My Miserable Search for Enlightenment

The search for enlightenment is never easy. Read the lives of Jesus, Buddha, or the Bhagavad Gita and this is immediately clear. There’s suffering required to peer into true reality. What many do not realize is that such perception wasn’t only possible centuries ago for the holiest people in history; it is occurring right now, as Mark Kenzer’s life shows. Mark was born so ill the doctor thought he would die, his parents were physically abusive, and he was tormented by nightmares of torture in faraway lands. But these events were only a prelude for a direct connection with the divine. In his teenage years, Mark began to be visited by Jesus, Krishna, and Paramahansa Yogananda. Through dreams, meditation, and trances, he began to predict the future and astral project to India or across town to his friend Pat’s house. Since then, Mark has led a life filled with struggles in the material world and deep insights from perceptions of true reality. He was able to predict his future career as a child and turn $300 into a ten-million-dollar business, Pacific Spirit. He was charged with felonies and sued for $24 million, suffered betrayals, and was chastised by Jesus himself after seeing him crucified. Throughout, Mark has continually worked to change his karma and learn more deeply about the true nature of existence, one that often alludes us in this cynical, extremely materialistic age: that we are all spiritual beings and that nothing—from time to our perception of reality—is as simple as it seems.