In Egypt, the great library of Alexandria was still intact. It had all the secrets of the past preserved. It was the greatest library that has ever existed on the earth; later on it was destroyed by a Mohammedan fanatic. The library was so big that when it was burnt, for six months the fire continued.
Just twenty-five centuries before Pythagoras, a great continent, Atlantis, had disappeared into the ocean. The ocean that is called 'Atlantic' is so called because of that continent, Atlantis.
Atlantis was the ancientmost continent of the earth, and civilization had reached the highest possible peaks. But whenever a civilization reaches a great peak there is a danger: the danger of falling apart, the danger of committing suicide.
Humanity is facing that same danger again. When man becomes powerful, he does not know what to do with that power. When the power is too much and the understanding is too little, power has always proved dangerous. Atlantis was not drowned in the ocean by any natural calamity. It was actually the same thing that is happening today: it was man's own power over nature. It was through atomic energy that Atlantis was drowned -- it was man's own suicide. But all the scriptures and all the secrets of Atlantis were still preserved in Alexandria.
All over the world there are parables, stories, about the great flood. Those stories have come from the drowning of Atlantis. All those stories -- Christian, Jewish, Hindu -- they all talk about a great flood that had come once in the past and had destroyed almost the whole civilization. Just a few initiates, adepts, had survived. Noah is an adept; a great Master, and Noah's ark is just a symbol.
A few people escaped the calamity. With them, all the secrets that the civilization had attained survived. They were preserved in Alexandria.
-Osho, "Philosophia Perennis, Vol 1, #1"