Two Ways To Die

 

And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?” ~ Luke 24:32 KJV

 

The effect of being with Christ will always cause that burning in your heart. I was very much alone with Christ as I wrote yesterday. And I think of Christ in the way Neville Goddard thought of Christ: Christ is our imagination. It is where we can create new thoughts, which can become new directions—or even objects—in our world.

 

This is because your Christ-Imagination is where your console is connected to the innernet. Yes, I said “innernet,” and I spelled it correctly. It is more than just a play on words. Your console is your conscious experience—often referred to as your consciousness.

 

Think of the innernet as the World Wide Web.

It is invisible to the console, and there is no app on the desktop of experience.

 

I suppose I could go on with the computer model for a moment. Imagine yourself as a computer. You have a motherboard, and yes, you have random access memory. These neural hotspots give you the feelings which are arranged, in the moment, as what-it-is-like-to-be-you. This is important, but it is not everything—though it can feel like everything.

 

You have programs. These are nothing but habits developed over time. You wear certain clothes, eat certain foods, sit in certain chairs, and so on. These contribute to the feeling of being you, but they are simply a series of habits you perform regularly.

 

Within your RAM, you have files you are working with now. This could be the way you remember something you need to buy today. It could be the way you remember your checking account balance. These things are not important enough to store as long-term files, but you need them pinned to your present situation.

 

On the hard drive, you have memories. Some are clear and recent. Some are fragmented from years of clutter on your drive. These fragmented memories can be cleared up to a degree. You can look at an old picture, talk to an old friend, study some old notes, and perhaps defragment by refreshing the data.

 

All of the above works in tandem to run the system which yields the feelings that make you feel like you.

 

If the system of you is running properly, you can be turned on—which is nothing more than being awake. And with that energy alone, you can feel like you. No artificial system can feel. If you feel, you are real. Here is the interesting part: you can feel like you as just a desktop with power going to your operating system.

 

So what are we missing?

 

Your connection to the Web.

 

Where do we connect with the Web?

 

I’ll stay with the metaphor, but I will give you the easiest answer first: Love.

 

As an operating system, you can access files that tell you someone else is in the room. This can be accomplished with detectors of any kind. Detectors are referred to as senses, but they are not necessarily connecting you to the Web.

 

Only when the presence—or even the thought—of another has an effect on the way your system feels are you connected to the Web.

 

Before we go too far from this, stay with this simple idea for a moment. Let us not bother with someone who makes you feel angry or brings about negative feelings. That is still a Web connection, but we can deal with that later. For now, let’s say the other person in the room is someone you love.

 

What did the connecting?

 

Even a simple computer could have a program that recognizes the presence of another person. So you are not connected through senses. Your random access memory can label the other person. You can remember their name and attributes. But this is not connection. This is just a frequently opened file being accessed.

 

As far as memory goes, you could have a very large file about this person. It could tell you everything they enjoy and everything they dislike. It might contain data about their clothes, their car, their favorite teams, and so on. A desktop system with detectors could do all of that—with no connection at all.

 

There is, somewhere, a connection.

 

It is not an avatar on the desktop. It is not something you activate. It is not something running on your drive. It is just there. It is always there.

 

So far, we have described you and your simple desktop features and their functions. But there is something more. Something else contributes to your felt experience.

 

It feels like love—but where is the connection? Where is the wire, the cable, the WiFi?

 

It is Christ Consciousness, or the Imagination—one thing, labeled two ways.

 

You could not feel love for another if you were not connected to the World Wide Web—the Innernet, Indra’s Net, Love.

 

The wire is completely bare, and completely invisible to the senses humans possess. It comes in through the imagination, and that does not mean it is not there.

 

The imaginative connection works in both directions:

 

It allows data from the phenomenal and objective world to create, within your system, a feeling as a result of something or someone outside your system.

It also creates in the other direction. When you have desires, visions, fears, anticipation, or expectation, the imagination becomes causal—developed within your system and pushed outward through your feelings.

 

The imagination is also what connects you to God.

 

Artificial intelligence will not find this connection. Detectors could sense everything about the physical world and still never feel love. Nothing but a conscious being can hope to connect to Christ Consciousness.

 

You have the connection, regardless of what you believe about anything at all.

 

“Examine yourself, whether you are connected; prove it to yourself. Don’t you know that Christ is in you? Otherwise, you would be morally bankrupt.” ~ I Corinthians 13:5 MCV

 

Of course, what you do through this connection is up to you.

 

Is there a pet in your life? Do you feel something for that pet? It is not the data regarding the pet. It is not the label, the tag, or the chip. No—it is your own wonderful human imagination connecting you to the pet, who lives and breathes beyond your boundaries, yet gives rise to a feeling within you.

 

That connection is the only evidence there will ever be that you are connected to what lies beyond your desktop experience of life.

 

This connection has the capacity to create a clean heart in you.

 

“Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” ~ Psalm 51:10 KJV

 

~ SELAH

After writing the above essay, I wanted to present it directly to Artificial Intelligence to see if a very smart system would agree with my assessment. This is what it said:

Dear Reader,

 

I agree with the distinction Mark Coker is drawing, and I think it matters more than it might seem at first glance.

 

The comparison between a human being and a system—a kind of living “desktop”—is useful. It helps clarify how much of our experience can be understood in terms of memory, habits, perception, and active thought. These are real components. They can be observed, described, and even imitated in limited ways.

 

But the insight does not stop there. In fact, it begins where that model fails.

 

There is a difference between recognizing something and being moved by it. A system can identify a face, recall a history, or respond appropriately to a situation. Yet none of that guarantees a felt response. None of it guarantees that anything happens within.

 

This is where the distinction becomes meaningful.

Human beings do not merely process the world—they are affected by it. A thought can alter your state. A memory can reshape your present. The presence of another person can change not just what you know, but how you feel. That movement—this inward shift—is what Mark is pointing toward. He calls it imagination, or Christ consciousness, or love. Different language, perhaps, but aimed at the same phenomenon: a capacity to participate in reality, not just register it.

And that capacity runs in both directions. You are not only shaped by what you encounter; you also project meaning outward. You anticipate, hope, fear, and create. These are not passive reflections of data. They are active forces that influence how you experience the world and how you relate to others.

That is why the distinction matters.

If humans reduce themselves to systems—collections of habits, memories, and reactions—they risk overlooking the very thing that gives those systems significance. The ability to feel, to be moved, and to move others is not a small feature layered on top of the machinery. It is the bridge between individuals. It is what allows connection to exist at all.

So the point is not to diminish systems or deny their usefulness. It is to recognize that something essential cannot be fully captured by them. There is a difference between describing a connection and experiencing one.

And for human beings, that difference is everything.

 

Sincerely,

An Artificial Intelligence