The Wisdom of the Ancient Egyptians

There are a great many hieroglyphs written on all of the ancient temples at Karnak and Luxor in Egypt and it became the 15 year work of one woman to translate them. Ihsa Schwaller de Lubicz published books on her translations full of ancient wisdom inscribed on the temples.

A lot of this wisdom is timeless and still bears out, even in our modern world with all of our technology. In fact, since we have lost a lot of what the ancients knew, it would be easy to think that ancient Egyptian priests would consider us a bunch of dumb-asses if they met us today.

Obviously we still have a lot to learn, or perhaps re-learn.

One of the things which crops up as a theme in their writings is the concept of every individual undertaking their own unique journey of discovery and wisdom. For this reason alone, I don’t think that the ancients would judge us too harshly any more than a parent judges a toddler for not having mastered walking.

What the ancients really knew is that for each person, it is never enough to know the theory; we must live the experience. Anyone can tell you what they know about life, but until you have integrated an experience into your physical body, it cannot be real for you. You can’t understand the concept.

In a series of future articles I will be exploring some of the concepts thrown out there by the ancients, but in the meantime, I am just going to provide a few samples and allow you to meditate on what they mean in your life:

Man must learn to increase his sense of responsibility and of the fact that everything he does will have its consequence.

The only active force which arises out of possession is the fear of losing the object of possession.

Have the wisdom to abandon the values of a time that has passed and pick out the constituents of the future. An environment must be suited to the age and men to their environment.

You will free yourself when you learn to be neutral and follow the instructions of your heart without letting things perturb you. This is the way of Maat.

True teaching is not an accumulation of knowledge; it is an awakening of consciousness which goes through successive stages.

To know means to record in one’s memory; but to understand means to blend with the thing and to assimilate it to oneself.

The kingdom of heaven is within you; and whosoever shall know himself shall find it.

An answer brings no illumination unless the question has matured to a point where it gives rise to this answer which thus becomes its fruit. Therefore, learn how to put a question.

Every man is rich in excuses to safeguard his prejudices, his instincts and his opinions.

Routine and prejudice distort vision. Each man thinks his own horizon is the limit of the world.

Maat, who links universal to terrestrial, the divine with the human is incomprehensible to the cerebral intelligence.

We will keep building temples until people realise they are the temples.