Riding the Dark Horse

Book excerpt: Years ago, Lama Nicholas Packards mother unexpectedly died after a routine medical procedure. Left stunned and confused, Packard vowed to unearth the truth as to why her life ended so abruptly. As he embarked on a decades-long journey throughout India, China, Tibet, and Bhutan, Packard came to realize how Westerners have been led down a dark path lined with assumed truths and falsehoods. Through this process, he discovered a painful truth we are living a lie. In an enlightening social and philosophical commentary that challenges the truths surrounding Western mentality, Packard delivers what he learned while answering fundamental questions of existence that explore why modern man is becoming more physically, mentally, and socially ill and spiritually adrift with each passing day. While sharing perspectives from great ancient thinkers and the wisdom of their time, Packard explains how our soul has been undermined by the western perception of truth and reality, and how our meaning and purpose of life has been obscured by materialism, artificiality, and dualistic thinking. Very much akin to the epic churn that happens at the end and dawn of every new age, empire and way of being, this book is truly very transformative and the person who reaches the end of it would be very different from the one at the beginning.