MAAT INSTRUCTIONS

Be perfect in effort, be proficient in deeds, be prepared in all things necessary to doing that which is just and right.

1. You are Africans.  You are not Arabs, Europeans or Asians.  Respect them as they respect you.  They are no better than you.  They are not entitled to your hearts, souls and spirits even though we have historically allowed them to control and even own our minds and bodies.  
2. We are what we have allowed ourselves to be.  We can become what we make ourselves.  A will to justice, Maat, driven by scientific precision,Tehuti, engineered into creation by force of deeds and overwhelming actions of self sacrifice and work, Heru, will make our future what we would have it to be---in this world, and in this lifetime.  
3. Populations cannot do the harm to us that they have done, for the length of time they have done it, with such routine success, if we were not helping them through our actions and even inactions.  We are therefore responsible for this mess of a life we continue to allow others to impose on us.   

• Religions to Spirituality to (Maat)

  
  

  Maat was the first and most developed system of Black morality and ethics in the ancient world for over 6000 years in Ancient Kmt (what became Egypt after the invasions). Semites and whites invaded, occupied, and destroyed ancient Kmt along with the North African civilization, economy, government, educational system, health care system, moral and ethical system, cosmology, writing system, family, architecture, civil engineering system---everything.  Their knowledge taken, translated, transfered, repackaged, these indigenous Africans were run out of their own lands/enslaved/devastated/forced backwards.

  
  

  These destroyers of Black life even fashioned three religions that became world religions as their race conquered, colonized and converted subjugated black, brown, red and yellow skin people around the world. 

  
  

  Wherever the destroyers went (with sword, blade, knife, gun, cannon or nuclear bomb, germ warfare, guile and missionaries) they forced their culture via steel weapons and religion on the people that they enslaved and destroyed.  Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are the religions of the enslavers of African people, the occupiers of African land, and the destroyers of African civilization.  Semites wrote the Torah hundreds of years after Moses died, with decades of revisions.  Whites wrote their Bible in Rome after the Nicaea Conference hundreds of years after they said Jesus died and rose from the dead; they adapted the "old testament" from the Jews.  Arabs wrote the Qur'an, adding whole sections of life and living, decades after their prophet passed away, with hundreds of years of additions. 

  
  

  All three religions were used as justifications to invade, pillage, conquer and destroy indigenous Black civilization and people, running them off their land, for thousands of years culminating with the holocaust of Black enslavement globally and the seizing of the entire continent of Africa for Arabs, Jews, and Europeans.

  
  

  Indigenous African Moral Systems & Philosophies 

  • Maatism was created by Indigenous Black Africans in ancient Kmt
  • o Kmt, Africa (Nile Valley) evolved 7,000 years ago as an indigenous cultural and moral system of right and wrong, good and bad, justice and injustice.
  • o Holy Books: Maat Confessions, Instructions, Principles, Lessons, Meditations
  • o Six foundations: race, class, gender, culture, generation, psychological oneness based on the guiding principles
  • o Spread: throughout world from Diaspora and Mother land
  • o Impact: guided a just, but martially soft Black civilization for thousands of years until military force, invasions, occupation, demographic population replacement occurred. Injustice defeated just; white defeated black; the invader's military force easily overcame our moral force.  African material culture was put to death, their civilizations dismantled, their morals corrupted, their populations decimated/scattered/enslaved/forced to regress backward.

Skill is the essence of the movement to improve; movement is driven by purpose, purpose is direction feuled by focus and precision. Precision is effort toward perfection.

• 2. Maat is justice, balance, rightness, discipline and direction.
• 3. Self-cultivation requires discipline, humility, honesty and self respect.
• 4. Work hard, be honest, give your best, and be perfect in effort daily.
• 5. Show humility; strive for perfection, do the best job that you can do.
• 6. With skill, preparation, discipline and perseverance, you can reach any goal.
• 7. Overcoming fear is freedom; overcoming guilt comes from giving your best to all that you do.
• 8. Discipline will liberate you from bad habits; honest will free you from guilt and shame.
• 9. Effort will move you toward perfection. Perfection is having given all that you had, having done the best you could under the circumstances, having gotten the most out of yourself.
• 10. Be perfect, in this world and in this lifetime.
• 11. You are measured by what you do---not prayers, not pleadings, not how many times you drop to your knee, not how many times you say you are sorry.
• 12. Live Maat so that your heart may be judged light as a feather.
• 13. Judgment comes.

