Mark Kenzer: Episode 1141

Transcript

[00:00:26] HA: My next guest life has been filled with struggles between the material world and his deeper insights into reality. His remarkable experience from speaking with the dead, to seeing the future, to building a multi-million-dollar business is all offered in his collection of miraculous encounters that can help you understand truths deeper than our material reality. Welcome to the Author Hour podcast, I'm your host, Hussein Al-Baiaty. My next guest is Mark Kenzer, here to talk about his newest book, My Miserable Search for Enlightenment. Let's get into it. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Author Hour show. I'm here with my friend, Mark Kenzer. Super excited to have you on the show and celebrate your new book, Mark. Thank you for coming on.

[00:01:15] Mark Kenzer: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

[00:01:17] HA: Yeah, absolutely. You're an Oregonian. I used to be an Oregonian. I love that we were talking about that before the mics turned on. I'm really excited to have you on the show and talk about this journey that you've been on, of enlightenment and your book. Before I get into all that I really love to talk about you, your personal background, perhaps where you grew up, where you ended up, and maybe one person that inspired you to be on the path that you're on now, before we get into the messaging of the book and all that good stuff. If you don't mind, please start us off maybe perhaps high school days, and what that was like for you. Then jumping into the reality of the world.

[00:02:00] Mark Kenzer: I grew up in the San Fernando Valley. At the time when I was growing up, we were referred to as Valley boys. It was a cultural phenomenon at that time, because a lot of our parents came from the East Coast, moved west, have a different lifestyle. My high school days, I was pretty much asleep. I didn't have much interest in it. I was pretty excited before that, but when high school came around, I was ready to move on.

[00:02:30] HA: What happened after high school that you said you grew up in San Fernando, but then you ended up moving to Oregon. Is that correct?

[00:02:35] Mark Kenzer: Yeah, yeah. At the time I was growing up in San Fernando Valley. There was leaded gas at the time. The San Fernando Valley a very small, very polluted place. I wanted to move to greener pastures and I did. I had a friend who moved here. I moved up to Oregon, probably around the age of 20.

[00:02:56] HA: Very cool. When you made that move, where did the search start? Right? You talk a lot about the search for enlightenment throughout your book, but it wasn't an easy feat, right? As we get into these journeys, making this move now to a different place. Luckily, you did, because being aware of your health and what you don't want to be around is actually incredible, incredible awareness and making that choice. Sometimes it's not voluntary, of course, sometimes it's like we force ourselves to do those things. What happens next? What happens in your early 20s, late 20s? What do you get into and perhaps, somebody that inspired you to get on a path that I guess awakened to you?

[00:03:36] Mark Kenzer: To answer that we've got to go back, because since my early childhood, I knew I was going to be on this path. I used to dream about nice to imagine it when I was younger, all I ever wanted to be was a Swami. I really didn't even know what the Swami meant. I would actually, when I’d go to sleep, I would practice astral projecting, or trying to leave my body. The place I thought about going was usually India, which I don't know why. I knew nothing about India. I thought I was going to go to India and I knew I wanted to be a Swami or the other word that came to my mind was Fakir, but again, it was another word I didn't know. I just knew that I was into mysticism, but at the time I called it ESP, because I was a common term while I was growing up which is extrasensory perception. It wasn't until as far as who inspired me, or what inspired me. Probably it was my dreams, going into other dimensions and other lifetimes. Having these experiences during dreams and dreaming the future and seeing future events while I was lying in bed in the morning like in trance, that's probably what started. As far as people, I was probably reading Autobiography of a Yogi, which is probably the biggest best seller along these lines by Paramhansa Yogananda. Then later I was reading Bhagavad Gita, reading the New Testament. Actually, when I was younger, I picked up a copy of a book about Zoroastrianism and that really moves me, along with the Tao Te Ching, which is surprising, because I was probably about 10 years old when I brought it home and showed it to my parents and said, “You got to read this.” They just would tell me like, “Where is it coming from?”

