(Gentle Music) Welcome to this is Utah.

I'm Liz Adeola.

Buckle up for a ride down Utah's Heritage Highway, also known as Highway 89, for an adventure filled with culture and cute animals.

Well venture to Best Friend's Animal Sanctuary, a place that is shaping the future of animal welfare nationwide.

Go beyond the vibrant powder at Utah's festival of Colors to learn more about the couple behind the Krishna Temple.

And we'll take you behind the scenes with the Paiute Tribal Youth performers as they spread awareness about their culture while also working to keep their traditions alive.

This is Utah is made possible in part by the Willard L. Eccles Foundation, the Lawrence T and Janet T. Dee Foundation, and by the contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(Upbeat Music) - We're here at a place that you may have wondered about if you've ever driven past this area in Utah County.

The Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple is a place of worship, a place of learning, and a place of celebration built in the style of Hindu kings.

- We came here in the 80s to buy the radio station.

We had no plans to build any temples or to get a congregation or any of those things.

Krishna had his plan.

(gentle music) We came because my husband was doing broadcasting in California.

He felt at the time, it's time to leave California.

Let's go and buy a radio station.

- Welcome to 1480 KHQN, a Krishna station for the Utah Valley.

This is Caru Das.

- So I thought, well, I'll do something outrageous.

We can never build it, but I'll make something far out, and it'll help bring in some funds.

This is the first elevation print, which gave us an idea of what we would build.

I made an announcement at our little Sunday gathering that we had, you know, in the future we wanna build a temple on top of the hill.

And then of course, it went right into BYU's "Daily Universe," Krishna's building temple in Utah County.

And then all the TV stations and radio stations and newspapers were here.

And we thought, okay, if they want us to build a temple, we'll build a temple.

And we started broadcasting, and people started listening, and they started coming.

And here we are now.

(gentle music continues) The rest is history.

(gentle music continues) (people cheering) (upbeat music) - We started the Festival Colors, I think, in 1995.

Just an excuse to have fun and chant Hare Krishna.

And it's 20,000 people over two days.

We did have a line out the road and going down State Road, a half a mile long, people waiting to get in.

They don't know necessarily the inner significance of it or the seriousness of it to us.

They just have a good time.

It purifies them on some subconscious level.

I think God just wanted to kind of play a joke on all of us and do what we would least expect, is to establish a wonderful, world-class, Hare Krishna temple in the area.

It's 90% another religion.

I can't say that of any other Krishna temple in the world.

(upbeat music) (people cheering) - It's the way it's presented.

It's not an alien culture.

It's just a basic belief in caring and love and devotion.

(calming music) If we understand who we are, that we're the soul, then we see other people as souls, then we see equally.

You can't say he's Black, he's white, he's Indian, he's Muslim, he's Hindu.

They're not.

They have a body which has adapted to the culture and the environment that they're brought up in, but essentially, they're all equal souls.

- Cultural nuances are not that significant when you start with who you are.

I don't identify as a Hindu or as Hare Krishna.

I identify myself as a servant of God.

(calming music continues) - If you understand this, you understand a whole way of life.

(calming music continues) I think I'll hold your arm at this point.

I've, fortunately, got a good husband.

We've been married 51 years.

So marriage to us is sacred.

- God plans out things, that two people who compliment each other with their talents and abilities would somehow or other come to Utah where there's no devotees, no resources, and because of the chemistry between them two, bring something out of nothing.

She's down-to-earth, she's practical.

During the Hindu marriage ceremony, the priest says, "The man is the heaven, and the woman is the Earth."

'Cause the men, the men are just guided.

That means they're always in the clouds.

They're always got these crazy, impractical schemes.

But you need to run it past the woman 'cause she actually knows what's gonna work and what's not gonna work.

You know, when we're building this temple from 1998 to 2001, there was a point at which these all had to be painted and mounted, and she did all of that.

She painted all these pictures here, and she carved the figures that you see in the dome.

And she installed everything 21 years ago.

She'd spent, like, whole days up there on the scaffolding.

(gentle music) - So I went to the London School of Fine Arts.

Then I went traveling around the world, and that's where I came across spiritual life, became a Krishna devotee.

And immediately now, I had a sense of purpose.

Now I know what to paint.

Krishna, it means the most attractive form of God.

So one of the things I do when I have time is paintings for the temples.

So this painting in the background here, it tells the story of Krishna dancing with the peacocks.

Whenever you see any of the forms of the different incarnations of God, Krishna always has a peacock feather.

You can tell him by that.

(gentle music continues) (peacocks squawking) - And there wasn't a single period of time when we had to stop construction or even slow it down for lack of funds.

Don't ask me how it happened.

It was totally mystical.

- [Vaibhavi] Mormon stakes, the wards came and helped.

They bring a hundred kids over to help tie rebar, and BYU students and so on.

And that way the temple went up for a very minimum cost with everyone's input.

- [Caru] Hare Krishna.

(bird squawks) (bird whistles) - This property, we are trying to show that you can live in harmony with nature.