Embarking on a Path

• 1. Assess basic health and clear away physical and mental health problems.
• 2. Become independent.
• 3. Concentrate on consolidating the health of body, breath and mind.
• 4. Physical training is the best way to discipline.
• 5. Where the mind is not fickle, vain, full of objections, the body is more responsive.
• 6. The body knows the difference between cleanliness and impurity.

Energy/Life Force: Ka

• 1. Can be exhausted by illness, overwork, nervousness, stress, poor nutrition, improper thinking, drugs, liquor, insufficient sleep, excessive sexual indulgence.
• 2. Proper habits can preserve Ka.
• 3. Ka represents the aspects of movement in a human being; life essence, motive force.
• 4. Struggle in all things; strength come from lifting weights in all forms.
• 5. Ka is the unity and struggle of opposites.

The new develops in the womb of the old, reaches a point of conception, fights a life and death struggle for its existence, and in the birth throes of complementary battle comes into being as a new formation.  The adaptable element of it is preserved in the new process. 

The old, with its complementary twin opposites, yields to a new higher or lower process with its complementary twin opposites which pass from insignificant and imperceptible quantitative changes to open, fundamental quantitative changes, to qualitative changes which leap rapidly and abrupt from one state to another occurring as a natural result of an accumulation of imperceptible and gradual quantitative changes after a period of regression before the leap forward.  The exposition of such a reality, both into movement and its forms, presents enormous problems. A movement is best captured by a movie, but an analysis of a form requires detailed examination of a snapshot.  How would you portray a snapshot in movement?  Combine a snapshot with a motion picture, from start to finish; from birth, death, rebirth without detriment to either shapshot or motion picture---a historical motion picture as opposed to still photography.  Grasp a whole in motion, like a movie as opposed to still photography, then uncover the contradictions that constitute the moving principle, the engine, the motor, the driving force of its development.

"A" is equal to "A" signifies that a thing is equal to itself if it does not change, that is, if it does not exist. Essentially, "A=A" can only equal "A=A" if a thing is equal to itself because it does not change, i.e., if it does not exist. Be concerned with grasping a whole in motion, in time and space, with mass and uncovering the fundamental internal contradictions that constitute the moving principle of its development from birth-death-rebirth. Grasp that the thing is in motion, then grasp the motion itself, its direction, means of energy, what drives it, the driving force of it, its internal impetus, its energy, has its source in the underlying unity and struggle of opposites-contradictions. As such categories, concepts, processes must be derived, fashioned and fitted for each specific concrete aspect of the subject-matter.

Diet, Martial Exercise 

• 1. Balance your diet-eat a little bit of different foods at each meal
• 2. Don't be obsessive about diet, but eat fresh vegetables, drink clean water, juice from natural fruits and vegetables, eat fish, take natural vitamins and minerals, exercise daily, and meditate for self correction.
• 3. Eat with your body, not your mind: be perfect in effort to be healthy.
• 4. Indulge within reason
• 5. Determine proper limits for self-requires self-observation and cautious experimentation
• 6. Drink plenty of water during the day
• 7. Eat proper amount of food
• 8. Eat foods fresh and in season
• Work out, exercise, perfect the martial ways of your ancestors.

Unless you are completely in control of your life and have a great deal of discipline, you cannot be ethical.  Ethics helps to turn one away from base instincts toward higher order thinking and living.

Maat Philosophy and Principles:

All is in struggle.  Life is struggle.  Contradictions are first in the real process; they are the basis of concepts and categories. The interconnectedness, unity and struggle drive change, development, transformation and renewal within actual time dimensions.

Everything exists within time and is an unbroken process of coming to be, being, been, becoming. Time is the fundamental element of existence. The problem of grasping a thing is essentially the problem of grasping that it is in motion. If a society as a whole is to be grasped in motion, in process, becoming, it must be comprehended thoroughly, its dynamic of production, who owns it, who's owned, the dynamics of its direct production process. This development proceeds as determined by the form of movement characteristic of that quality and continues until the limit within that type is reached.  A corresponding measure is reached---a fixed limit within which alone the quality can remain indifferent to the quantity. The point at which magnitude ceases to be indifferent is dependent upon the internal connection of quantitative and qualitative changes.  At a certain level, this indispensable condition in its unity and struggle of contradictory opposites creates the means which will effect its own destruction. These forces are a reflection of their position in the unity; with in the category; within the womb where the two contradictory opposite have interpenetrated the other there exist a point where they prove incompatible with their husk, a  melting point, boiling point, atomic weight, valiancy point, breakpoint.  Quality is finite.  Every qualitative definitiveness has an internal final limit that belongs to it and the fullest development of quality is at the same time the revelation of its limits. 