[00:05:24] HA: Wow, that's so powerful. What an interesting draw to something. I'm sure at the time for you seemed perhaps foreign and just different, because you've grown up in the West, where you're attracted to things that are far East and especially ideologies, and just a culture of thinking that way. Where does this lead you? What happens next?

[00:05:48] Mark Kenzer: Well, after I gave up the idea of being a rock star, I realized I have an income, I actually met my wife at the time, when I was about 25, 26. I got motivated to start a business. That's where it led me, but before that, which I might, I should add, is that I did take a trip about the age of 19, or 20, or ran into a real demonic woman, which really rattled my cage. That really showed me the dark side of everything. Before that, everything was always going to be like, “Oh, my life was going to be like Jesus's or something.” Then I got to see a part of it that I had no idea existed, because I didn't grow up with any. Well, I grew up with very little religion in my life. I certainly didn't grow up with any satanic thing in my consciousness. I was actually, I was raised Jewish. I wasn't raised Christian. In Judaism there really is no devil.

[00:06:50] HA: Yes, so interesting, very powerful. So getting into your book a little bit, what do you think inspired you to write a book specifically about this topic and who you are? How you came in? Like, who are you trying to reach with your message, which you say?

[00:07:07] Mark Kenzer: Well, I would like to reach anybody whose suffering, but not only suffering, people who are suffering who have been on a path, because being on a path, path of awakening, or path of God consciousness is extremely difficult in the material world. The material world is the opposite. Like I said, meeting, this demonic person really woke me up to that. I realized we're all influenced by material forces. We're spiritual beings. When I met this person, I didn't think I was going to make it back. I met her in Canada. I was afraid I was going to die. I didn't think I was going to make it, the force was so strong, but when I got back here, I noticed it really changed me. I really had to get serious about my spiritual practice.

[00:07:54] HA: So powerful. You mentioned in the content that you've had many miraculous encounters throughout your life. Can you tell me a little bit about these experiences and how they affected your understanding of the world, moving forward?

[00:08:06] Mark Kenzer: I'm mainly talking about the ones in the book. I mean, of course, there's a lot of them, but probably the first powerful ones is having Jesus come to me. Then after that, it was Yogananda, Paramahansa Yogananda who I accepted as my spiritual master at the time. He came to me with his guru and appeared to me. That totally, anybody has had this type of experience. It totally transformed your life. It's like Jesus appearing to Paul on the road to Damascus. You can tell it really changed his life. Whether or not he was able to take on that potency of Jesus, we don't know, but anybody who's had this type of association knows it's a very powerful thing and there's nothing else like it, to describe it. Later on when I met my wife, who was a Hare Krishna devotee, I started reading the works of Bhaktivedanta Swami, his translations and his commentaries on Vedic writings. I had very divine experience with someone named Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu appeared in India about 500 years ago. He's actually the originator of the Hare Krishna movement as we know it that has spread all over the world. Bhaktivedanta Swami brought it here on the order his spiritual master. He came here probably in the 60s to spread Krishna Consciousness, which just means God consciousness. Krishna means they all attract it. The message he actually was bringing was from Lord Chaitanya who appeared in India 500 years ago. Lord Chaitanya when he was in India predicted this would be spread all over the world which is with Bhaktivedanta Swami did. From reading his books, I had an awakening where Lord Chaitanya appeared to me and I never expected it. I didn't – my wife brought on the book of it, I started reading it. I couldn't put it down. I didn't even know that I was fully understanding it. I had to read it many times later to now say I get it. At the time, I really didn't get it. I didn't know why it appeared to me, other than love and devotion that was cultivated up from reading about as well. The same as like a Christian might experience reading the New Testament.

[00:10:28] HA: Very powerful. Can you talk about the balance of tragedy and pain and betrayal in your life, but then transcendence in experiences? Can you speak about how you navigated these challenges? How they shaped up who you are today?

