Esoteric Arts

Every day informed citizens have tragedy and turmoil thrown at them. The more informed they are the larger their intake of this. Blogs, alternative news sources, conspiracy groups, earth changes links, all provide a steady trough of fodder at which many feed. We do it voluntarily so that we may know the real truth, “real” because so often the main stream media ignore the facts. Nevertheless even the main stream radio, TV and newspapers pummel us enough with bad news.

We need to know how to deal with this.

Firstly, realise that whatever is outside of you, the bad news, affects you if it finds a resonance inside. Birds of a feather flock together. In other words if you feel like dumping on the world the distribution networks will give you what you want. “It is all going down to ruin” you feel inside and so the outside input provides confirmation of this.

A woman tells a man friend that whatever she tells her husband goes in one ear and out the other. Her friend says his wife is the opposite. Whatever goes in one ear goes immediately out her mouth.

We are mostly like that woman. What interest us we like to share with others. So when we hear that bird flu will kill 100 million in 2 weeks, or that global warming is irreversible, or that the Bush gang plan to inflict something on the world again or whatever the bad news is we repeat it. We join the network of bad news.

We all know folk who can recite chapter and verse of what went wrong and what will go wrong in their lives and others. The internet is a great place for this. Instant focus on the latest scandal; instant oblivion on that and on to the next; till one reels unsteadily with the weight one now carries.

We really need a skill to handle this or we become the catastrophe.

Read that last sentence again. We will become the catastrophe. Do you want that as your future?

Spiritual vaccination!

I don;t mean living uninformed in a cocoon of isolatory false optimism, but practising good emotional hygiene to rid ourselves from inside of the resonances that latch onto bad news and become fervent spreaders of it. We become what we dwell on and there is a danger we become that awful virus of tragedy contagion.

So daily we need a hygiene that cleanses us. Meditation etc. I have my routines that affirm the beauty of life in me and outside me. (See my website www.esotericarts.org under topics.) I listen to the National CBC news, skim read some of the bad news on the internet, feel worse, shake my head and wonder where it will all lead. Then I take my spiritual bath or I look out over the lake to the trees stretching to the horizon, or the birds at the feeders or the cat snoozing in the sun and feel so lucky to be here. You don;t want to leave the house carrying all that toxicity and spread it. So practise mental and emotional hygiene.

The spiritual vaccination comes from any practice that roots you in joy, not as an escape, but as a fundamental reality.

We have layers of awareness going outside or inside. We can choose our direction. We can choose our focus. Inside we can feel our Bliss body. This is not New Age sweet talk. We have an energy layer to ourselves that is Bliss energy. It is there whether you have one leg, a bad knee, are in danger of bird flu or whatever.

You learn to communicate with it, to FEEL it. Reading about it, talking about it doesn;t cook the meal. You have to do the work to get there, not just imagining, faking or wishing. Many of the people who want this aren;t prepared to do the practicing.

What I teach is how to get in contact with your inner energy. It won;t happen without getting the foundations right. Taoist internal alchemy is not wishy washy. If you want, then you DO. And you keep on practising the doing till you get it right. Each step in the right direction brings the goal nearer.

I intend soon to write an essay on Meditation as work, Meditation as Fun (Play or Bliss). One mustn;t forget that meditation is also work. Take standing meditation. It takes grit to do this. I have put lots of hours experiencing this grit. Now it has become flow and fun. I do 6 different arm positions (see my book under “topics” for instructions) and hold each one for 7 minutes with the knees slightly bent and the pelvis dropped (not tucked please). This can be hard on legs and arms so it takes grit to do. But now I hear the hum and roar of different energies, the lights in the head and the sense, at times, that the body vanishes and all that is left is the absorption into That.

My TM has given a deep sense of inner Silence being touched by The Other. Internal Breathing alchemy allows me with one breath to feel That.

This morning I allowed the energy to come in and move though my energy body, cleansing, opening, a practice called ‘Big Snake uncoils its body;. The chakras (energy centres) open. There is a centre I have only read about twice. Not part of the usual 7 chakras. One yogi, into Kundalini, just put it in a diagram, another peripherally mentioned a bit about it but his followers don;t seem to have made a big deal out of it. Several years ago it opened for me, quite spontaneously very blissfully and then I remembered the references. When the attention is there, on it and it glows it is very Blissful. But I don;t hear it mentioned. I am no great shakes so I must assume other mystics have experienced it but don;t talk about it because it is a secret.

