THE FOLLOWING STORY WAS WRITTEN BY PADMA DEVI DASI. READ MORE ABOUT PADMA HERE!

This morning I drove from New Govardhana farm (Australia) into the township of Murwillumbah. It is approximately a 15-minute drive. Half-way there, the traffic stopped, due to upgrades being made on the road. A paddle-pop man stood in the middle of the road with his stop sign.

FYI—a ‘paddle-pop man’ is an Australian word for a road-worker holding a traffic sign in the shape of a paddle-pop (candy on a stick).

So there we were—half a dozen cars just sitting in line, all with their engines turned off, waiting for the paddle-pop man to give us the go ahead to drive on again. The paddle-pop man was standing about 6 feet in front of my car. There were no houses nearby, no people, no disturbing noises: nothing but forest around us. The skies were clear. Everyone was just waiting in the middle of the forest.

Then all of a sudden, H.D. Goswami’s song “Hari, Hari” started playing on my car CD player. I had been playing the Krishna Kirtan West album earlier and it was just up to that song when I had stopped the car. So I turned the volume up and opened the car windows so everyone could hear it.

For the next 5 minutes, the passengers of 6 cars and the paddle-pop man just stood/sat in their places, not being able to go anywhere, in the blissful morning sun, with birds chirping around us, listening to H.D. Goswami’s “Hari Hari.” I knew that everyone liked hearing it. It was so sweet to listen to and my car stereo carries a very clear, loud sound.

Then just as the song finished, the paddle-pop man got a message on his walkie-talkie, saying that it was OK to let the traffic through. Krishna does some amazing things!