[00:10:45] Mark Kenzer: Sure, well, besides being on a spiritual path, probably everybody's on and sticking to it, I also did a lot of therapy, because I had to undo my upbringing. My upbringing was pretty abusive. I had to undo all that pain and suffering and had to realize I came to a point where I let go of wanting to kill my father, wanting to kill my older brother, that type of tape and from being beaten up a lot of the time. Until I came to experience intense love for them, for a long time I question, how could I have such a love for my father when 16, I was ready to let them have it one way or another? At that time came I couldn't do it, because he was still my father. I had to work on myself, because I'm the only one I realized I can change. I did a lot of soul searching, and a lot of therapy when I needed it, when I needed help. Ask for it. I got it. I had an amazing relationship with my wife that fell apart. I experienced a very deep betrayal. Again, my world was just a really, I remember driving out in the countryside of Oregon, just wondering what to do. I heard a voice just go, “You're not a victim.” I didn't hear it in my head. I heard it outside. I'm driving like 50 miles an hour. I'm going, “Tell me more.” I hear – I just heard, “If you're a victim, you're never going to get over this.” That really changed me. That really showed me that I couldn't make anybody wrong. Nobody else is wrong. There's nothing that anybody does is wrong. You might not like it, but you've attracted it. If it's in your life, you have to deal with it. If you really want to understand love, Jesus is a good example of demonstrating love. None of us know what's going to come, but whatever comes, you're going to get through it and walk us that way.

[00:12:49] HA: You mentioned, like I said, I perused through your book and I find so many connections like for me, growing up. I'd gone through war. I grew up a refugee. There was so much to unpack. I had no idea, when somebody said the word trauma to me, I just thought like ambulance taking somebody away, because they hurt their leg really bad or bad accident. I always thought trauma was like a physical thing that happened to your body. I mean, that's a very amateur thinking, right? It wasn't until like college that I started learning about how trauma is actually also a very mental thing. I realized, “Wow, do I have that?” Of course I do. I was in a refugee camp as a kid like, anybody that goes through any interesting family dynamic, unfortunately, with abuse or alcohol or war, anything where it takes that structure and shakes it up, right? There are so many hidden lessons. There are so many messages that are intertwined in that past. However, it is deeply locked away, things that we don't care to access, because we want to just move forward with our lives, but in reality, it's like turning inward, looking at all of these things, unraveling them in a way that helps us see who we actually are, and how that connects to who we want to be and become and work from. I think that's really powerful. Of course, external things like for me, it's the Prophet Muhammad and Jesus and understanding stories. For me, it was like, I read a book by Wayne Dyer, who The Power of Intention one of my favorite books. Not written by Muslim, right? They have profound effect on me and how I thought of myself. I love that, because for me when I was reading your book, I found so many connections to how I grew up and how I started seeking self-actualization in a way, right? I'm not a guru by any means or anything like that, but it was just more of like, “Wait, what happened to me? How do I process that?” That questioning actually is so helpful. I found so relieving, because yes, the answers may come over time, and they may evolve, that's how our spirit is connected to all these things. In your book, you mentioned a connection to a deeper reality, which I found really interesting. Can you describe how this connection has affected your perspective on life? How you believe maybe it differs from others? How does it help you make sense of your experiences?

[00:15:22] Mark Kenzer: Well, lucky you’re saying about everybody has some type of trauma in their life. If we don't want to see it, we're not going to grow. We do have to undo it. There’s a saying of Jesus, where he says, “No one gets out until they pay the at most far they know, which is a fraction of a penny.” Meaning the smallest bit of karma that we have has to be worked out, everything has to be worked out. Most people who are on some type of path are avoiding facing trauma. If you don't face the trauma, you're not going to wake up out of it. Continue this cycle of birth and death again.

[00:15:59] HA: It's very deep. I feel like, it happens for you if you can sit back and try to connect the dots and taking that time and space to really see how it all connects. That's very interesting. When your readers pick up your book, and get through it, and finish it up and put it down. What is the feeling that you hope that your reader walks away with, when they're finished with the book?

