FINDING LOST CIVILIZATIONS This

As I climbed upward toward the stairs to heaven Iknew that under my very feet, looking much the same asit had a thousand years before, others had stood where Istood. What did they think? What didthey believe? What was their life like?Were they happy and did they also thinkof those before them? At that moment Ifelt timeless. The past, the present, andthe future were one. I sat down and gazedout across the ruins and the land beforeme. I closed my eyes and began to travelwithin. A kaleidoscope of visions, tranquility,and peace passed beneath me asI soared through my inner world. Somepeople say that the beginning of time, theactual moment when it all began, is anevent that is recorded within each of us.As the soft breeze played across my upliftedface I remembered that Djahal ad Din Rum, a 12thcentury Persian mystic said, “The breeze at dawn has secretsto tell you, don’t go back to sleep, you must ask what you reallywant, don’t go back to sleep, people are going back andforth across the doorsill where two worlds touch, the rounddoor is open, don’t go back to sleep.”I wandered silently through the lost city of Chicomostoc,once thought to be the place wherethe Aztecs stopped during their legendarywandering toward the Valle de Mexico.I wanted to learn more but much is leftto speculation. The only fact for certainis that over a thousand years and morea thriving civilization once stood here.Arnold Toynbe, a historian, wrote aboutlost civilizations and said, “When we diagnosethe fall of civilizations we invariablyfind that the cause of death has beenWar or Class or some combination of thetwo.” History has a tendency to repeat itselfand I can imagine another soul standingover the ruins of our civilization twothousand years after our demise asking these same questions:What did they think? What did they believe? Whatwas their life like? Were they happy and did they also thinkof those before them?28