5. Inside the Mind of G-d

In Chabad Chassidus, metaphors aren’t just cute comparisons. They’re essential tools. They take abstract spiritual truths and make them graspable—sometimes even feelable. And there’s one metaphor that stands above the rest in its power to shake our sense of reality: the metaphor of imagination.

So let’s try something together.

Not a thought experiment. A mind experiment.

The Beach in Your Mind

In a few minutes, I want you to close your eyes and create a scene in your mind.

Let’s keep it simple: Imagine sitting on a beach.

Try to make it vivid. Picture the endless blue water. Hear the waves gently slapping against the shore. Let the sand run between your fingers. Feel the warmth of the sun heating your skin. Look out at the horizon—where the sky kisses the sea—and maybe catch a bird gliding across the sky.

Can you smell the salty air? Taste the breeze? Try to engage all five senses.

Now, here’s the question:

Was that real?

Of course not—at least not physically. The sand, the sun, the ocean… it was all made up. But not randomly. It was built from your memories, your sensations, your inner world. That entire beach existed within you.

you created a universe inside your mind.

You were its source, its energy, its boundaries. You were the G-d of your beach.

G-d’s Imagination: A Chassidic View of Reality

This simple exercise isn’t just a fun visualization.

It’s a metaphor for how Chabad Chassidus understands G-d and existence itself.

Everything we see, touch, and experience—all of it—is like that beach. It exists within G-d. All of reality is being “imagined” into existence at every moment. If G-d were to stop “thinking” about the world, even for a nanosecond, it wouldn’t explode or vanish dramatically. It would simply stop existing, as if someone snapped out of a daydream.

“Ain Od Milvado” doesn’t just mean there’s no other god. It means there is literally nothing else. There is no “outside” to G-d. All is within Him, constantly sustained by His Divine thought.

Science Is Catching Up

This might sound mystical and far-fetched—until you realize science has started to say eerily similar things.

We used to think reality was made of solid stuff. But science tells us that everything is atoms. And atoms are mostly empty space. Then we discovered atoms are made of even smaller particles—electrons, quarks, and more. At this level, the rules of nature don’t behave the way we expect. Time stretches. Space bends. Particles can exist in multiple places at once.

The deeper we probe reality, the less “solid” it seems. Now, some scientists even suggest that at the core of everything is not matter—but consciousness. A “quantum consciousness” behind all that exists.

Sound familiar?

Chabad Chassidus has been teaching this for centuries. Not just that the universe is mysterious, or spiritual, or energy-based—but that its ultimate essence is Divine consciousness. G-d’s will. G-d’s thought. G-d’s imagination.

So when you look around the room—yes, even right now—everything you see is part of G-d. Within Him. Sustained by Him. Made of Him.