59. Ben Benyamin: Author of A Journal of Cosmic Memories

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to episode number 59 of our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, I interview one of the world's top authors, and as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and to live better. In this episode, I have the pleasure to interview author Ben Benjamin. Ben lives in Pennsylvania and practiced law as a civil rights attorney for 20 years before writing this book. He enjoys family time, and then in no particular order, reading and writing words, ancient books and texts, writing music and playing instruments, spiritual seeking, and communing with nature. Our conversation today is all about his brand new release, A Journal of Cosmic Memories: The Dimension of Trees, which is a fun and intellectually stimulating read. I've always loved spiritual fiction. So if you're somebody who loves learning about life's bigger questions, this book, and in particular this podcast, are going to be a great fit for you. So without further ado, please enjoy this amazing conversation with Ben Benjamin. Ben, thank you so much for joining the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books podcast. How are you doing today?

I'm doing well, thank you very much.

Yeah, I'm excited for our conversation. So I just finished up your new release, A Journal of Cosmic Memories: The Dimension of Trees, and I'm excited because this is really the first first podcast episode that I'm hosting where we talk about literary fiction with spiritual themes, which has always been one of my favorite genres. So I'm excited, a little bit nervous. But before we dive into the content, I'd love to have you introduce yourself to everybody in the audience.

Hello everybody, uh, I'm Ben Binyamin. I am the author of A Journal of Cosmic Memories: The Dimension of Trees. It is a work of fiction with spiritual and metaphysical themes. Um, and I'm very happy to be here, so I'm looking forward to this. Thank you very much.

Can you tell everybody a little bit about who the target reader for this book might be and what some of the overall themes are?

Sure. Um, you know, the target reader I think is broad, but, uh, again, people that— people who enjoy literary fiction and spirituality, and not just religious spirituality, but universal spirituality, the kind of spirituality that crosses through the religions and is common among them all. So themes of, you know, reincarnation, themes of the soul, themes of spiritual aspects of, you know, states of consciousness, but within a fictional story that is in fact literary fiction. So it's difficult to classify, but for me it was enjoying to write. So I would invite all readers who might enjoy a fictional story with inspiring spiritual themes to read this book.

I think that's a really good way to put it. As we talked about before we jumped on and I pressed record, I've read some books in this space that I've really enjoyed. And after reading yours, I would stack it up next to them. So books like The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, or Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. And then I've also read some Eastern wisdom philosophy books. And I think your book touches on a lot of those subjects too. Like I've read The Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. or Life's Amazing Secrets by Gaur Gopal Das. So are those books that, that my listeners might be able to compare yours to, do you think?

Well, I would have to remain humble there and say that I could only hope that would be true. Those books are all amazing books. And I think if you enjoy those books, and if you enjoy those kinds of books, then, then my book would also be up your alley. And I could only hope to Amazing.

Yeah, we talked about this too before we jumped in, but I think for me, I love nonfiction. I love practical, applicable books. And I also love to think. I like to be challenged. And I think your book, although it is literary fiction, does all of those things for me as a reader. So I think everybody in the audience will appreciate that. Many times, and we'll touch on some of these subjects in just a moment, but many times throughout your book, I found myself thinking, wow, that makes a lot of sense, or I'm really excited that he was able to articulate the way that I was feeling with this story or with this metaphor or something like that. And so I guess a good place to start out is to start to describe what is the dimension of trees and why was this used as sort of the core metaphor for some of these states of consciousness that we were talking about.

