CBS News on Prabhupada's Palace of Gold

Throughout our nation's history, small groups of Americans have broken away from the mainstream to lead a simpler life. Often, though not always, their motives are religious. Apart from the rest of us, they miss out on many of the benefits, but also our woes as well. For instance, we will demonstrate over the next three days many counterculture lifestyles that have proven surprisingly recession-proof.

We begin with a group of converts to evangelical Hinduism who have sat down in alien soil in the hills of Appalachia. Spring passes into summer more serenely in West Virginia than most places. But this year, in a hidden valley, miles from main highways, nature's pastoral beauty is being upstaged by a golden palace. This really is a palace of gold, rising in the springtime from the green West Virginia hills.

And it may come as a surprise to learn that this is the work of Hare Krishnas who have been followed by controversy wherever they've gone across the United States. But here, as they have learned to coexist with the West Virginia farmers around them, they may have gone a step beyond that controversy. Let's find out what it's really like here by starting hours before dawn. It is first a temple, a place of worship for these early risers who shuffle past the fountains in the darkness to a morning offering to glorify Krishna.

It began as a simple home for their spiritual leader and gradually grew into something far more ambitious with $750,000 in building materials and the labor of the devotees far exceeding that. They did it over six years with little more knowledge of ancient construction than how to do it books. but the spiritual temple also serves another purpose it's a money-making tourist attraction and they come bus loads at a time to see gold leaf gilding the ceilings and column caps onyx and marble from 13 countries chandeliers that were handmade peacock windows carefully fitted with stained glass all dedicated to their founder shrila prabhupada whose image sits carved in wax and is covered daily with fresh flowers and a new change of clothes. It has turned the Hare Krishna lifestyle into an economic boom and given them an acceptance which most Hare Krishna sects are unaccustomed to. The spiritual master of the group is Swami Bhaktapada who dreams of seven more temples dotting the surrounding hilltops.

In the beginning People didn't know anything, and they were suspicious. We looked different. West Virginia, of course, is a little kind of closed community, so there was some suspicion. But when they have seen what we have done, and they see how wonderful it is and how it's helping the community, it's helping the state, and they're pleased, too.

Tourist business means money, and in the recession, the Hare Krishnas have emerged as one of the most stable elements in the Hill community. Their living group, not far from the temple, is virtually self-sustaining. As vegetarians, they produce their own food. They make crafts for the community and for the tourists.

They even have their own resident artist, who has painted murals which adorn the walls and ceilings of the palace. And when they do spend their money, it's at the neighborhood businesses, like Marvin Eddy's General Store. They have done good for my business, where that goes. They're considered friends of mine, and I think they consider me a friend of theirs, as far as that's concerned.

I try to treat everybody like I'd want to be treated, and, of course, their religious activities and things are particularly theirs, as far as I'm concerned, you know. While many people may still harbor the image of Hare Krishnas as strange-looking panhandlers in airports, or a bizarre cult fighting with parents of children who have joined their ranks. At least in one West Virginia community, the image is changing. In the isolation of these hills, they bother very few people.

The public comes to them because it is curious about their palace of gold and in the quiet wonder about their temple. It tries to understand the belief that could produce this. For Hare Krishnas, that is no small achievement. And in our next half hour, Raquel Welch of Broadway and a profile of San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein as the morning news continues.