A king receiving life (excerpted from Wilkinson's illustration of Niuserre's relief at the Berlin museum (Reading Egyptian Art, page 176)

"From the Old Kingdom onward, Maat's presence was thought to be vital to the daily regeneration of the sun god." "Maat shares her feather emblem with the air god Shu. She [is] sometimes equated with Shu's sister, Tefnut. The gods [are] said to 'live on maat'". (Pinch, page 160)

And, as we have seen, the kings are exhorted, "You shall feed on the gods' food on which they feed."

The kings feed on the gods, also priests and priestesses feed on the gods:

Shepenwepet II, a high priestess of the god Amun, with ankh-sign held before her nose Relief Fragment of Shepenwepet II at the Brooklyn Museum Sandstone, third Intermediate Period, second half of Dynasty XXV, ca. 700 B.C.E., from North Karnak #74.99.2, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund Photo © Joan Lansberry, May 2008

The gods, the kings, the priesthood, and also us: if we wish to be effective, we must feed on the gods, and live on ma'at.

2. "Become"

What happens to us if we feed on the gods? By taking in their essence, we become more like the gods. "You are what you eat," the expression goes. The opposite of this is GIGO: 'garbage in, garbage out'.
   

The scarab beetle kheper glyph via Richard Wilkinson's Reading Egyptian Art, page 113
R.O.Faulkner's except on kheper (aka 'Xeper'), page 188 of his dictionary of Middle Egyptian
Notice the definitions :"Come into being", "Become" and "Grow up".

The beetle also become a divine symbol "due to the beetle's habit of rolling a ball of mud or dung along the ground in a manner suggestive of the god pushing the solar disk across the sky." "The biology of the insect thus seems to underlie the name of the god as Khepri suggests the Egyptian verb kheper: 'develop' or 'come into being'. As the 'developing one' Khepri [is] the god of the first sunrise at the dawn of creation, and was thus linked with Atum as Atum-Khepri." (Wilkinson, Complete Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses, page 230)

Several kings feature this verb in their throne name, for example: Tutankhamun="Nebkheperure" - Lord (or Full) of the coming-into-being (manifestations) of Ra, Thutmose III="Menkheperre" -"Eternal are the manifestatons of Ra"; and Amenhotep II="Aakheperure" -"Great are the Manifestations of Re".

To be full of the manifestations of Ra would be to be a very powerful ruler indeed.

As I understand the process of kheper (Xeper), it is to evolve and refine our state of being to strengthen that which is our divine nature. To be full of the manifestations of Ma'at, we will exemplify truthfulness, fairness and balance in all our aspects.

As the movie The Grandmaster explained, "mastery has three stages: being, knowing, doing"

To fully exemplify the process of becoming, we must DO.

3. "Do Ma'at"

The offering of Ma'at "is the response the gods need, and it brings full circle our analysis, which took the gods' action as its starting point. The gods do not need any material gifts, but they do need human response to their existence; they want to be experienced in the hearts of men, for only then does their work of creation acquire its lasting significance." (Hornung, Conceptions of God, pages 214-215)

"Maat, which came from the gods at creation, returns to them from the hands of men; it symbolizes the partnership of god and man which is brought to fruition in Egyptian religion." (Hornung, page 215)

This then is the cycle: Feed on the gods, whereby we experience the gods and our spirits are enlivened. After this knowledge, we strengthen our divine nature, for we become what we love. Having become, we then act. Ideally, it is an self perpetuating, eternal cycle, whereby we ''Come Into Being, and by the Process of that Coming Into Being, our Process of Coming Into Being is Established.''

Intake - Transformation - Outflow - Intake - Transformation - Outflow - Intake - Transformation - Outflow - Intake...