Okay. And, uh, and for your listeners, because we— this is a work of fiction, um, I'm gonna be careful not to give any spoilers. And so that's going to, you know, restrict a little bit some of my descriptions or answers. So I'll talk more about the themes than I will about the story. Um, but essentially, the dimension of trees in the story, um, is a place where, uh, trees exist, and the trees are trees that are representative of our consciousness. So if you can imagine that each, each person who's alive has a tree in this dimension, and that tree grows and receives sunlight and energy from the sun. And the person is actually connected in the dimension of trees to that tree. Um, and so when the energy from the sun comes in through the leaves of the tree, down through the tree, through this connection— which we won't get into the details, we'll leave that for the story— it soaks up this energy, this pure light energy. And eventually we learned that the light energy that's coming from the sun, it's not just light, it's— it contains information and data. And there's a direct connection between yourself and your soul and your tree, and then your life here and your actions in the earth dimension. And the story kind of explores that in a way, without again getting too detailed or spoiling anything. It's part of the story, it's not the entire story. But it's one of the fun places that we get to go to. So I hope that kind of introduces the concept. It's a beautiful place. There's— it's a place of nature. There's groves of these trees, each one having a human in some form attached, in some spiritual form to it, that remains attached during the lifetime. And so the things that happen here. in the earth dimension will actually impact the growth of the tree in the tree dimension. And, and that's just a little kind of basic introduction. And again, that's not where the whole story occurs, but that's one of the places that we travel to.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think as a reader, it's great to envision yourself sitting under one of these trees or across the river And watching the light bodies with the trees, because it can help you understand some of these things that are so hard to articulate. And one of the themes in the beginning of the book that I'd love to have you expand on a little bit is the difficulty distinguishing between dream and memory. And this is something that, as you develop this theme or point in the story, I started to kind of connect to it in different ways. Um, so I guess before I ramble anymore, I'll give some reflections after you talk for a few minutes. Could you talk a little bit about that difference between dream and memory?

Sure. Um, yes, and this is a, you know, one of the recurring themes of the book. Um, you know, essentially one of the characters at different times— and, and this isn't much of a spoiler because it's, it's noted in the very beginning of the book— has difficulty distinguishing between his dreams and reality. Uh, you know, what occurred while he was awake, what occurred while he was asleep, what was a vision, what was reality, what was a dream. And he would fall asleep and have a dream, and, and the things would be so real in this dream, he would dream in this dream that he fell asleep and had a dream, you know. And so when did you wake up, and, and when are you dreaming? And, and then it goes along with, you know, from Eastern religion and philosophy. The theory that, you know, the universe or the god is— the different grand periods of time, the different yugas, and in between the two, the god sleeps. And the cosmic egg then opens when the god awakes and— when God awakes and the universe is created again and has another whole entire period of growth and expansion until the end of that period. And it's all a dream of the god. And then there's the theories of consciousness that state that, and religion and spirituality, that state that, you know, the entire material plane that we live in was formed from the thought and desire, essentially the supernal thought of consciousness itself. So the material, the material world is nothing but a dream of the creator. In some way. And so this is what it says, and we're not preaching, we're just exploring. And, you know, um, what, what does that mean and how does that reflect back down with our states of consciousness and, um, perspectives on reality? And so again, within the fictional stories that are presented We have fun exploring these issues.

That's a really good way of phrasing it, because for most of my listeners, we read traditional nonfiction books, and you are being preached to most of the time in those books. And so what you just said is pretty cool. You're exploring, because that's exactly how I felt as a reader. I was exploring concepts that I've thought about, or that felt familiar to me, that I couldn't really put my finger on. Where did these come from? Why am I so familiar with these terms? And I'm exploring with you and the characters in the book as they're exploring. And so it's kind of fun. Now, I want to kind of change direction a little bit. You just mentioned the Creator and consciousness. So there's a quote I'd like to read from the book. It says, all the infinite dimensions combined form a single whole of the entirety of all that is, which is consciousness itself, the Creator. And so could you go a little bit deeper on that subject? What do you mean by dimensions? And, and how do these fractal divisions take place in an what way does this represent the story?

