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MAAT
by John R. Moore
There were 42 Confessions with 42 judges. One must pass these Confessions after practicing holiness to achieve an acceptable death of immortality. The Confessions is one of the most distinctive, innovative and best known features of the Book of the Dead.
MAÁT is ethical principles collectively embracing the values of truth, justice, harmony, balance, cosmological order, reciprocity and propriety.
1. I have not committed sin.
2. I have not committed robbery with violence.
3. I have not stolen.
4. I have not slain men and women.
5. I have not stolen grain.
6. I have not purloined offerings.
7. I have not stolen the property of God.
8. I have not uttered lies.
9. I have not carried away food.
10. I have not uttered curses.
11. I have not committed adultery; I have not lain with men.
12. I have made none to weep.
13. I have not eaten the heart.
14. I have not attacked any man.
15. I am not a man of deceit.
16. I have not stolen cultivated land.
17. I have not been an eavesdropper.
18. I have not slandered [no man].
19. I have not been angry without just cause.
20. I have not debauched the wife of any man.
21. I have not debauched the wife of [any] man.
22. I have not polluted myself.
23. I have terrorized none.
24. I have not transgressed [the law].
25. I have not been wroth.
26. I have not shut my ears to the words of truth.
27. I have not blasphemed.
28. I am not a man of violence.
29. I have not been a stirrer up of strife.
30. I have not acted with undue haste.
31. I have not pried into matters.
32. I have not multiplied my words in speaking.
33. I have wronged none, I have done no evil.
34. I have not worked witchcraft against the king.
35. I have never stopped [the flow of] water.
36. I have never raised my voice.
37. I have not cursed God.
38. I have not acted with arrogance.
39. I have not stolen the bread of the gods.
40. I have not carried away the khenfu cakes from the spirits of the dead.
41. I have not snatched away the bread of the child, nor treated with contempt the god of my city.
42. I have not slain the cattle belonging to the god.
The students aim in ancient Kemet (Egypt) was for a person to become "One with God." The path to the development of god-like qualities was through the development of virtues. These virtues were sought by the Kemites (Egyptians) to become one with Maát (the cosmic order).
Control of thoughts;
Control of actions;
Devotion of purpose;
Have faith in the ability of your teacher to teach you the truth;
Have faith in yourself to assimilate the truth;
Have faith in yourself to wield the truth;
Be free from resentment under the experience of persecution;
Be free from resentment under the experience of wrong;
Cultivate the ability to distinguish between right and wrong;
Cultivate the ability to distinguish between the real and the unreal.
© John Moore - Barbados, W.I. (May 2005) ©. All rights reserved.
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