Egyptian God of Gods - Reality

[New Age Messiah]

Maat was the personification of the fundamental order of the universe, without which all of creation would perish. The primary duty of the pharaoh was to uphold this order by maintaining the law and administering justice. To reflect this, many pharaohs took the title "Beloved of Maat," emphasizing their focus on justice and truth.

http://www.touregypt.net/godsofegypt/maat.htm


Since Egypt plays prominently on Lost, it seems the writers have an affinity for the Egyptian belief system, which was based on the intelligent built-in order of the Universe as a Spirit or God. This Spirit was called Maat.

[New Age Messiah]

This is the kind of stuff that the show is teaching. It's not a science fiction show. It's a spiritual truth show.
Ma'at, Goddess of Truth, Balance, Order...

Ma'at, unlike Hathor and Nephthys, seemed to be more of a concept than an actual goddess. Her name, literally, meant 'truth' in Egyptian. She was truth, order, balance and justice personified. She was harmony, she was what was right, she was what things should be. It was thought that if Ma'at didn't exist, the universe would become chaos, once again!

http://touregypt.net/godsofegypt/maat2.htm

For the Egyptian believed that the universe was above everything else an ordered and rational place. It functioned with predictability and regularity; the cycles of the universe always remained constant; in the moral sphere, purity was rewarded and sin was punished. Both morally and physically, the universe was in perfect balance.

Because of Ma'at, the Egyptians knew that the universe, that everything in the universe, worked on a pattern, just as, later on, the Greeks called the underlying order of the universe logos (meaning, order, pattern).

I am the universe, Reality is God - Everything is, after all, reality or Maat, just humans in their DUALISTIC view, think of themselves as PART of the universe or seperate from "others".


Ma'at was reality, the solid grounding of reality that made the Sun rise, the stars shine, the river flood and mankind think. The universe itself, all the world around them, was sacred in the ancient view. "Ethics" is an issue of human will and human permission. It is a function of the human world of duality. What is "ethical" for one group is sin for another. But Ma'at, the reality that made all groups what they are is transcendent of ethics, just as a rock or a flower is amoral, a-ethical, without "truth or falsehood." How can a flower be "false" or "ethical." It just is. How can the universe be "ethical or moral, right or wrong"? It simply is. That is Ma'at.

[Greg Dharma]

ok, sure, i'll bite. the Maat-lost connection could be seen in the notion of course-correcting, and also in the judgement scenes. Maat is literally represented as the scales upon which Anubis weighs a heart against a feather. By speaking truthfully and openly, it is possible to balance one's heart so that the scales balance perfectly, and admittance to the afterlife is granted. otherwise, your heart get's tossed to Amemit, the devourer of Souls. No afterlife for you. interestingly, it's possible to have commited sinful acts yet still manage to lighten the heart to a degree that redemption is attainable. we saw this with Ben in the temple, which makes it a lot more likely that the temple is consecrated to Anubis, since this is the essential function of that particular god, to preside over judgement. and, i should also point out that for the egyptians, there was never an opposing dichotomy separating science and faith (they never burned astronomers at the stake nor insisted that the earth was flat). for all intents and purposes, they are one and the same, and most modern sciences are actually derivatives of egyptian religious beliefs.

[New Age Messiah]

ok, sure, i'll bite. the Maat-lost connection could be seen in the notion of course-correcting, and also in the judgement scenes. Maat is literally represented as the scales upon which Anubis weighs a heart against a feather. By speaking truthfully and openly, it is possible to balance one's heart so that the scales balance perfectly, and admittance to the afterlife is granted. otherwise, your heart get's tossed to Amemit, the devourer of Souls. Awesome summary. Truth is the only thing that truly exists, so residing in untruth, resting in a false idea or being false is living in "death".
for the egyptians, there was never an opposing dichotomy separating science and faith (they never burned astronomers at the stake nor insisted that the earth was flat).Music to my ears. Great point.for all intents and purposes, they are one and the same, and most modern sciences are actually derivatives of egyptian religious beliefs. Precisely.