When a quality has reached its internal limits, its fundamental properties change into their opposites, then the features of a period of transition take a definite shape revealing themselves as polar opposites in a direct antagonistic contradiction bent on resolution.  That resolution can be progressive (higher, ascending) or regressive (retrogressive, lower, descending).  It is therefore necessary to determine final limits, that highest stage of development at which a quality goes over into another quality - into its opposite. All positions beget their opposition, grow out of a predecessor, and appear as a negation, then negates itself in turn by the force of the development of its own internal contradictions.  The internal contradictions are the basis of this spiraling genesis.

Each phase in the development of the forms of the quality, process, phenomenon, thing, object, resolves the determined form of the contradiction that belongs to the previous stage of development. The new forms of existence of a quality grow out of the decomposition of the old basis of existence of the quality with each phase quantitatively refining the quality and preparing it for a leap. Every phase, by over coming the specific form of the contradiction of its predecessor, by negating it, brings forth the form of contradiction that belongs to it and by this mans prepares its own negation.

There arise a contradiction between the new and old, arising and dying; the new grows strong, overpowers the old, leads to forward movement.  The old is abolished after it has already produced the conditions for the transition to the new, and in which all the positive achievement belonging to the old stage is carried forward into the new.  The new stage comes into being from the working out of the contradiction and struggle inherent in the old, containing within itself the germ of a new contradiction---it comes into being containing something of the past from which it springs and something of the future to which it leads.

• 1. Articulate the philosophy of Ka, fundamental principles of philosophy to ground practice
• 2. No evidence of heaven and hell
• 3. Life has no guarantees; certainty lay within
• 4. Ultimate justification for spirituality lay not in the promise of an afterlife, but in the honest and personal exploration of this life and this time (morality)
• 5. Unity and struggle of opposites-neither opposite can exist without the other; line of demarcation gray at times
• 6. Guilt is only for those who are unable to accept their own actions
• 7. Motion is fundamental
• 8. Act when matters have not yet emerged or when things are still small
• a. If you miss a step it becomes difficult to go back and correct it later
• b. Something that would have been simple becomes difficult because you did not act while matters were small
• 9. The time to act is when there is nothing yet to do
• 10. The fragile is easily dissolved, the minute easily dispersed
• a. All things are fragile in their beginnings and those things that are tiny can be easily scattered
• b. If you are entering a situation that is mature, you can see that you are already too late; things are no longer fragile or minute; you thus have to use force to change things
• c. Plan the difficult task when matters are easy
• d. The time to govern is before there is disorder
• e. When starting any venture, it is going to be fragile and minute; until it takes root it can be easily swept away
• 11. If you manipulate things when they are small, great things may be accomplished
• a. If timing is correct, the proper course of action has been selected, and what has been planted is protected until the proper time to come forth, they cannot help but be successful
• 12. Once it has been established, balance is easy to maintain
• a. Beginning is the most crucial part and is also the most difficult
• b. Once things are started in the proper way, they can proceed according to a momentum of their own
• 13. Life occurs in cycles
• 14. Change occurs by the unity and struggle of opposites
• 15. A (Kaist) is described as subtle, mysterious, dark, penetrating, deep, unrecognizable, and obscure; they do not display their talents or their understanding; they feel the pulse of Ka and do not care to have any distractions
• 16. Spring-birth; summer-youth and growth; autumn-middle age; winter-withdrawal and contemplation
• 17. Kaist do not adhere to the extremes in life
• 18. Having goals clarifies one's personality
• 19. When a person has trouble identifying goals, the solution is to look within; do not ask others nor to ape the lives of heroes; look within; calm selves to find them
• 20. Be observant; by being aware of our own tendencies and desires, can slowly ascertain what we are meant to do
• 21. You answer to self
• 22. Don't expect goals to remain unchanged throughout life
• 23. Know where one is going
• 24. Face life, do not run away from it; do not engage in escapist behaviors to avoid things

Faults of a student

• 1. Faithlessness-if you have insufficient trust and confidence, or are too skeptical, then you will never succeed. Should be curious, but unless you respect the system and SBA, you will not give either one enough of a chance to take root in life. Commitment is important. It means that you are willing to invest yourself absolutely in your practice.
• 2. Immaturity-Unquestioning loyalty is problematic. Such students put all trust and responsibility for spiritual growth into the hands of the master. They don't try for themselves. They want their teachers to do it for them. Progress comes only from effort.
• 3. Laziness-spirituality takes diligence, discipline, and direction.
• 4. Materialism-everyone should be self-supporting. If you are constantly obsessed with money and wealth, there is little room in personality for devotion.
• 5. Bullying-As a person develops greater knowledge/skills, should not use this to intimidate others who have not been through such training
• 6. Obsession
• 7. Fantasy
• 8. Poor memory-what good is anything you learn if you fail to remember and practice it?
• 9. Immorality-a student must demonstrate qualities of a saint at all times.