When I recently told my class in my School of Esoteric Arts about it, they all sat back and expected to get the information spoon fed and were surprised when I said I was keeping the secret at least until they showed some indication of working harder themselves.

This morning it glowed and I felt wonderful. The energy then moved about in my brain. There are many centres in the brain that can get enlivened. Afterwards I felt like I had antenna inside opened up and tuned to all sorts of Bliss frequencies, like my brain software was generating glowing happiness.

This is Spiritual vaccination. Then you can take on the bad news.

It is your choice; how you spend your time and your energy.

If, as seems very likely, that our world is moving into increasing chaos and tragedy are you ready? Can you get centred in one breath? If knowing your Bliss Body is important to handle the incoming energies you will be ready if you can feel it. If not, maybe you will miss them and the joy or, worse, get fried by them.

The Easter message is “I, if I be lifted up will draw all men unto Me.” Not just Christ but you too. If you can do this lifting, your “I” will be resplendent. Your head will be in Heaven your feet rooted on the earth.

If the world goes into any more chaos you will be needed.

Prepare ye the way of the Lord.

Get Lifted.

Love,

David

In most disciplines there is an external verity and then there is a deeper inner truth. Students understand from their level of experience. As their experiences deepen they will understand the same words in a different way. It is all perspective.

In Tai Chi classes Master Moy would tell a student to “sit; more. The student understood sitting to mean bend the knee and thus bring the buttocks lower. So when they sat lower as they understood his instructions to be, they would bend their knees further. This was physically demanding and their practice became a heavy workout. Young men loved that, lots of sweat. If they kept this up long enough the result was that their spine would open. Their vertebra would spread open especially in the lower back. It is the sort of thing that happens when you do pelvic tilt, except in our style we don;t do that as we want the joints at the hip to open in the front and the back. If you do a pelvic tilt the lower spine opens but the front joint closes.

As the spine opened one understood that “sitting” meant exactly that, that opening of the spine. It wasn;t bending the knees more. That is merely squatting. This is exercise, but external exercise. It means stretching the spine down, bringing the pelvis as though on a plate down. In mere squatting the spine goes down in one piece but in “sitting” the legs can bend minimally but the lower spine goes down and the upper spine stretches up. This is sitting with the spine. If the head goes down with the sit you miss that stretch up at the same time as you stretch down.

Stretching down means sinking into the feet, into the earth energy. Stretching up means getting the energy into the head, stretching into the sky or to ‘heaven”.

As the inner energy moves in this way the channel in the spine gets cleansed. Chi flows more easily from the bottom of the spine to the top. So does spinal fluid. The brain is enlivened. Sinking quietens the mind. It is a letting go. Everything drains down to the feet. You become one with earth energy. You die into the earth. Standing up you resurrect yourself and flow into your head, heaven. You are reborn.

As you become cosmically more tuned more cosmic energies flow through you. Earth and sky are not just metaphors for up and down. Your body does not end at your feet and head. There is a continuum of energy going down and going up. You stretch down beyond the feet and you stretch up beyond the head. If you do this you can feel there is a part of you above your head.

Indeed you surround your body like a golden egg. (Ecclesiastes 12.6, ”Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken… then shall the dust return to the earth” i.e. you die when that golden egg disperses. The Golden Egg sustains you.

As you communicate better with all that you are you also build and maintain these lines of communication.( Ecclesiastes again 1.6” The wind (Chi) goeth toward the south (the feet) and turneth about unto the north (the head); it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.”) Energy moves along circuits. Eventually a great energy in the base of the spine arises and rushes up the spine in an ecstatic flaming gust of fulfillment.

Till then the energy was playing around in the external, being attracted by this then by that, like a prodigal son. Attention was outside, on all the things of the world, all the situations, the responsibilites, the things that make us rush and get us tense. All our goals and dreams, trying to be happy. Seeking it outside.

And all the time the loving Father waited and waited. Then energy loops back on itself and the son says,” I will arise and go unto my Father.” The Father, Shiva, is in the head, the Sahasrara, waiting for the son. And the son rises up and joins his Father in Heaven, (the head and above the head).