Okay, and again, I just ask everyone to remember that I'm not preaching, and I'm not preaching any particular religion. I'm only exploring themes that exist in several religions and bringing them forth in my fictional story. So, um, first of all, dimensions— what we talk about dimensions. So just, uh, there's a couple of quotes in the book that actually quote from the, the Bhagavad Gita and from, uh, the Zohar and a couple other texts from the Buddha. Each of these religions— though we're talking about Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism in those 3, then there's also a quote, uh, about the Quran, so we're talking about, um, the Muslim religion, and we're talking about shamanism. So each of them acknowledge, uh, different dimensions, um, and, and we go through that in the book. And so just taking Judaism for, for instance, we've all heard of the, the 10 Sefirot, The ten fractal dividing—we can call them dimensions. They're called sephiroth. They might be called spheres. These are the the the ten spheres that appear on the tree of life within Hinduism. It's acknowledged in the Bhagavad Gita that there the universe there are many multiverse universes. There's you know as many infinite number of universes that all live within the singular source. Um, in, um, Islam, it's acknowledged that there are 7 sacred dimensions, multiple dimensions. The— in shamanism, it's said that the shaman travels through the spiritual dimension. So these are the kinds of dimensions. There's dimensions of consciousness. Then there's, um, quantum physics as well, and we talk about that, uh, and essentially is in accord with what we're talking about, in that, you know, the collapse of the quantum wave— there's every possible occurrence that occurs, that could possibly occur, happens all at once simultaneously. But the only one that is registered is essentially the one that is observed. And so there appears to be potentially a multiverse. There are different forks in the road. If you went right or if you went left, and then the various results of those choices existing simultaneously in various universes. So these are the kinds of dimensions. And then when you're talking about the creator, what I was able to say in that quote, you know, is to take everything that I just said and after kind of demonstrating that it's a theme that, that goes through these various religions, I'm putting forth, I guess, within the story, of course, I'm putting forth the thought that all of these, the multiverse, the infinite universes, the infinite dimensions, the fractal dividing nature of it all, but all of it actually is one thing. And that is the what we call consciousness, the creator. And now when you get into the creator, you're talking about God, essentially, in one word. Or you can call it consciousness, you can call it the source, you can call it, um, anything you want to, actually. And that's why, you know, basically there's— there is no proper name or sufficient name or way to describe That which created everything. So, um, all names fail, and that's kind of the point, is that whatever that thing is and whatever we want to call it— without— let's not argue about the name of it, but let's acknowledge that it's there and then realize that if it's there, then everything else we're talking about is actually it. And so are we in some way.

Mm-hmm. That's, that's a good representation of what we just talked about that we're exploring, because oftentimes I'm given questions about some of these bigger subjects and about religion at Book Thinkers.

Yeah.

And I don't have, you know, I don't have a good grasp or way to articulate some of these things sometimes. And, and in one perspective, you, you do all of that within this book. And again, you're not preaching, you're exploring, you're talking about and bridging different religions to kind of come up with a definition for the reader within the story of what does consciousness mean. And I really like how, I don't know, maybe about halfway through the book, you say that 2 words sum up one of the most important lessons in this entire book, which is be yourself. And then you kind of say, well, does the self actually exist? Well, it doesn't matter if it exists. Be what you are, whatever that is.

Yeah.

And be which you go on to say, For if the self does not exist, then be that which does, because something exists. Why does it matter if there's a label or not? It's just a delusion. It's a dream. It doesn't matter. Um, so I really like how you go on to articulate it in that way, if that makes any sense.

Yes, thank you. And, um, that's a— that is a theme of the book. And, um, that particular part is connected with like talking about the self and people that, you know, there's theories that we all hear, the self, there is no self. But just because there— if you believe that the self doesn't exist, then okay, don't be the self, but be whatever you are, you know.

Mm-hmm.

And then you are being yourself because you're only one thing, which is yourself. And so that's part of it. And then it— but, you know, it talks about as well, Um, through— again, it sounds like we're just talking about philosophy, but there's actually a story here. It's just that I, I won't get in— I don't want to talk about it too much for, for the spoiler parts, you know. Um, so just so the readers understand, it's not just all philosophy, but we're talking about the philosophy behind the story.

Um, and I'll, I'll add a note real quick, which is that the story or stories that are intersecting are all very well written and they're entertaining. So one of the reasons that I love reading biographies or auto- autobiographies or certain fiction books is because they play as if they were a movie in your mind. And it might sound a little bit funny to you, Ben, because you might spend more of your time in the fiction space. But for me as a nonfiction reader, 95+% of what I'm reading, it's refreshing to have a storyline and different characters and fun things are happening and action. And, and so there's a lot of that built into the book and it's written really well.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Yeah, you're very welcome.

