Atlantis: Truth or Myth and So What

It was quite possibly located somewhere between the shores of, say France/Spain and the East Coast of the U.S.A. The island is said to have been destroyed in a cataclysmic event 11,000 or 12,000 years ago, and for the last few hundred years people have been searching for evidence.

One of the more credible writers about Atlantis besides Plato (whose dialogues Timaeus and Critias of around 360 BCE continue to be criticized and labelled as myths) is Edgar Cayce – although of course he didn’t write, but while in trance spoke in detail about the past lives of people who sought him out – many of which he said had incarnated on Atlantis a long time ago.

A staggering 25,000 if not more books on the subject have been written over the last few hundred years; nowadays entire websites are dedicated to solving the mystery. What some writers do to ‘prove’ their very own theory is quite mind boggling. For example, just recently I studied a book where the writer goes on and on to force his idea on the unsuspecting reader that the island of Thera (aka Santorini) in the Aegean Sea is a remnant of former Atlantis. Another writer claims ‘proof’ that according to concentric stone circles found in Spain, Atlantis was located there. And so on… and the mystery continues.

However, another related area has also been of immense interest for decades – the Bermuda Triangle. Located between Bermuda, the Florida Keys, and Puerto Rico, it has been one of the most dangerous places to travel for the last 500 years, as many ships and even airplanes disappeared there, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries. The first report about some strange occurrence came from Christopher Columbus when his compass malfunctioned while sailing through the Triangle in 1492.

Much research in the area has been conducted and many anomalies have been satisfactorily explained to be natural occurrences. But so many questions are still waiting to be answered. Hypotheses about ancient structures and advanced technologies being submerged in the ocean persist. Again and again some new information is widely broadcast, and the very latest item that was shown on Russian TV (the English subtitles help) is that a potential crystal pyramid has been discovered by French explorers that is being considered a monumental find. It is believed they discovered a partially translucent, crystal-like pyramid rising from the Caribbean seabed – its origin, age and purpose are completely unknown at this time:

As reported on ‘Collective Evolution’, these potential amazing underwater pyramid structures are believed to be 2000 meters deep and were first identified using sonar technology. In terms of the size of this re-discovered pyramid, it appears larger in scale than the pyramids of ancient Egypt. Interestingly, on the top of the pyramid are two very large holes. Water moves at high speed through one of the holes causing waves to roll by forming a giant vortex. This causes a massive surge of waves and mist on the surface of the sea. Scientists are now pondering if this vortex effect explains the disappearing of ships and planes.

Whatever it is scientists and researchers are going to unearth, will humans learn something from the ancient relics and artifacts and change their destructive ways? Have the people on this planet ever learned something from their shared past and used it for betterment of their condition? Or haven’t most of them remained in the same merry-go-round, experiencing the same stories again and again, albeit in different guise and make-up?

In this context, Osho says that we will destroy ourselves like the civilization that destroyed itself in Atlantis:

History is a wheel. It is a vicious circle, it goes on moving in the same rut. Many, many times man has become very civilized, and many, many times all civilization has disappeared from the earth. This is not for the first time that we have discovered science. Ancient records tell something else, a totally different story.
There is every possibility that the great continent of Atlantis was drowned not by a natural calamity but by atomic explosion. In Hindu scriptures particularly, great proofs are available that man had discovered all the technology that we have discovered. It is a rediscovery, it is not a discovery. The great war that is known as Mahabharata had almost all the weapons that we have now. Ancient Indian scriptures have stories about airplanes, atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs and things like that.

Now we are again coming to a point where a total destruction will happen. But a flower will be left and that will do, and again the whole story begins from ABC. Many times it has happened. This is not the first world that we are living in: many worlds have come and disappeared, many civilizations have come and disappeared. Many civilizations have reached the same peak of affluence, technology, knowhow. History is a repetition.

One has to learn how to get out of history and out of time. One has to learn how to get out of this wheel. One has to learn how to slip out of the very process of time, and that’s what meditation is all about.

The greatest contribution of the East to the world is nothing but meditation, because it teaches you how to get out of the mind. Mind is time, and time is history. When you get out of mind you get out of history and out of time. And when you are out of mind, time and history, where are you? You are in the whole, in the cosmic. You are in that orgasmic, organic unity called God.

God is not part of history, God runs parallel to history. Hence those who want to know God will have to unlearn history. History has made you Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, Indians, Germans, Chinese. History has conditioned you. History has given you particular minds, ideas, ideologies. You have to get out of all that, history has to be forgotten. History is past, and the past is heavy. And if the past is too much in the mind, you will go on repeating it in the future. What else will you do? The past goes on repeating itself through you. Get out of it!

Don’t ask what is history, ask how to get out of it! How not to be a Hindu, because that is being part of a certain history. Ask how not to be a Christian. Ask how not to be an Indian, an American. Ask how to just be, without any adjective.

And that’s my whole effort here: to help you come out of your bondage of the past.

A sannyasin is one who drops the bondage of history. And he says, “I am simply a part of this whole. I am not part of human history, I am part of the cosmic eternity.” And becoming part of cosmic eternity, you are freed from all bondage and from all misery.

And more and more people are needed in the world who are free of history, free of the past. Then only can we create a new world where wars can cease, where more and more people can bloom in love, where more and more people can become lotuses of celebration.

Enough of history! It should be stopped. There is no need to teach all that nonsense and garbage, but we go on teaching the students. We go on telling them more and more about the past. And the more we tell them about the past, the more they become conditioned by it, and naturally they will repeat it.

There is no need to tell them about the past; past is past, gone is gone. They need something totally different: they need to be introduced to the present. They need to be made aware of this moment. They need a taste of now, not of then. They need to drink something from here, not from there.

It will be a great blessing to the world if history simply disappears from the schools, colleges, universities, and rather than teaching history we teach how to get out of time, how to cease being a mind, how to become a no-mind, because the no-mind is the door to God.

Osho, The Guest, Ch 11, Q 3

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