We can be as prodigal as we like, but, at some point, we will say.

” I will arise and go to my Father.”

And I will say,”I have sinned.” But the father will take me in his arms and say,” Child all that I ever had is thine.” Why the instant reconciliation? because the only sin, the original sin is separation. Feeling separate from That which is within we can never find it outside. We only ever find what we are. When the energy has looped back on itself the circle is complete, you are complete. Order has been restored.

I will arise and go to my Father.”

You will be embraced. You have arisen. The energy has risen in you There is nothing more to do but live that, express That.

It is Easter Sunday as I write this, the day of the Resurrection, the Risen Christ. Yesterday I fed my bees. Today in the sun of a plus 3C morning they were buzzing around their black winter wrapped hives. All winter it is quiet outside the hives. So quiet you might think they were all dead. But inside they keep it warm and wait for the time of renewal.

Under the mulch my garlic lies ready for the pale shoots to turn green when in a few weeks I will pull the mulch away to give the shoots sun. I have moved my trays of onions, leeks and French shallots to the green house. Inside tomatoes have germinated. On the grass redwing black birds and migrating grackle have found the seeds I put out for them. Two red polls, a couple, got trapped on my porch. I caught them in a tea towel and each lay there so sweetly with their little head sticking out. It made me feel so tender.

As I did my Wild Goose Chi Kung set this morning three flocks of Canadian Geese flew overhead heading north. As above so below! Blessed and miraculous rhythm of life here; the big, the small, all of us creatures living, breathing and finding our spot under the glorious sun. I took off the lid of one of the compost bins scattered around my vegetable garden and peed in the bin. It is a time of renewal, recycling, a rising of the sap and we are a part of it all. Hallejujah!

I return to my quote from Ecclesiastes 1.6 about the energy circuits.

In the Microcosmic orbit we Taoists circulate energy up the spine from the perineum over the head and back down the front to the perineum again with the tongue providing the link between the two meridians. You can also do it in the opposite direction.

In the Macrocosmic orbit you bring it up from the middle toe, under the soles of the feet, up the back of the leg and spine to the head and then back down to the middle toe. In a class I once, by mistake, said I was going to teach the macroorgasmic circuit and got a young woman quite excited. I used to joke that if I had called my School the School of Erotic Arts I would have been more succesful than as Esoteric Arts.

“The wind goeth toward the South and turneth about unto the North.” This is the macrocosmic orbit circulating the chi (using the breath) between feet and head. Once you;ve got it is easy to do. There are four ways of doing the loop.

I often sit up in the night and do it a bit before going back to sleep. It beats lying awake.

“It whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to its circuits.”

As long as we are alive breath flows and energy moves. If we know the circuits we can build on and use Nature;s design to augment the flow. A stagnant pond doesn;t support life. It starts to smell, so too with our energy. In moving is renewal and better health.

You can circulate energy from the belly button to the back of the spine (Ming Men) and then in two loops back to the centre of the spine. You can feel the power centre start to glow. The kidney meridian and the chi belt store and cultivate sex energy.

(An aside: I was reading on a chat site about some Ayurvedic herbal medicine for restoring sexual vigour. It is banned in the States partly I think because it contains lead. This mixture is probably based on a recipe contained in that old saying “this will put lead in your pencil”).

I sometimes do the 9 circulations of the Internal Pill and teach this. It isa combination of macrocosmic circulation and some other meridians.

Several years ago my friend Richard drove for three days in a battered old car from New Mexico to teach me the Baptism of Fire circulation. It now forms part of the curriculum in my School but I haven;t taught it to any student yet. They need to show the right attitude, the right interest.

This technique uses a particular energy loop, a particular body position and a particular breathing pattern etc that allows the energy to build up in the head and the base of the spine charging each side like poles of a battery (positive and negative, North and South again you see). When the charge becomes large enough energy rushes up convulsively between them. Touch both poles of a battery and you will see what I mean. The breathing becomes rapid, the arms move and then the spasm is over. It is, I imagine, like a woman;s orgasm, except this is not sexual. Physical, yes; but not sexual.

This morning I did it over and over again for half an hour and decided to write a short essay on it.

Richard would say that when Shiva (the North, the head) gets charged enough then the charge in the base of the spine will induce Shakti to come to Shiva. Shakti has no choice. The two poles have become so charged that energy has to flow between them once contact is made.