Egoism

• 1. In arrogance, people sacrifice sensitivity to others, to their surroundings, and to their own inner nature. Sooner or later, the arrogant person will fail to maintain whatever achievements he/she has made and will begin a downward slide. Often they are too blind or too unwilling to change. A certain sloppiness of character emerges and often becomes a fundamental laziness.
• 2. Laziness is part of egotism because important tasks are put off-person things she/he knows better,
• 3. Selfishness-destroys compassion for others; destroys love and allows the mind to be infected by greed, mistrust, and shortsightedness; invariably leads to a hell of one's own making;
• 4. Humility can be a road to better living
• 5. Egotism is hardness, refusal to be flexible, refusal to admit other opinions, refusal to give yourself over to training.
• Respect must be unwavering
• Better to cultivate inner qualities

Confronting issues

• 1. Learning-emphasize skill and knowledge; learning is never wasted
• a. Learning is valuable in and of itself
• b. Allows people to wonder, play with new knowledge, combine it with other things we know
• c. Learning satisfies a curiosity and interest that is innately human
• d. Proper knowledge leads to freedom
• e. Acquiring an enormous range of skills, a person can be prepared for whatever life throws our way
• f. Learn the ways of others to avoid being manipulated by them
• 2. Competition
• a. Inevitable
• b. Inherent
• c. Beyond the basics of survival, you should select the arena for competition and the extent to which you strive against others
• d. Never enter a place without first ascertaining the possible sources of attack and all possible routes of escape.
• e. As long as you are in the world, you must compete, and if you must compete, you must win
• 3. Finding your fatal flaw
• a. The shortcoming that we don't know or cant do anything about
• b. Our undoing; our blindspot
• c. Try to find every single flaw in yourself and eradicate it
• d. After arrogance, comes obsession
• 4. Discipline
• a. Needs intelligence to learn, perceive, and plan strategy
• b. When fighting, an intelligent warrior never lashes out blindly with injudicious force; she/he tests her/his opponent, gathers information, memorizes each strength and weakness
• c. The mind of a warrior-fierce, calculating, assertive, aware of everyone's weakness
• d. No one can maintain intelligence without patience, attention to detail, and fortitude
• e. Perseverance
• f. Courage-fighting demands bravery. It implies not only the basic drive for victory, but something inherent, self-control. Should grow stronger as a fighter endures
• g. Discipline enables one to act. Only with discipline can one truly be all that one wishes to be.
• h. With discipline, one is able to carry out a decision free from fear, doubt, ambivalence, and laziness
• i. The control that comes from such inner strength eventually becomes ingrained in the personality. A warrior becomes movement, not simply does it.
• 5. If you seek to perfect yourself, you may be less tolerant of those who do nothing to discipline themselves and you will seek out companions primarily those who are more sympathetic to your way of life
• 6. Look within. Still self and look within and all answers are inside you.

