Along with mitigating stress levels and improving health, the TM technique strengthens the deeper aspects of a soldier’s personality—his or her emotional stability, contentment, strength-of-self, and self-directedness.

Self-actualization, a concept popularized by psychologist Abraham Maslow, is a measure of the development of an individual’s full potential—determining the extent to which an individual has realized his or her true purpose for living. A fully self-actualized person is self-motivated and self-directed—having transcended the desire for peer acceptance.

Qualities of a
self-actualizing
individual
include:

• Accurate perception of reality
• Acceptance of self, others and nature
• Naturalness and simplicity
• Detachment
• Autonomy—independence of culture and environment
• Discrimination between means and ends—between good and evil

Increased Self-Actualization

Through the Transcendental Meditation PROGRAM

Psychosomatic Medicine 35: 341–349, 1973

This meta-analysis of all available research (42 independent study results) indicates that practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique increased self-actualization by approximately three times as much as procedures of contemplation, concentration, or other techniques.

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