Four hours after the morning’s first blow of the conch shell, worshipers move from the heavily adorned sanctuary to the slopping roof and chipped tiled floor of the neighboring prasadam room, where communal meals are shared.

Over an egg- and meat-free breakfast, Jayasri, 59, tells of her conversion when she met Prabhupada in Hawaii four decades ago. He sat behind a desk of voluntary poverty made of a piece of plywood that sat on two bricks. Since then, she raised her children as Hare Krishnas and has visited temples around the world. She lives outside the temple now with her husband. “It’s fun,” she says. “Spiritual life relieves the soul of anxiety.”

Fifty-four-year-old Mathura became a Hare Krishna follower in 1978 and has lived at New Vrindaban since 1996. Prabhupada’s mission was to bring Hare Krishna beliefs to the West. But the shift from Westerners to Indian-Americans wasn’t what his followers envisioned. “The fact that we’re not reaching out as much to Westerners in the last 15 years is a big black spot for many of us,” Mathura says.

Sitting cross-legged on the prasadam room floor and eating out of a simple metal dish, Mathura says he first came to New Vrindaban in order to run a natural, herbal pharmacy using plants native to Appalachian West Virginia. Ten years later, Mathura’s pharmacy is still just a dream.