Just finished watching the program... If you are in the UK you can watch the program online at the BBC's website - go to the iPlayer section. But you MUST be in the UK - ie. with a UK IP address. If you are outside the UK, you will need to go via a UK proxy server, this will fool the BBC website into thinking you are in the UK. Look on the web for such a service.
Plus the program is only online for the next 7 days. http://tiny.cc/S9msm Synopsis: The presenter (a scientist - physicist) first does buddhist meditation with Matthiew Ricard in Nepal (AKA "The Happiest Man Alive"). Sitting cross-legged on a small stool; following her breath, days and days of practice etc. Then she (yes - she) looks at all the medical studies - and goes off to Vedic City, as the most pure research she could find is by the TM movement. She's given a tour of the SV houses, meets a nice TM family (the Johnsons) and then watches some flying - and is invited onto the foam to try for herself in the physical sense. Funny - she is laughing and no match for the male TMSP guys who have their flying down pat. But it's interesting how the flying does not shock her - she just finds it amusing. The guy showing her around was a touch creepy, a real TBer I'm sure. She hears about the "Unified Field Theory" and remarks in the voice-over how that's "not even been established yet". Shame they could not get John Hagelin to have a chat with her. Don't know what she would have made of a fellow physicist - he is very eloquent. She remarks how all the secrecy seems so odd, and baulks at the $2,500 to learn!!! But she say how happy and content everyone looks. No mention of the ME. Then she has a teleconference with a TM scientist in Holland who gives her the standard spiel. Then she goes back to the UK and looks at some of the major "reviews" of research into TM and heart health. Concludes that TM is a shade better then other techniques as far as the reviews are concerned. Then she moves onto other research on general buddhist "breath" meditation etc, as is amazed at the MRI scanning evidence. "Cortical thickness" is 0.1 to 0.2 mm thicker in people who meditate etc.. Then she talks to some doctors etc. who are doing "ground breaking research" etc - and coming to conclusions that the TM research established decades ago. It does take decades to change scientific viewpoints. But then some doctor who's working with depressed patients and using "mindfulness" meditation says how everybody should meditate, and how it helps emotionally in so many ways etc. She's very impressed. In the end she concludes that meditation is amazing, and she seems to now meditate regularly and how it's changed her life and she muses on what would happen if everyone meditated etc. So a good program - but just such a shame that the TMO were bit-players, and came out of it "odd" to say the least. I've never been in the movement as such - just a TMSP guy for 13 years with a few courses here and there. I feel sad for the TMO and all you folks who hoped it could be so much. But who knows what was MMY was really up to. How amazing it would have been if she'd tried these other buddhist meditations, and then been able to learn TM for say just $100 in a simple and un-strange environment. It would have been great to see what her experience would have been. You would have thought that they would have at least taught her - but no; that's just not what there about. It was strange to see Vedic City and the Domes etc; plus the SV houses and the Raj. Never been there.
