The need to grow emotionally is a constant need. As a child, we have childish emotions of a very unstable nature. As we grow older, we are expected to mature emotionally. However, some never do. They age, but they never mature emotionally.

We grow emotionally as we slowly change our ways. We need to refocus our values in life. We must learn to live today as today really is, and not try to fit yesterday into today. We cannot become a more mature person without letting go of some of the less perfect desires and attitudes. One change of attitude can change one hundred bad habits that we hold.

Our desires are directly tied to our level of consciousness, and so are our emotions. Our attempt to grow and mature outwardly is a trying and difficult experience and usually results in defeat. When we decide to grow we must be willing to let go of that which we have outgrown. Some say this means to abandon the things we most cherish. However, when we go within and grow from the inside out, our growth becomes automatic; our focus of awareness or consciousness expands and we gain greater insight and our values change. To the degree that we increase our insight, we give up the things that belong to the lack of insight.

Because we are slaves to our emotions, becoming a master of our emotions is no easy task for us. However, this is a major objective in life and as we continue to meditate, we gradually discover that it becomes easier and less and less effort is needed to maintain control over our emotions. Our emotions may still nag at us, but they no longer control us, and that is a tremendous and welcome change. A positive attitude replaces the negative attitudes, and we feel much better and life starts to progress more easily.

As our interior life matures and our emotions become more mature, we gain a greater serenity within ourselves. Also, less effort is needed to maintain our integrities and inner calm. We are no longer buffeted by every breeze that blows. We no longer identify with every situation that confronts us. Whatever may be the daily vicissitudes of life, we maintain an inner peace. We find that we are no longer prostrated by the seemingly impossible situations of life. Life seems to flow, and we no longer need to force anything. We are now slowly and surely maturing. The slave is now becoming the master.

The war or conflict that goes on within us sets our attitude and behavior pattern towards all others. Because all of nature is positive, all humans have a natural inborn resentment toward negativity and negative people. Transcendental Meditation brings forth our positive nature while decreasing our negative psychic content.

The reason for our present condition is that we never coped with previous situations. We never faced the problems and now we are haunted by them. We have mostly been evaders. We have been dropouts from the discipline of life. As a result of this attitude, we have not developed strong nervous systems; rather we have allowed them to become weak.

If our nervous systems have become too weak, we cannot face the stressful problems of life. Transcendental Meditation, however, strengthens us as we continue to meditate. To a strong person, an emerging or trying situation is a challenge to be met, but to the weak, it is impossible. Many people collapse from the mental and emotional stress they place upon themselves. Life is a challenge, and if we cannot handle the present situations, we will be in very poor shape to meet and handle the future ones.

The thoughtful person is strong, patient and tolerant. The thoughtless person is weak and quick to condemn all except himself. When we start to meditate, we start to strengthen the nervous system, no matter what we are expressing when we start.

There is, and always has been, a basic spiritual mentality in us. It has long been latent, but thanks to Transcendental Meditation, it blossoms into full splendor, and others appreciate the change they see in us; we are appreciated for what we now express and the world appreciates the warmth and glow from the eternal light which now shines in us.

We are, at long last, no longer enslaved and driven by our emotions. We have become the master of our emotions. We are now able to stand vertical in the sunlight of spirituality and no longer dwell in the horizontal shadows of despair.