It is being baptized with fire (Matthew 3.11). The rising energy up the spine can be like a fire. Not painful, an ecstatic gush of flames; or just a rush and a quivering, leaving you full and replete.

Isaiah 60.1 “Arise, shine; for thy light has come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” As the energy rises you see light in the head and you become radiant, you shine, for those who can see. This is the Pentecostal experience of the disciples when their heads were surrounded by flames.

Moving energy purifies the system, purifies the centres through which it passes. The dross gets burnt. There is a price for this. The price is that you have to deal with the ash that is left in the system. For a while the body can feel tired after a tumultuous experience. You will need rest.

The energy loops back on itself. I say this many times. In looping back is completion. One becomes spherical. As a sphere wherever you move you are at rest and centred. Just as in the centre of an axle there is no movement so at the centre of the sphere is stillness. This gives rise to the feeling of the mystic that nothing happens.

Oh yes the wheel turns, bad fortune, good fortune, you can;t stop that, can;t stop the turning for so long as you are part of life and its ebbs and flows, but, if you are at the centre you will be at peace. Taoists say this all the time. But, of course, what we mostly want is getting the wheel to move from bad fortune to good and then to stand still at the peak of our good fortune. No wave stays peaked. Every peak has a trough. We will never know peace that way, hoping to keep the wheel with its apex at good fortune, because we can not stop the wheel. Each life has its destiny, its parabdha karma that will work itself out. Good fortune, bad fortune, what ever your destiny is. But you can still learn to be serene amidst all that.

The energy passes through the heart, purifies it.

Matthew 5.8 “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”

What more can you want?

When I finished writing this and went out the back door three deer were on the lawn. We looked at each other a long time and then they took off into the forest, white tails flagging me.

Sometimes, isn;t life just so wonderful!

As we organise our life it seems to me we have two choices.

One is to try to guide our life to a future we want. This means to become master of our destiny, to apply our focus, energy and intention on the goals we want to achieve. It is not always easy to know exactly what it is we want, for although happiness is a convenient catch all goal the actual way we will become happy is unclear. So often we find that getting there does not bring the happy results we wanted. Nevertheless, trying is the exercise we set ourselves, the path of effort.

We decide what our priorities are and we aim at them. A lot people find some sort of balance between inner and outer priorities. We wrk because we want so much of material stuff and also so much of leisure to read, listen to music, exercise and develop our awareness. This is to be privileged and the privilege should be acknowledged and exercised responsibly.

The second choice involves accepting what life gives us based on the notion of seeking first the Kingdom of God and all else will be added to us. It discards the notion that our present is the product of our past and therefore our future will be made by our actions in the present. Or if ‘discards; is too strong a word, it casts its weight on the side of letting the future take care of itself, like the lilies. This world requires endurance. Take what you get and keep your mind on God. The problem with this is that we can become passive welcome mats for whatever the world wants to throw at us.

Taoists try to find the point of balance amidst opposing energies, walking that razor;s edge of effort and surrender. Too much swing either way, and balance is lost. We need some thin branch to hang on to as we balance on the edge of falling.

Balance in a dynamic world requires constant vigilance; to be yang, assertive, at the appropriate moment; but always ready to turn yin, receptive or retreating, when that is advisable. This way we balance our feminine and masculine and become more rounded as individuals.

There is no code book of instructions for this. By making mistakes we learn. All of us learn that way. By paying attention to how things work out, by our falling, we learn first how to re establish balance when it is lost and then how not to lose that balance. When are we too rigid, when are we too flaccid. All along our intuition gets honed so we start to feel, what is the right response, in any situation.

Gradually we learn where our choices will take us. It becomes complex because we live in a competitive world. Everyone seems to be selling something, or competing for our attention. Finding harmony and right action is a skill, like those graceful parents who can multi task while also dealing with fractious children, which sometimes includes their husband as an extra child.

Sometimes it seems that we live on a planet designed to make it difficult. It seems sad to me how often we will say wryly, “Well that was a learning experience.” This is always when the experience was a tough one. Why can;t our learning experiences be also pleasant ones?