We worked really hard. And, you know, while I'm here, I do want to acknowledge I had inspiration as I was writing the book from working with the artist whose illustrations appear in the illustrated edition. And she first asked me to write about one of her paintings. And we just kind of, you know, hit it off, and I started writing about one of her paintings, and she gave me another painting, and she said, here, you know, write something for me on this. And people can see this painting on, you know, on my Instagram or my website, but it was a painting of basically, um, kind of people sitting under trees in some spiritual world. And when I looked at this painting, you know, this story just came to me. And I was able to sit down and pretty much from there write this book. But it was inspired as well. I had some inspiration. And so I want to acknowledge her name is Jenny Richter. And she is a fantastic artist. And her illustrations do appear in the illustrated editions.

And they do appear at least in black and white in the Kindle version as well. Because I went through to grab some quotes there.

Yeah, they appear— we have different— we have black and white. I think in the Kindle they might be color. I'm not sure though.

Yeah, I guess it depends on what type of Kindle you have.

Exactly.

Yep, yep, yep. No, but, uh, Jenny did an amazing job too, and I spent a lot of time, I think, in the book after reading a certain section, observing the art and spending time with the art, because again, it was a really fun representation of what was happening in the story. You brought this up at the beginning, and, uh, and so did I. We talked a little bit about dream versus memory versus reality and states of consciousness. So how did you, as the author, Ben, get interested in this world? Because you touch on maybe a dozen different philosophies and religions all sort of in one book here.

Yeah, um, well, I've always been interested in spirituality and religions. And I've, you know, ever since I was a kid, been, been reading these books and studying the topics. And in college, you know, studied the topics and afterwards formally and informally. And I tried to read the actual foundational texts of the various religions throughout my life. Without exception, as many as I could get my hands on in terms of whatever was available in a language I could understand and read. So that was good. And, you know, when you do that and you, you realize that, you know, we all— our religions have way more similarities most of the time than they do differences. And most of the differences are really matters of semantics most of the time. And it's just a shame that, that, you know, over the years beautiful spiritual things sometimes have become, you know, the object of difficulties in life or among nations. But I think that, you know, for me, I've always been curious and wanted to, you know, write down my thoughts about why things are— why religions are more similar than people realize. And then I went and, you know, through the story in the book, I think I tried to do that. And I was gratified, you know, when it was released. And I have— I've heard from people of all different religions. It's really amazing. I heard from people in India. I heard from a person literally in Pakistan. I never thought that anyone would want to read my book like that from Pakistan or India or anything. But for some reason they did. And I had to actually, you know, help and set up a special shipment to get books over there so that this person could get it. And I was a little bit like, okay, oh, I don't know, you know, because it requires— you just, you have to have an open mind to, to, to, you know, realize sometimes the similarities and not focus on the differences or whatever it is. So I was a little worried. And, you know, he came back with just such a glowing review that lifted my spirits. I couldn't believe it. So— And he's a religious person of his own religion. It doesn't matter what religion you are or what religion you are not. If you believe in, you know, universal spirituality, then most— 99% of everything is going to match up.

No, I agree. Personally, I was raised in a Catholic household, and I went to church every Sunday. And I, I would say I have a pretty good connection to my religion and understanding. I read the Bible. But, uh, I am definitely interested in universal spirituality, and this book is a good representation of that. You mentioned India. We have a lot of followers from India, so that's why I was excited to get your book in front of my audience, because I thought a lot of people would resonate with it.

Yeah, well, there, you know, like I said, there are some verses from the Bhagavad Gita and other religious texts in there as part of the story. And so when the book was released, some of those from Being on the internet drew a lot of attention from Indian readers, and I was very gratified, um, to learn that. And there are— one of the themes of the book, and again, I should tell people, like, I don't think it's a religious book in any way.

I don't either.