[Greg Dharma]

Truth is the only thing that truly exists, so residing in untruth, resting in a false idea or being false is living in "death".

i feel your Neter, N.A. Messiah. your Ka is truly exalted. But, riddle me this (said the Sphinx): if "This Place is Death," as Charlotte surmises, what's its connection to eternal life, as seen in the Ankh motifs?

[New Age Messiah]

if "This Place is Death," as Charlotte surmises, what's its connection to eternal life, as seen in the Ankh motifs?

I walked like an Egyptian in college, but I'm a beginner at Egyptian myth.

I think generally the island is a microcosm of the entire Egyptian interplay, and the modern scientific attempts to understand light, which is SPIRIT.

So what's the answer? Is light a wave, or is light a flow of particles? Well, the bottom line is that it's neither one. Light is *are you ready?* a "quantum vector field." That phrase doesn't give you much of a mental picture, does it? I actually kind of know what a quantum vector field is, and it doesn't give me any mental picture. The fact is that the true nature of light defies mental picturing, because it's not quite like anything we can lay our hands on. Under certain conditions, such as when we shine it through narrow slits and look at the result, it behaves as only a wave can. Under other conditions, such as when we shine it on a metal and examine the spray of electrons that comes off, light behaves as only particles can. This multiple personality of light is referred to as "wave-particle duality." Light behaves as a wave, or as particles, depending on what we do with it, and what we try to observe.

http://my.morningside.edu/slaven/physics/uncertainty/uncertainty2.html

The island is in the spot of a magnifying glass. Once you're in, you're in. You can't have an encounter with the island and "leave". Your soul gets tested, judged, dies, etc. as per Egyptian myth. The efforts by the scientists, Dharma, Faraday, etc. to contain, comprehend, alter, negotiate etc. in somekind of doomsday impending hour, dramatically represent the CURRENT REAL fate of man as a thermonuclear event/INCIDENT appears imminent.

Here's a thought regarding Jacob.

To know the true name of a person, entity or Neter was to have power over it, for the name contained its owner's complete identity and being (Lurker 1980.83, Meeks 1996.97). For this reason each Neter had a secret name which embodied their power and individuality (Meeks 1996.97)

http://www.hwt-hrw.com/Bodies.php

I thought, previously on Lost, that Jacob's name must not be Jacob, his name would be too holy to say or know. However, I came across the reference above, so maybe Jacob is a neutered imprisoned deity, due to mortals knowing his name.

I think the island represents and teaches the Egyptian understanding of the cycle of life, spirit, death, truth. It's a mega microcosm. Eternal life included.

[Simon Blackrock]

good points , it shows how dark the dark ages were.Catholics have always done their best to keep the sheep in the dark.
it is amazing how far ahead egypt was in their understanding of the universe,although this understanding was not for common man. this advanced sacred knowledge was only for the pharoahs and the preisthood.

now did Ben really commit any sins? read any passage in the book of the dead, slaying ones enemies is NOT a sin at all,not even close. it is a good thing and a very important thing for one to do.

so a question.
do you think that becoming the leader of the others is like a modern day pharoah in a way?

[New Age Messiah]

do you think that becoming the leader of the others is like a modern day pharoah in a way?It seems to me that Richard Alpert is the Island Pharoah.

I think that Ben HAS committed many many sins incompatible with being pharoah. He has incessantly lied and manipulated, he has been EXTREMELY unjust, and a pharoah's duty was to implement justice on Maat's behalf.

The most sinister (to me) thing Ben did was tell those recently landed people that Locke was dangerous, deranged, to believe he was dead...

And then Ben murdered that man, who was in no way Ben's enemy, AND he set it up so that Locke believed that Ben helped him, protected him.

I think Ben will ultimately be judged as evil, and get torn to shreds.

[New Age Messiah]

Bumping this, to show how Egyptians believed.

Ethics on the island are completely other than what we commonly know.

All our nanny state "rules' of nice nice are out the window.

And that is consistent with Egyptian plot line, my theory that they are bringing back Egyptian belief.

Because we as a society are way tight, paranoid, strict, we strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. Pitty potty petty puppet show nonsense masquerading as ethics.

So you throw that out the window, the ISLAND is in charge and SHE will be revealed as Mother Nature, I think. The boss, no matter what anyone says, no matter "who" anyone says they are.