Maatheru: Warrior of light

• 1. One cannot learn without discipline
• 2. Rely not on strength alone, make use of opponent's energy. Do not respond to provocation; without will and determination (inspiration and experience), no amount of training will help
• 3. Study, understand, and know what you want want.  Waste no time on explanations.
• 4. Convince the enemy that he will gain very little by attacking you. If necessary, make a temporary withdrawal to gain strength.
• 5. Take every opportunity to teach self; learn, understand, grow, become clear.
• 6. Sometimes you will be faced with the same problems. It is because you have gone through it, but not gone beyond it.
• 7. Do not spend days trying to play the role that others have chosen for you.
• 8. You know what you are capable of; you do not have to go around boasting about your qualities and virtues
• 9. To have faith in oneself (and one's path) you do not have to prove that someone else's path is wrong.
• 10. Always do your best and expect the best from others
• 11. Think a great deal before taking action. Remain calm and analyze each step as though it were of supreme importance
• 12. When mistakes are made, never be discouraged. Simply learn from them and move on
• 13. Know when to use strength over strategy or strategy over strength
• 14. Don't be afraid to take on commitment; an open oven does not bake bread
• 15. To engage in any activity, know what to expect, how to achieve the objective and whether or not you are capable of carrying out the proposed task.
• 16. Teams win-but do not allow people to confuse this camaraderie with insecurity. Be transparent in actions and secretive in plans.
• 17. Use fear as an engine, not as a break
• 18. Recognize the silence that precedes an important battle. Listen intently to that silence and understand that something is happening (do not use this time to rest, as others would do)
• 19. Always trying to improve. Each movement during combat honors the movements that the previous generation tried to transmit through (tradition)
• 20. Be reliable. You may make mistakes, but do not lie. Face your faults.
• 21. Deeds are stored in the memory of the universe.
• 22. Occasionally one must pause to take stock of her/his life; makes sure that the sword is sharp, heart satisfied, and faith still burns in the soul. Take advantage of those moments to equip self better.
• 23. Never make threats-whenever you pull a sword, use it.
• 24. One does not drown by plunging into water, you only drown when you stay beneath the surface. Do all you can to not be in this predicament.
• 25. Always learn your lesson. Take a stand, listen to advice, and be humble enough to accept help
• 26. Sometimes, in the heat of battle you may be taken by surprise-do not run away, the battles will merely follow you.
• 27. Speak decisively and bravely
• 28. Never accept what is unacceptable
• 29. do not waste energy on words because they can do nothing
• 30. Never be deceived by your own abilities; you thereby avoid begin taken by surprise. Give each thing the value it deserves
• 31. Be vigilant and decisive
• 32. Avoid those only on your side during defeat-these people want to prove that weakness is rewarded. True companions are beside you always, during hard and easy times
• 33. Do not find yourself constantly repeating the same struggle, especially when there are neither advances nor retreats
• 34. Yesterday's pain is today's strength; draw from the past, be energized with the efforts of our great ancestors, live with them commune, draw from them.
• 35. When you have a chance to right a wrong, seize it
• 36. Be as wise and lethal as a serpent and as innocent as a dove
• 37. Set aside trivial things and chance friendships
• 38. Never accept gifts from an enemy
• 39. The word ‘feel' is full of traps. Saying I do not feel like doing this...examine what is at the root of it. What is it that you do not know how to do that has you masking it in the word ‘feel'. Confronting this directly, your eyes will begin to grow accustomed to the work; it no longer frightens you and you will finally accepts your own legend, even if it means running risks.
• 40. Experienced winners put up with insults; but know the strength of your fist and the skill of his blows. Confronted by an unprepared opponent, look deep into his/her eyes and conquers them without fear or wasted effort. Be aware of your own immense strength; never fight with anyone who does not deserve combat.
• 41. Before going into battle, you must believe in why you are fighting; choose allies carefully; carefully selects the right moment to begin a just fight; think about surroundings and how best to move around in them; the best fighters are the ones who plan their fights to win ahead of time.
• 42. Examine your heart and ask-did I fight the good fight? If the answer is yes, can rest; if not you take up your sword and begin training all over again.
• 43. Establish a bridge between what you would like to do and what you do.
• 44. Believe in what you are doing
• 45. Trust others because first and foremost, you trust yourself.
• 46. Fear is natural, freedom is to overcome fear.
• 47. Practice exercises for inner growth-pay attention to the things that you do automatically, like breathe, blink, or notice the things around you. Do this when confused, and in this way you can free self from tensions an allow intuition to work more freely without interference from fears and desires. [do this when faced with a difficult situation]
• 48. Rarely discuss plans. By talking you run the risk of expending energy that could be spent preparing for actually doing it.
• 49. Know the value of persistence and courage
• 50. Chooses your own battlefield, your own weapons, and your own battles in life.
• 51. Keep your word
• 52. Continue fighting the just fight; never abandon the path; be heedless in all things just and right. Be perfect in effort.
• 53. Those who look on other people's misery with indifference are the most miserable of all
• 54. Those who spend all their time in training lose spontaneity in battle
• 55. There are times when the warrior's path is routine
• 56. Never goes into battle without knowing the limitations of his ally
• 57. Have no regrets. Humble yourself and undo all of the wrongs you have done.
• 58. Use common sense to judge not the intentions of an action but the consequences of it.
• 59. Before making important decisions, ask how it will affect the third generation of descendants
• 60. Never exaggerate difficulties, yet always remain calm
• 61. Be capable of seeing what is beautiful because you carry beauty within yourself.
• 62. Separate the useful from the unuseful memories; dispose of the emotional left overs. All problems seem simple once they have been solved. The great victory, which appears so simple today was the result of a series of small victories that went unnoticed.
• 63. Gossip does not allow a person the right to defend herself; it condemns without a trial. A few misdirected words can destroy months of dedication.