You know, but yes, it, it does talk about these topics, and you can, you can think about that as much as you want, but it's part of the context of the story of the characters in the book and how it comes up. But it's not the primary focus. These are just the interesting parts we're talking about. But yes, part of the fictional theme is reincarnation. And so that goes along with, you know, a lot of the Indian spirituality, of course. And people don't realize it, but it also goes along with Jewish spirituality. And it goes along with spirituality of other religions. People don't acknowledge it as much as it is acknowledged in, let's say, the Indian religion. But, um, in the Jewish ancient tradition of, um, the mystical tradition, there's absolutely, um, reincarnation of souls and all kinds of aspects. Uh, in fact, that's where many of the thoughts come from. So that's part of the story, um, without getting too deep into it, if that interests you, those concepts.

One thing that I'd love to hear a little bit about Since you've studied all of this, um, at great length, I, I always have this conversation about relational— well, I, I guess I shouldn't say I always have this conversation about religion, but I mean, it's generally accepted that Aristotle was one of the first scientists who focused on logic and observation and inquiry and things like that. Prior to that, everything was transmitted by story and by metaphor. And so religion had a stronger hold because we weren't viewing things in a literal sense. We were always talking in metaphors as human beings. And so I think that's why people need books like this to kind of stop being so critical of every little detail and to kind of immerse themselves in the story. That's one of the reasons that I really do enjoy reading literary fiction with spirituality because it allows you to do that.

Yeah, and, um, you know what, it's, it's interesting that you mentioned that with the, you know, in terms of the scientific method and science versus religion. But then another one of the themes of the book, right, is the aspect again of quantum physics and demonstrating how several aspects of quantum physics just go right along with spiritual, um, kind of ideas. And, and again, without spoiling that too much, uh, we talked about one, you know, the multiverse and, and multiple dimensions being mentioned in spiritual traditions. Um, and, and there's others that we get into, like quantum entanglement, that not scientifically and not religiously on the other side, but again, through the fictional story.

Yeah. And you talk about relativity as well.

There's— yes. And, and so that was another kind of some of the comments I got. People appreciated that, how how, um, it drew their mind to, to see actually, to the contrary, it's not necessarily that science is kind of, um, uh, disproving so much, uh, spirituality, but in some instances goes right along with it. So it really depends on one's perspective.

Sure. Well, let's go into the subject of time a little bit, because that was one of my more interesting takeaways and observations. I've always personally had this struggle with the concept of time as a linear Progression. I know that as human beings, especially, you know, the ones that grow up in the United States, we follow very specific measured progressions like minutes and hours and days and years. And so we're reinforced, you know, we have to work from specific times, from 8 to 5, and we have to do this and we have to do that. And so I've always kind of thought about the past and the present and the future. And I even have a couple tattoos about mindfulness and relativity and stuff like that, because it's always fascinated me. So I was happy to see that that was a big theme in the book. You have one quote in particular that says, quote, the past was not always the past. At one time, the past was the present. And at another time, it was the future, she said. Is this not so? Therefore, all depends upon the relative perspective of the observer. In any timeline. And so I thought that was really interesting, like everything has already happened, everything is still going to happen, and everything is happening right now. It gets a little bit confusing but really fun, like intellectually and challenging. I don't know, I had a good time with it.

Yeah, that was fun to write as well. And I agree, it's, it's fun to do those mental gymnastics and talk about time. And we, you know, everyone understands it starts out with relativity and Einstein and all of that. But we don't get into any of those details. But, you know, in this part of the story, what she's pointing out is that it is true. I really had to think about that when I wrote it. I was like, wait, is that true? And I had to go through it. So let's go through it. So at one time, the past was the present. And that's true because when— before the past became the past, it was the present, right?

Mm-hmm.

You agree with that? So, and I do. Yeah, the future— what I think the second line was, you know, the future was the present as well. And again, um, right now is the present, but a few minutes ago it was the future.

Mm-hmm.

