It was Christmas time and a professor, a professor of philosophy and logic, went to a toyshop with his wife to purchase something beautiful, a new toy, for their only child as a Christmas gift. They tried many toys but they were all old, a little bit modified here and there. The shopkeeper, seeing that they were not satisfied, went inside the store and brought out an absolutely new toy they had never seen before. It was a jigsaw puzzle.
He said, "This is the latest and the best — you MUST like it."
They tried to fit the jigsaw puzzle together. First the wife tried — ladies first. She failed, she could not figure it out. The husband laughed — the male chauvinist laughter! — and he said, "Wait! I will do it." And he was a logician, a professor of philosophy; if he cannot do it, then who will be able to do it? He tried hard. First he was very much inspired and finally he was simply perspiring — the whole inspiration became perspiration! He was drenched in perspiration. And a crowd had gathered, and there was no way to figure it out. The puzzle remained a puzzle, became more and more puzzling.
Finally he asked the shopowner, "What kind of jigsaw puzzle is this? If I cannot do it — I am the Head of the Department of Logic in the University, mathematics is my hobby — if I cannot do it, then how do you hope that a five-year-old child will be able to do it?"
The shopkeeper said, "Who told you that anybody can do it? This toy represents the world. It is made in such a way that it cannot be fixed. This is just a lesson for the child about how the world is!"
Do whatsoever you like — EVERYTHING fails. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. But it takes millions of lives for people to arrive at this point, because in one life you cannot try all there is. You try a few things; they fail, but the hope remains: maybe you have not tried the right things.
You earn money, you become the richest man in the world — you become an Andrew Carnegie. And at the peak, when you have become the richest man in the world, suddenly you see your whole life has been a wastage. Money is there, but there is no contentment inside — and life has gone down the drain.
You can see the misery of an Andrew Carnegie. When he was dying, somebody who was writing a biography said to him, "You must be the most contented man in the world."
He said, "Contented? I am the MOST discontented man in the world! Don't you know I am the wealthiest man in the world? That is my discontent. Now I know there is no more to wealth: all that is possible I have attained, and yet I am dying empty. My life has been just a wastage. Next time, if God gives me another opportunity, I am not going to try money any more — it has failed."
But the hope is there — he will try politics…?
Those who attain to political power, they fail. But then they think maybe it is knowledge: "We should try knowledge." And so on and so forth….
Remember: the world is made as a device by God. EVERYTHING here is bound to fail. You can hope and you try, but nothing is going to succeed. The day you understand that nothing is going to succeed is the day of great transformation. That is the day sannyas is born.
OSHO