(gentle music) Yeah, sometimes people do ask, (bird chirps) (lock clinks) why do you have these animals, you're a temple?

As far as we're concerned, it's a way of life.

It's not, going to the church or the temple is not something you do on a Sunday for an hour, and then you live a different life.

It's 24 hours, a way of life, which is respect for life, respect for nature, respect for all living beings.

Darling.

Most places, you go to the pond and the fish run away.

Our fish come.

(water flowing) The water goes by siphon down to the gardens.

So we water them with fish water.

We're growing all kind of amazing organic produce for two reasons, the fish water and the llama coop.

So we're putting organics back into the sand.

We're creating soil.

About a month from now, it'll be just all really high.

And then we gotta pick it all, and then we're gonna chop it all up, and then we're gonna cook it all.

(gentle music) It was the atmosphere of the temple that counts.

It has to be very open, liberating, a lot of windows, very light, heavenly.

Everyone can come.

Everyone's welcome.

- We just had a Indian family going through all the National Parks, and they saw our billboard on the freeway, Krishna Temple.

He said, "This is the last thing we expected.

How did you get here?"

And I say, well, you know Krishna he has that look in his eye that says he loves nothing more than a good prank, and so, we're here because God has a sense of humor.

(gentle music continues) - The Southern Paiutes have called Southern Utah home for thousands of years despite hardship.

Now there's a renewed push to get youth from all tribal bands to embrace their heritage and keep Paiute traditions alive.

(Indigenous music of North America) - [Young Boy] I feel a heartbeat.

(Indigenous music of North America) - A heartbeat is the drum beat of that drum.

- [Interviewer] Is it hard to memorize and remember all the steps?

- No.

- [Interviewer] Why is that?

- 'Cause I got 'em in my brain.

- When people are watching the performances at the Shakespeare - Yeah.

- Festival.

What are you hoping that the audience is gaining?

- For me, it's just a gaining and understanding of and acknowledgement of we are here.

I love it because it's an opportunity for our youth too, to show off their talent, that youth's personality.

(crowd cheering) (flute music) And that's really the excitement, whether they're showing off their dance, playing the flute, introducing themselves.

It's just that this the opportunity to really build confidence in themselves and take pride of their art, and our heritage and traditions.

- You're really lighting up as you talk about it.

- Yeah, it's exciting.

I love it.

- So the flute doesn't really have sheet music.

When I perform, it's all in harmony, so I'm composing it on stage right there and then so I just make up everything right there.

And it sounds nice.

- Yeah.

That's what a flute does, there's not really any music for it.

- Yeah.

- You just play how you feel at the time.

So if you feel like sad, you'll probably play kind of sad.

If you feel happy, you'll play a happier song.

- Thank you.

- There are a lot of programs now.

There's camps and and different things to get the youth involved.

- Yeah.

- Why is that important?

- I think that it's really important because it just provides us another opportunity to help share that knowledge.

With some of the hardships that the tribe faced through termination, through relocation, and through the the boarding school eras that the tribes had to face, we did lose a lot of our culture.

We lost a lot of our language.

(ominous music) - They went through genocides and all of this, to get us where we are today, and we're here and we're carrying on where they left off, as strong native people.

It's so important that we get the kids to carry it on because without them we're gonna, it's gonna be gone.

It's their identity to have the language, the culture and tradition.

(crowd applauding) - My name is Zariah Attakai, and I'll be dancing for elders and who can't dance.

My parents told me about my culture so I was interested in it.

Sounded cool, sounded fun.

(Indigenous music of North America) Makes me feel joy and it makes me feel have lots of attention and it makes me feel happy.

(crowd cheering) - New' knee, nee huyn, Lydia.

Eeme-ah-knee, knee ya-hunt?

- The kings have tried to hold onto our language.

- New' knee, nee yuhn, Ashton.

New' nungwu, new' See' veets eng.

- As long as there's someone who can speak the language, there's always hope.

- New' nuwu, new' Mo'ahv pah.

- Poo knee kay vum, pei kai.

- As we do more, as we go into some of the traditional teachings and, you know, our Paiute teachings and what's maybe taught like whether it's in the powwow arbor or, you know, within some of our ceremonies, it's a lot about the respect and having that pride and really it helps you stay on the right path.

(flute music) - [Interviewer] Have you seen them at the Shakespeare Festival perform?

- Oh, god.

My granddaughter at the time was a queen and she did the Fancy Shawl and I almost cried.

I mean, it was just so emotional.

I was just seeing them really doing working hard at what they were doing and, you know, bringing it to the people and showing exactly the beauty of our culture and tradition.

It was, it was great.

(Indigenous music of North America) And I got all emotional and everything and they help preserve our culture and they bring it back and they make our kids feel proud of who they are, you know, I see pride out there.

- As we learn more, as we educate more, as we reconnect back with our ancestors with some of those teachings, with our land, with our people, with our families, you know, it really helps build that sense of who we are and that connection.

(Indigenous music of North America) - When you step inside Best Friend's Animal Sanctuary you'll find cats and dogs ready for their forever homes.