I learned as a young person studying B. Comm LLB at Stellenbosch university to hope for the best but plan for the worst; business advice during a business strategy course. I remain one of those bouncing up persons who can never be knocked down for long; always optimistic and generally enthusiastic, an absolute pain to those who wallow in misery, who go often deeply into mourning like a familiar coat they pull on at the hint of bad news.

I remember telling a friend over 40 years ago that I felt my life was a long ‘thank you; and he replied, “Mine is a constant and loud, ‘Please;”.

One has to find a balance. I;d love to surf, hang glide and fly ultra lights but don;t have the time. I spend several hours each day doing my inner alchemy. Somehow my life revolves around that. It is what really matters to me. But I also do the shopping, plan the meals and cook them for the family, send the birthday cards and all that. I enjoy the company of others but revel in my own.

I don;t get everything I want. That seems to be life, doesn;t it. The clamors of material life around me get only so much attention and never at the cost of my inner work.

If one can balance inner and outer then life becomes a dance. And you become a joy to know.

Now isn;t that something!

Love,

David

P.S. So what about a cup of green tea? You can click on the green tea button just below to reach a site run by one of my students; very informative on the anti cancer properties of green tea, the varieties, how to store, how to make etc.

When we have souls that enrich our outer lives our inner beauty will create outer beauty. Our inner harmony will well into our lives with waters that are fresh and wholesome. Deep calls unto Deep. The planes of outer activity will have been flooded by the silt that comes coursing in great waves and our projects will flourish. I yearn for a culture of beauty. But just as gardens slowly wither with drought and repeated drought removes all traces of former green, so lives can get patterned by ugliness, the thorns instead of the blossoms, a cactus that never has flowers.

Take sexuality. If a person;s sexual life is not nourished by the lush creative, then water is not sprinkled on the valleys and peaks and gradually all withers and dies from lack of appropriate attention. One becomes without sexual vitality and charm.

I seem to have chosen an ugly time in which to live. It is not all ugly, naturally, but I feel the ugliness creeping in like a cancerous darkness with our cities, our roads, our military machines and the creativity that goes into horror films, into violence and the awful corrupting, banality of much of life.

We create what we are or rather how we see ourselves. How we see ourselves into that we become. The shallow has a culture of mediocrity, the plastic decoration and not the gushing fragrance of real aroma.

I give a sad glance into recent history. Turkey;s massacre in Armenia (1 million), Hitler, Stalin killing the Ukranians, Pol Pot killing 2 million of his own people, Israel/Palestine, Japan;s invasion of and cruelty in China, China doing the same in Tibet, what the Vietnamese call the American war (2.5 million Vietnamese dead, not to mention the living horror of the birth and genetic defects from Agent Orange), North Korea, Saddam Hussein, the Iraq war, Darfur, the suicide bombers, just ugliness spreading ugliness and strangling lives with hopeless absurdity and degenerate priorities.

We have war driven economies. Utne magazine had a reprint from The Humanist called “The Permanent War,” which was a devastating and gloomy recognition of how the USA has used war or the threat of war (fear of terrorism) to pump money into the military and military driven industries. Eventually the economy knows no other stimulus, a warfare state.

“I am running out of villains,”quipped Colin Powell (before the Iraq war),”I;m down to Castro and Kim11 Sung.” And if Colin Powell felt that imagine what the real hawks felt! Now whenever things get too loose the alert colour can easily be raised.

Money is made from wars and the threat of wars. Money is diverted from flowing into more beautiful channels into channels that make weapons and train violence. How did we come to this? How did we come to accept this? No, even approve it? Where, no matter what Bush did or does he will still remain The Man for most Americans?

Can we no longer recognise ugliness for what it is? A whole country gets ridiculously focussed on how Terry Schiavo lives or dies while at the same time billions of dollars get sucked into killing and maiming. What sort of people have we become? And where will it end?

What is spent on war and destruction is not spent on something else. It is as simple as that. If in your family the priority of spending your income is defending yourselves and not enriching your lives with beauty and harmony and grace, then how did you come to make this decision?

If you watch any theatre of the absurd, after a few minutes you accept the parameters and the absurd is seen as normal. After long enough of dragging chains it becomes impossible to imagine something else. In a family of smokers all smoke, one way or another.

If your soul is rich and full then the ugliness of it all is so evident. We need a revolution of beauty; a culture that extols the natural, the serene, the balance that comes when internal conflict has been resolved, so you don;t fester it on the world.