Right, so that's true. And I had to go through and make sure, and I have a few of those in there where I think I pointed that out. But yeah, it's— it is a demonstration of how you look at the perspective of things. Um, and then, you know, there are some kind of metaphysical considerations there and whether you believe in the concept of multiple timelines. And that's for each person to decide for themselves. But if you do, then that just adds another level of complexity. Because not only technically does it exist, but it exists in every possible configuration. Yeah. And if the universe and time is truly infinite, then by definition there will be an opportunity for every single possible thing that could happen to happen at some point because there's infinite time.

Absolutely.

So, you know, that's the thing. Um, you have to decide what the— where your what your beliefs and the boundaries are, and then, and then kind of take it from there.

My girlfriend always talks about reincarnation and other dimensions in the multiverse, you know, like, is Elvis really jamming out on a stage somewhere right now? He probably is.

And, uh, yeah, it's under some metaphysical theories. And again, I'm not preaching any particular one, I'm just kind of sharing in a fictional story what I know about these things. Um, yeah, in some metaphysical theories, he is— that alternative reality exists, and so does every other alternative reality, because there are infinite possibilities of alternative realities to exist. The one that we're currently observing is the one that, that we are so-called in right now. Under this— yeah.

No, it makes a lot of sense. And, and in this subject, there's another subject that you relate in the book that I really want to talk about for a couple of minutes, which is destiny. And so, in other books that I mentioned earlier, for example, The Alchemist, that's all about destiny and speaking sort of your truth to the world and allowing it to conspire to help you. But in this book, in the story itself, you say, our destiny is not our future, but the present moment. And then you go on to apply a little bit of logic there, right? So, the present is the destination of everything, as we just talked about. everything in the past. And so the present is not fixed. It's an endless experience. Like, you can never be in the future or in the past. Maybe you can. The future does not exist except as a continuation of the now. So let's unpack that for a minute.

That was another one of the fun quotes that, you know, I had to really think about and try to confirm in my own mind. But it is true. I think so. You know, And by the way, it's, it's really fun and enjoyable to write these things and to put these theories out there. It's a lot harder to apply them as a human being, you know. But it's good, you know, it's good to write them down and share them and talk about them with others, but I have to remain humble and admit that it's difficult to apply some of these ideas, you know.

Well, I'll, I'll share in a minute after you share about how I apply this one in particular.

Okay, good. But, but in this one, you know, it's precisely the destiny of every single thing that ever happened in the past, going back to the very creation of the entire universe or multiverse or the creator or whatever you want to call it, from the very beginning, if there was one, is right this second. That is the destiny. Now, there is a— is there a future destiny? You'll know when it's— when we'll know when it's in our present. You know, and so it's pointing out that the destiny is now, and it's hard to remember that and apply it because we're always looking at the future. And all of us do that. We're always, you know, hoping for a better time or a better thing. It's going to happen when I get my destiny. But we're— you're in your destiny right now. You know, the destiny of the whole entire universe is this moment. So I don't know what that means, but it was— it's part of the story that I wrote.

I love it. I just changed my little profile picture here on Zoom to a tattoo that I have that sort of represents this for me.

Sure.

So as I started to study personal development as a broader genre, a big piece of that for me was mindfulness and living in the present moment, because the, the practical application of this for me is that Sometimes we have a lot of regret of what's happened in the past, or we have a lot of guilt, missed opportunity. And so a lot of us, when we spend time in the past, it can be uncomfortable. And then when we spend time, you know, that causes a lot of depression for some people. And then when we spend time in the future, it creates a lot of anxiety and uncertainty, and that's not healthy. It'll spike, I mean, cortisol and all this other bad stuff. So I try to spend time in the present moment, and I've done that in a million different ways. I, I've done a lot of different forms of meditation. and breathing exercises, et cetera. And so, I have a tattoo on my forearm of what I guess for some people is called the mindfulness symbol or the universal symbol for mindfulness. And it's essentially these water droplets, one representing the future hits the water, which is the present moment, and then kind of extends under the water, which is the past. And then it ripples out, which is kind of like how your physical being in this dream that we're all living in impacts everything around you. And so, so you're sort of walking in a series of different dimensions all the time, creating different realities. But the one that we can experience right now is the one that at least you have some control over. And so for me, I look at this all the time. If I'm spending too much time thinking about the past or too much time thinking about the future, it helps ground me, it helps calm me down, and it helps me live in the present moment. Because again, Our destiny, in your words, and kind of in the book, at least as an exploration like we're talking about, not as a preaching, our destiny is the present moment. It's an endless experience. So you should spend as much time in it as you can. And so anyway, that might have been a little bit of a ramble. I don't know if it made sense.