Best Friends is the nation's largest sanctuary for homeless animals, and in southern Utah they find sanctuary in a place like no other.

(mellow music) - It's life changing.

It is a complete mind shift for a lot of people.

A lot of people have the same exact story that I do.

It just happened at a different time or a different point along their journey.

(mellow music continues) Like one of those life stories where the best laid plans never turn out the way they're supposed to be.

I had graduated from college.

I was on my way to the University of Virginia Law School and my friends and I decided to take a trip to Mexico.

We had just enough money to get back to Salt Lake City.

As we got to Utah, one of my friends had sponsored an animal at a place called Best Friend's Animal Sanctuary.

We pulled into this incredible, magnificent canyon.

It was breathtaking.

What was striking to me was interacting with the founders and understanding their vision of the place and understanding the no kill ethic and how it was deeper than just saving lives, it was part of a philosophy to really help save humankind.

And it had such a dramatic impact on me that right then and there I decided I wasn't going to law school, I was home.

I called my dad saying, just had this really profound experience and I'm not gonna go to law school.

I'm moving to Kanab, Utah to work at this animal sanctuary.

And he flipped out.

He and my friends and family members started to stage an intervention.

They thought it would pass.

And here I am, 26 years later.

It was a very makeshift operation.

We were living day to day.

It didn't even phase me that I was living in abject poverty because there was something bigger driving me and there was something bigger that was more important here.

(ambient nature) (serene music) - [Amy] So we brought in 1800 last year.

It was a huge success.

Of course, we want to try to have the same number adopted out or transferred out.

- As per as many difficult things as we see, we get to see so many happy things.

All the adoptions, all the fosters.

- People are terrified of white bunnies with red eyes.

So normally in shelters it's the black animals that have a hard time getting adopted.

And with bunnies, it's the white bunnies with the red eyes.

- They have really complex social organization.

They love being with each other.

They love communicating.

They communicate with each other constantly.

They love touching.

They'll snuggle up at night.

- They are good partner.

I'm also taking good care of them so that they can take good care of me.

And so, wonderful, humbling experience.

- I've seen it go from just a bunch of, you know, eccentric oddballs in myself and my colleagues shoveling sand in the desert, you know, animals coming out of our ears, to now a national, international movement that kindness to animals really builds a better world for all of us.

If you start with the weakest animals in our circle that are in greatest need, then you kind of lift everything.

- This organization was really born out of the notion that every life has intrinsic value, particularly starting with America's shelter systems, which traditionally, for the past 150 years have been killing animals as a means of population control.

The way that this whole sheltering system started in this country was, it started in New York City in the late 1800s where there was a rabies outbreak.

And the public was concerned about rabies and rightfully so, and so the city's response to that was that they put a bounty on dogs.

And so bounty hunters were paid 25 cents a head.

And they rounded up these dogs, they put 'em in a cage and dunked them in the East River.

And the public was outraged by this.

And so they said, "Look, you've gotta do something different here.

So the response from communities all over the country was to basically do the same acts just behind closed doors, which became our modern shelter system.

And this went on for decade after decade after decade, until the founders of Best Friends showed up here at the sanctuary and said, "Why are we, why are we killing our best friends?

Why aren't we trained to save them?"

And that launched the whole No-Kill Movement and changed the narrative that changed the game.

(horse snorting) (bells chiming) Anybody who's owned a pet or had a pet in their life you understand why the organization is named Best Friends.

It is the why behind what we do.

They discovered a burial of a man with a dog that dated back 200,000 years.

This is part of who we are.

(bells chiming) (light piano music) It would be ideal if every community was a sanctuary.

If your shelter is struggling with too many animals it's important for future generations to understand that you as an individual can make a huge difference.

You being positive and telling that positive narrative to encourage others and lift others up.

When you think about the founders and the fact that they had the vision and the wherewithal to actually say, "This is a way better way to not only treat our best friends but to carve out a vision for the future for an entire field that's been relating to pet over population in this way.

When I think about when I arrived, they just wanted to do right by the animals in this canyon, in this part of the world.

We didn't have this idea that the organization was gonna turn into this national and international movement and become this force for good in the way that we have.

And to see that evolve organically, it really is an unbelievable feeling.

So that, that's the exciting thing for me.

That's what gets me up every day in the morning to think about creating societal change in that way where you can actually see it happen in your lifetime.

To say you're gonna end a societal ill that's been going on for 150 years.

It's quite a remarkable thing.

What a remarkable journey.

And sometimes I think that's the gift in life, that's the jewel in life, is when you follow your intuition and your gut and you shelve the strategy and the plan and the straw man and all that stuff, and you just go with what you know is the right thing to do.

(light orchestral music) I feel so motivated to do good after watching those stories, and I hope you do as well.

This is Utah is on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, and we hope that you'll head there and hit the like button.

Share a story or two that you've enjoyed with a friend.

You never know.

It just might make their day.

For now, I'm Liz Adeola and this is Utah.

This is Utah is made possible in part by the Willard L. Eccles Foundation, the Lawrence T and Janet T. Dee Foundation, and by the contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(Upbeat Music)