Mars quit the acting profession to become a monk with the Self-Realization Fellowship in Los Angeles and eventually took the name Brother Paramananda. He said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times in 2004 about his spiritual awakening, "The words 'karma' and 'reincarnation' are being thrown around everywhere, even in Sports - at some TV basketball game, a guy tried a shot and couldn't make it, and the radio announcer said it was his karma. I went the whole hog and became a monk and walked away. Nowadays people don't have to run away to meditate. There are doctors, lawyers, a mother with three children - anyone can do it. There's more acceptance." During his time at the Fellowship, he conversed with Elvis Presley on several occasions, who on one occasion said to Paramananda, "Man, you made the right choice. People don't know my life or that I sometimes cry myself to sleep because I don't know God."
