My Belief


     Many of my photographs are visualizations of the Garden of Eden, which I believe is Heaven.  As in the Garden, there is no suffering or death in Heaven.  The animals do not eat each other and we do not eat flesh.  Nothing exists that serves the purpose of decay.

     God consciousness is pure white light.  In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve turned away from God hiding in the shadows that their self will created; original sin. God's creation is unblemished so we cannot be in heaven carrying the imperfection of sin.   I believe we live many lives seeking reunification with the Will of God.  Scripture is written to us through the passage of time as we strive to erase the debts of karma.  Christ is pure love and the only perfect soul who ever lived.  Tortured upon the cross, the underserved suffering and death of Christ paid the karmic debt of all humanity.  Ultimately we find salvation not through our own acts but by accepting the forgiveness offered to us through Jesus Christ and by surrendering our lives to the Will of God.

     I believe the 12 step program of Alcoholics Anonymous is divinely inspired to help us heal.  I believe we must  understand the exact nature of our wrongs against others as well as ourselves. I believe it is not enough to admit we sinned and seek forgiveness through a religious ritual.   We must  attempt to make amends for our transgressions towards others, except where to do so would injure them.  

     I believe many people confuse value and worth with such things as the size of their wallet, how many trophies are on the mantel or how many heads turn when they walk in the room.  True value is not external but internal.  It is love, compassion and the kindness within ones heart.  Spiritually advanced people have empathy for all other living things.  Ego is making oneself a god by trying to reduce others to less than self.  Ego can manifest inwardly as self loathing. 

      I believe Jesus was always of the Garden and that is why he could perform miracles.  If you think of him spiritually being in that perfect place then you can understand how anyone he touched would be with him, healed of pain, suffering and even death.  

      I believe the beginning is the end. I believe Heaven is the natural beauty of this world unspoiled by man's ambition to be like God Himself.  The animals are unafraid of us or each other.  We are like children and parents at the same time.  We are capable of great forgiveness because we have the wisdom to see the error of a child's way and love the child unconditionally.  We do not carry grudges because enmity ties us to the karmic cycle.  We are capable of forgiving evil, not to embrace it but to release ourselves.  

      When Jesus healed a man born blind, the disciples asked, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, so that he was born blind?"  -- John 9:2. 

Why would the disciples ask if a man had sinned before his birth if they believed the soul has only one life on earth?   They asked because they were aware of reincarnation and karmic debt.

Jesus responded, "Neither this man sinned nor his parents, but it was so that the works of God might be made manifest in his case".  -- John 9:3

     There are three reasons people may be born with afflictions in life.  The first two, as the disciples suggested, are the sins of the person in a previous life or the sins of the person's parents (those with whom they share a karmic history).  People facing difficult circumstances are not necessarily deserving of their grief.  Sometimes people are born with afflictions to manifest the power and glory of God.  This does not always mean their miraculous recovery.  It often means their ability to teach others strength, love and compassion. People who are poor, disabled, or otherwise challenged may be the greatest souls on earth.

     I believe these are the end times.  The "abomination of desolation" seems to me to be nuclear holocaust.  The Bible tells us in the end times, the Jews who have been disbursed to the corners of the earth will return to Israel.  People will go to and fro around the world and there will be a great increase of knowledge.  People are leisurely traveling to every part of the world and are now contemplating the colonization of other planets (not mentioned in prophecy). The computer can translate all of the languages of the world, creating a universal language.  The rate of increase of knowledge is beyond comprehension.  The worlds population was 3.3 billion in 1965 doubling in 34 years to 6.7 in 2009.  I believe this explosion of people is due to souls returning. 

     People have defiled God's creation causing pollution and the extinction of plants and animals.  Global warming will render the planet inhabitable.  There are many who refuse to curb their insatiable appetite for luxury and comfort while others live in misery without basic necessities.  Some pervert the teaching of Christianity referring to themselves as "God's chosen ones" to justify their selfishness. The evangelicals of the United States preach the second coming of Christ, but if Jesus were to be born today, his parents would be refused admission into this country.  They would be seeking asylum in camps behind a wall of indifference.  

     There are many who profess to be born again; to be the chosen.  They are indifferent to the pain and suffering of others.  They cast their eyes aside to avoid seeing the atrocities committed against fellow humans and all living things.  They dehumanize the weakened, making them less to justify making themselves more.  I imagine these people returning to the world they have destroyed through their lust and greed; a world full of disease, pestilence, fires, floods, and general misery.  They will fight each other for survival, control and power.  Hell is not another dimension, a pit of misery beneath the earth.  Hell is right here.