In September 1975, after participating in the monthlong retreat that Baba Muktananda held in Arcata, California, I began residing and offering seva in the Siddha Yoga Ashram in Oakland. I had left behind my teaching job at NYU School of the Arts and had put my house in Long Branch, New Jersey up for sale, hoping that it would sell while I was gone.

However, months passed, the house sat empty and unsold, I’d run out of funds, debts were piling up, and creditors were after me. Finally, one day in February 1976, Baba made it clear to me that I had to go back and clean up my life.

I returned to New York City, rented a room in the large apartment of a devotee, and started to look for work with only meager results. I couldn’t put my heart into anything. I felt like a castaway whose life had shut down.

Then one day, at the Siddha Yoga Ashram in Manhattan, a woman I knew gave me a recording. She explained that Baba had come to her in a dream saying, “Give this record to Vasudev (the name Baba had given me). It will unlock his music and he’ll be able to share it with others.”

When I got back to my room and played the recording, I recognized it as something I’d heard on the radio years before as a teenager while working in the garden of my family home. I had found it deeply moving and had searched for it, but didn’t know the name. And now, on the record jacket, I read, “Pachelbel’s Canon.”

The moment it began to play, it was as if the tightness of my heart had released. Tears began to flow—and along with the tears came the first line of a song.

Over the next few days, each time I played the recording, more tears flowed, and more words along with them—until finally this song had arrived complete.

It has been many decades since I wrote down this song. During that time, I managed to settle my debts, watched my daughter grow into adulthood and give me the happiness of becoming a grandfather, and had the good fortune to devote the rest of my life in service to my Guru. After all these years, I find that the meaning the song conveys continues to remain true. Therefore, in honor of Baba Muktananda’s lunar birthday this year, I wish to make this offering.

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