That was very, very well taken. And thank you. I'm glad to have— glad to go along with that conclusion. The other thing about that is—

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There's part of it that you talk about, like where if you focus too much on the past, then, you know, that could lead to depression, too much on the future, anxiety. And those, yes. But part of the book, though, through exploring in the fictional sense the theme of Again, the reincarnation of lives and some of the so-called bad things that happened in the past. But you have to come— you come to realize in some way that the present would never materialize as it did without all of the experiences that happened in the way they did also. So there's also a certain amount of acceptance, I guess, that's required.

Oh, absolutely. And I love, I love how in the book on this theme, you talk about forgiveness. So you say, remember the tree which produces a fruit called forgiveness in the book. And so eating of this fruit eases all pain and sorrow. So that's the way to accept, like you're saying, accept your past, include it as part of your present, and relieve yourself of the pain and sorrow. It's a Prerequisite for love. That's also something that you say. And, and what's the opposite of love? Anger and hate and vengeance. Those things block love. And so forgiveness, that's a really cool theme. And I'm happy that you included it as part of the story too.

It's an amazing theme. And again, it's another one of those that it's, it's real easy to write about. You know, it's a lot harder for us, for all of us to apply as human beings. But I am glad that I wrote it, and it does help me to remember to apply it, you know, as much as I can when I get a chance. And that's, that's, it's a mindset, but I'm not preaching it, and I'm not perfect, you know. I'm just—

Sure.

I'm writing a spiritual story, and I'm glad that I wrote about this theme. But what, what we came up with is basically, so it's forgiveness of others, right? It's forgiveness. You have to forgive yourself. You have to— if you're going to be yourself, then you need to love yourself. But you're not going to love yourself if you don't forgive yourself, and you're not going to forgive yourself if you're not forgiving other people, and other people aren't going to forgive you if you don't forgive them. And you're right. And so forgiveness seems like we just touched like 5 different— in a spoke of wheel, of a wheel. It's like It's part of every spoke. It gets you to acceptance, it gets you to love, it gets you away from anger, you know. And it's so simple but so hard sometimes. And yeah, that's a theme— how the characters, whether and how they're able to apply that and how that works out. Again, without spoilers.

Well, I'll share that on the subject of forgiveness, it was It was never really part of my— it was never really part of my life to forgive in the past. I hadn't really been introduced to forgiveness as a very applicable sort of personal development tool until I read a book called The Code of the Extraordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhiani, now about 5 years ago. And when I read the book, there was a very specific call to action in the book to call somebody immediately and forgive them, somebody who had done some wrong to you in the past that still bothers you. And maybe it's a weight that you're carrying and weight that they're carrying. Let's get rid of the weight.

Yeah.

And so I picked up the phone and I called somebody in particular and I forgave them. And it was like one of the most magical conversations I think I've ever had. I know I'll remember it forever. And now it seems like a memory, but it's part of my present, if that makes sense for everybody. And yeah, so I'm happy that you wrote the book in this way too, because there are sort of some nonfiction principles. Maybe they're not even nonfiction, but there are some principles that you can distill from a great fictional story like this.

And thank you. And, and yeah, and people that are familiar with, you know, the, the non-fictional kind of business and even self-development, self-help, and, and those themes of books, forgiveness does come up, uh, like the one that you mentioned. And, um, again, it's, it's just to, to bring forth those ideas in, in the, in the fictional story and less to be preachy or anything like that. like that because each of us as human beings are far from perfect.

Sure.

But if we have the ability to at least delineate, um, you know, something nice, then we should do that. And then for me personally, because I did that, then at least I have to now think about it and try to do it in real life too.

Yeah, yeah, no, refreshing the fundamentals.

