot be in a hurry because hurry takes time.

"So silently, peacefully, without hurry, without any tension, without any anguish, move into yourself instantly. It is urgent. Unless meditation becomes urgent to you, it will never happen; you will die before it. Put meditation on your laundry list as the most important, urgent...number one.

"But meditation in your life is just at the very end of your laundry list – and the laundry list goes on becoming bigger and bigger. And before you finish your laundry list, you are finished, so the time for meditation never comes.

"So I take that statement, whoever has made it, as tremendously significant. Don't try to understand the sentence; I have cut it into pieces clearly for you, so you are not confused.

"There is no time for hurry, there is no time for worry; in a single moment what can you do? Only one thing: you can settle within yourself. That will be the great transformation of your being. And certainly it is the most urgent thing – which we have been trying to postpone as long as possible."