The Man in the Mountain: Book 1, Awakening

In this richly textured philosophical novel about regaining our highest purpose, Bikram Dhillon writes the story of Yosh, an orphan raised by a beloved grandfather. When his grandfather dies, the young man falls into a dangerous depression, even contemplating suicide, but before doing anything drastic he decides to learn more about a mysterious medallion found in his grandfather’s belongings. It is cracked in half and indecipherable, but Yosh suspects it holds clues to his grandfather’s life. His investigations lead him to friends of his grandfather who live on a ranch near Santa Fe. He spends time there learning details about his grandfather’s remarkable life that he had never known. He discovers that his grandfather’s life had been transformed by a philosophy learned from his rancher friends. As Yosh commits himself to studying this philosophy, it begins to wake him from what he had perceived as the nightmare of life. Still eager for wisdom, Yosh seeks out Mideol, the reclusive man in the mountain who had enlightened his grandfather’s teachers and, he hopes, holds the key to even deeper insights. If fictionalized philosophy were music we would be hearing leitmotifs from Hesse, Camus, Gurdjieff and Castaneda.