“Righteousness [Ma’at] appears in the heart of the Divine Light.” It is with these words that Ma’at – the Goddess of Truth, Equilibrium and Order – is described in the dwellings of the Temple of Ibis in the Khargah Oasis.
Ma’at is depicted in the guise of a woman holding a scepter in one hand, the ankh cross in the other and who, sometimes, has wings and an ostrich feather on her head.
She represents the highest concept in the Egyptian philosophy, M’at personifies Justice and Truth: it is source and, at the same time, fulfilment:
“Unceasingly emanated from the divine Ra, it nourishes him and is the intermediary and vehicle of his essence”.
It is the beginning and the end, in other words It is the cosmic consciousness, the Universal Ideation, the essential Wisdom (‘Her-Bak Disciple’, chapter xvi).
But how are these words translated into our human world?
Ma’at is the consciousness of discernment, Ma’at is the judgment within every human heart, it is in the Cosmos, it is the Truth of all things. It is the key to the understanding of the Egyptian mysteries, which contain the philosophical breath of the universe itself.
The African word ‘Maat’, translated, means Truth, Justice, Equilibrium and Order.
The Egyptian language itself confirms this thesis which, joining the Ma’at vibration, leads us back to the term and meaning of “truth”.
Rightly, therefore, Ma’at is truth and order, Ma’at is harmony and balance, those aspects that in its absence would have been annulled, since Ma’at is opposed to chaos, since Ma’at is the order of the universe itself.
In this context, let us remember that the Egyptian beliefs wanted the cosmos to be endowed with an absolute order, whose cycles constantly showed their constancy and regularity. Everything was, therefore, perfect harmony and, thanks to M’at, the Egyptians knew that the universe, and anything related to it, was based on a single principle – exactly what the Greeks later called the basic principle of the universe, namely Logos. In the beginning was the Logos, the Logos was with God and the Logos was God (Gospel of John, 1:1).
But Ma’at was not only a principle in itself, it was a reality that allowed the sun to rise, the stars to shine and humanity to think.
Moreover, Ma’at acted as a judge, even in the underworld, where the heart of the deceased was weighed by Ma’at herself, or rather by the feather that surmounted her head.
If the heart of the deceased had acted contrary to the principles of Ma’at, then his heart would have been devoured by Ammut – the goddess with the head of a crocodile, the body of a leopard and the back of a hippo, ready to devour the heart of the unworthy.
On the other hand, if the heart weighed as much as the feather, in this case the soul could be said to be pure and would be led by Osiris beyond the stars.
This was also the reason why several pharaohs called themselves “Meri Ma’at” or “Loved by Ma’at”.
There is a small temple in Karnak, built in in honor of Ma’at and his figure, which was built in the era of Hatshepsut:. It seems that in its time it was Ra who wanted its existence and essence, in order to transmit light, force and peace.
But how could the human soul merge into Ma’at’s principles? How could it live in balance with all the expressions of nature in accordance with the manifestation of the One?
In this regard, Ma’at manifests its universality through the drafting of 42 rules which, in addition to incredibly resembling the Christian commandments, contain a meaning that must also be read from a symbolic point of view since a literary reading does not speak to the human heart…
But now, let us begin again from the beginning:
“Righteousness [Ma’at] appears in the heart of the Divine Light”.
And let us now focus on the present.
What is the importance of the heart?
Where does the Divine Light reside?
It is essentially in the heart that divine wisdom is manifested, through a sweet but powerful touch echoing in the entire Cosmos.
The mind can also forget, but the seed thrown into the heart of the human being can never be uprooted, since the soil will have been cared for and well protected by the love and will of the Great Gardener.
Similarly, the Eye of Ra is manifested: the eye perceiving and harmonizing itself to the Light by projecting it into the world, a Light which allows the human being to see, which gives to the human being who seeks a supernatural force, as it comes from another world: the Divine.
The Divine Light is the Light that reveals the magical order of all things.
This magic also creates a singular resonance between the heart and the eye, two apparently distinct organs that are solidly united. The wisdom of the heart leads to the irradiation of the eyes in the form of Light.
Ma’at and its essence, that is, the order manifested through cosmic harmony, therefore, seems to be in conformity with the Taoist thought, according to which equilibrium is created when the harmony of all things participates in the vital process of the entire cosmos.
And here we are, once again, before a language that knows no barriers. From north to south, from east to west, the Spirit speaks with the same voice.