There comes a time when it is too late, when the garden has finally withered and there is no longer any hope for what could have been. It gets lost in increments. Gradually it dies, not with a scream but in exhaustion.

If we could creatively reduce our population numbers which drives many of our absurdities of excess and imbalance, if we could vote the violent and greedy out of office, and vote for beautiful souls, if we could have hearts and not just heads of corporations and governments then the sort of thing that happens as seen in this link http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/9/1/51972.html

could not occur. The why of that is a shriek.Why do people end up doing such cruel things to other people? Because the ugliness inside becomes manifest outside. Step by step we can go one way, step by step we can go another way.

Taoism flows towards the natural. When you are are at peace with yourself then you are not yearning with greed. To be natural is to be relaxed, to be in tune with the waves of creativity that pulse from God;s heart. You feel God;s in and out breathing.

I don;t know what drives your life but if is not that pulse then you might well be one of those that suppurate poisoned ugliness, those toxic personalities that blight life. There are too many of them, just read any newspaper other than the little locals I enjoy. And don;t be fooled, the Ugly can dress itself up and look cocky and smile winningly, but only if you have lost the eye for discerning bullshit.

What sort of life do you want for your children and their children and the children all round the world? Answer honestly and then DO something about it.

Many years ago I read of the theory that the earth has had the function of liver to the Universe for a while. That means that all the poisons (by which was intended unevolved, problematic beings) have been sent here for purifying. We got the violent, the cruel, the greedy and maladjusted. The cleansing function was due to end and be given to some other world. At that time all those still in need of re education would be sent to that world and those who were well adjusted would create a Heaven on our earth. Maybe?

It seems to me that anyone can, with discipline find harmony and beauty in their hearts. This is to cultivate beauty and eradicate the ugliness inside. When that happens it is intolerable to see the ugliness outside. But when we are ugly inside we don;t notice the contrast. We seek stimulations that are jarring and discordant. Inside we can find that sweet gentle voice of the Eternal that hums with the ever constance of the Always Spring, nourishing waters that lap on our hearts and when we feel that we can weep for all those moments when we didn;t feel That. Then, when we have a choice, we can choose to turn to That for the seduction of the Always I Am. This will be revolution of Beauty. Gradually the Ugly will find no ground inside us for its seeds and our world will have been transformed and the next generation will thank us.

Maharishi has been on mind recently.

I have been thinking how much I like him and what a pivotal role he played in my life. I last saw him alone, probably in 1974,late at night, on one of those European ATR courses. He had been messing around with me, then the T.M National Leader in South Africa. He was wont to do this with people, giving contradictory messages.This was making me feel unsettled as to my position and his confidence in me. I raised this with him, as tucked up in his cashmere blanket, he lay ready for sleep and said I was unsure of his love.

He replied " my love for you was established when first we met"

We met in 1962 (Hochgurgl). I had received word that my father was dying in South Africa and I was uncertain about staying for the months course. Henry Nyburg (Maharishis European right hand man) organised for me to see him alone, right at the start of the course. Maharishi took both my hands in a warm embrace and asked about my father. It was a special moment for me and set the tone both for the course, my first romance with the Absolute, my Kundalini rising and my subsequent frequent interactions with Maharishi.

My last direct contact, en route as an immigrant to Canada (in 1977), was from a phone booth off a Swiss Autobahn as I was leaving Seelisburg, having been given the run around for several days by Neil Patterson (because I had a moustache!) for the promised videos and a video machine so I could see some of Maharishis recent talks. On the phone Maharishi laughed heartily about this and said I could have gone to Canada as their national leader rather than as a bearded philosopher. My response was that that would have put a few noses there out of joint. It was the sort of thing he liked doing.

By then I was well on my way out from the T.M organization having decided, amongst other things, that if enlightenment meant anything it, at least, meant the freedom to be ones self as well as the ability to be ones Self.

Some 30 years later he comes to mind and I still feel such affection for him. He was a wonderful person to know and greatly enriched my life.

I do wonder how much of this comes from the Jungian projection one tends to make on such figures and the reluctance to give up seeing ones Soul in them.

My wish is that, when the time for him comes,he makes a happy transition. I am fortunate to have that warm happy feeling I get when, as now, I think of him and feel so grateful he was a part of my life.