[00:16:27] Mark Kenzer: That they're not alone, what they're going through. I have gone through other people that have gone through. Since time immemorial people have been going through this. We're not in a world that where we realized like a lot of people think that might appear to be more people who are interested in this, but we don't know that, because you look back at the sacred books, you look back at the Qur'an, you look back at the Bible, the New Testament, the Bhagavad Gita, these things are written 1000s years ago, some people were contemplating the same thing, and were looking for the same truth. We have to assume that all along throughout history, people have been trying to wake up. They've been trying to answer what they're doing here. What they're doing here is not a temporary material thing, as we like to think. We're here for a short time that might appear like for some people, it's longer. It's regardless, it's a lifetime, but you have to look at beyond that, who you are, and who you are outside of your body. You're going to leave it. You have to discover who you are.

[00:17:30] HA: Yeah. So powerful. There's nothing more real than really getting into terms with your mortality. I think for me, my experience became very visceral, definitely, after my father passed. How that really helped me, just see it for what it is, realize where I am. Really put me in my place, I feel like in a humbling way, in the sense that I'm going to follow in these footsteps like everyone is. So what decisions am I not making? Let's get those out of the way and it puts a very interesting trajectory when those kinds of things happen in how you see yourself and the world. I think that's very powerful. I love that you went there with your book so deeply and intimately. I highly recommend that read, because of how much it made me think about myself and my journey, which I think what all great books, I feel like need to do in a way is provoke thought and I love that. What was your favorite part of writing the book? What that journey taught you?

[00:18:39] Mark Kenzer: Well, I actually started writing the book probably about 15 years ago. The part that I told you about that took place in Canada, I actually wrote that and portions of the book I was writing while they were going on, because I thought nobody is ever going to read this has happened. So I actually took notes and wrote about some of these experiences when they were happening, which was in my 20s, I'm in my 60s now. What made it cathartic and why I wrote it is when I was going through divorce, and getting out of business. My life is basically going through another dark night of the soul. I just thought that I needed to write this so that I could move through it. I could see it for what it is, and get it out on me and the good way to get things out of you is by writing it down and sharing it with somebody else, because sharing makes things real. So I thought, “Well, I'm not going to be afraid. I'm going to do it. I'm going to step forward again.” I do say in the book throughout a number of times in my life. People tell me I was going to help people. This was way before I was even on a path. People out of the blue would come up to me and tell me what it was going to do. I just thought, “Well, okay, I'm going to write this and see what happens. I’ll put it out there.”

[00:19:56] HA: Yeah. It's so powerful, the turning of the reframing of our fear and how it actually helps us really reconcile. A lot of ways for me when I wrote my book, it was reconciling, it was coming to terms with a lot of those stories, reframing them and seeing them for what they are. Exactly how you said, just undress the story, see it for what it is, look into it, sit with that fear, and help it evolve so that it could keep up with what I want to do with my life and who I am. I love that so much, Mark. It has been an honor to sitting down with you, because again, your type of book, I feel like it's one of those books that just helps you self-reflect while reading your story and going following you around in your journey makes me think about my journey. I think, again, that's very powerful way to connect the senses. I love that so much. You did such a great job by just pulling the reader in. I'm lucky today that I got to sit with you, and really hear those experiences and stories. I'm sure our audience was enlightened, as well. The book is called My Miserable Search for Enlightenment: A Quest for God and the Eternal Self. Besides checking out the book, where can people find you, mark?

[00:21:10] Mark Kenzer: They can find the LinkedIn and Amazon.

[00:21:14] HA: Yeah, exactly. Beautiful –

[00:21:17] Mark Kenzer: In their local bookstores.

[00:21:19] HA: Yes. Soon to be. I’m so excited for you, because I think, again, this book is going to be one that will really get people to think about not only your story and how it moves us through these challenges, but also how we see ourselves in those challenges. I think that's profound work, my friend. Great job putting it together. Thank you for your time, energy and resources that you put into this. It's going to be a masterpiece. Mark, thank you for your time. I appreciate having you today.

[00:21:48] Mark Kenzer: Thank you. I appreciate it.

[00:21:51] HA: Thank you all so much for joining us for this episode of Author Hour. You can find My Miserable Search for Enlightenment: A Quest for God and the Eternal Self. right now on Amazon. For more Author Hour episodes, subscribe to this podcast on your favorite subscription service. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time same place, different author.