Exactly. But—

Well, Ben— oh, sorry, go ahead.

No, no, it's okay. So yeah, that, that, that's a special theme Um, that, that goes throughout the book, but in, in some ways that are, that are different than what you might think. So we'll leave it at that.

Wow, makes total sense to me right now. And, uh, well, I guess that's because I've read the book now. So let's touch on one more subject. I want to make sure that we don't give too much away to the potential reader who's listening today, but there's one other subject which kind of ties into what we've been talking about. And I'll— at first, I'll read a quote from the book. So a quote says, when there is one thing, there is also the opposite, and energy vibrating between the two, the first ripple of the wave. And so there are a lot of different ways to interpret this, and that's a beautiful part about being a reader. For me, I want to call your action or your attention, Ben, to that mindfulness symbol up on the page again.

Yeah.

So for me, this always helps me remind that in the present moment, your energy is creating 2 different realities sort of simultaneously. Like when you step right, there's also a step left. There's always an equal and opposite reaction. So yeah, without, without evil, there is no good. And, and I love thinking about that and spending time in that because It helps me be grateful for the present moment. It helps me, you know, for, for every version of my life where I can see right now, there's a version of my life where I'm blind, and I should be grateful for my eyesight. And for every version of my reality where I'm healthy, there's a version of my reality where I'm not. And so it always causes me to be super grateful for the life that I'm living today. And I just wanted to mention that to you and see if you had something that you wanted to reflect there.

Yeah, um, thank you for saying that. And I do think the image— I, I don't know if you're going to post it on the actual podcast itself, but the image does represent the concept that we're talking about. Um, yeah, it's the concept of balance and the concept of contrast, and, and obviously related to the, the metaphysical question of the existence of good and evil, or the existence of, let's say, um, opposites of black and white, of positive so-called positive, negative, so-called light and darkness. And just pointing out, as we understand, again, within the context of the fictional story, that, you know, if every— if everything in the world was light, you actually would not really see anything. You need some darkness against which the light is shown. to actually see the light. You need that contrast. And we— and it goes through several of the stories in the book, and the themes go through kind of joy and suffering as opposites, and light and dark, and even kind of goes through some aspects of creation, which is nothing versus everything. That which exists versus that which does not exist. Anything that's an opposite. If nothing exists, then the opposite of that thing exists, and that thing is everything. So those are the main opposites that we're dealing with, and then, and then the energy flowing between them. And, and so that's, that's definitely kind of talked about in the book in a fun way.

And, and in the book, this was one of my favorite ways that you tied the different storylines together, is that the opposite of something can exist over different lifetimes. So if you're feeling amazing in this lifetime, it probably is because you didn't feel amazing in a previous lifetime or a future lifetime. And that's hard to conceptualize, but through the story, you do it really, really well. So we'll kind of leave that as a hook for everybody. If you're interested, you gotta go check that out.

Thanks for your kind words. I appreciate that.

Yeah, Ben. Well, for people who enjoyed our conversation today and want to learn a little bit more about you or the book, where should they go? What should they do?

Okay, well, they can go to my website, which is yaminpublishing.com, Y-A-M-I-N publishing.com, or my Instagram @yaminpublishing. And there are links to preview and browse and check out all the works that we have to offer over there. So thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you. So we'll definitely include a link to everything down in our show notes. And once again, I'd just like to encourage everybody to check out the book if you're interested in any of the diverse subjects that we talked about today. I think that A Journal of Cosmic Memories: The Dimension of Trees is a great representation of those things. It is an exploration, it is not preach— preaching. Um, so I really liked it, Ben. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. That is a wrap. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Book Thinkers, Life-Changing Books. It would mean the world to us if you could write a review and share this episode with a few of your friends. I mean, these books truly have the power to change people's lives, and by reviewing or sharing our podcast, you're helping us make an impact. If you have any recommendations for future guests, Or any constructive feedback for us on how we can improve our show, please feel free to submit a form on our website, www.bookthinkers.com, or send us a direct message on Instagram @bookthinkers. With that, I am signing off, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Don't forget, go read something.