Malcolm Croft - The Planets Most Spiritual Places: Sacred Sites and Holy Locations Around the World

Malcolm Croft

Chapter 1
Ancient Monuments

Chapter 2
Places of Worship

Chapter 3
Pilgrimages

Chapter 4
Natural Wonders

Chapter 5
Centres of Enlightenment

Chapter 6
Living Landmarks

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French priest, scientist and philosopher.

W elcome to the planets most spiritual places. Over the course of this journey, we will together trot the globe in search of that elusive quality, spirituality. It has long been humankinds quest to understand its purpose and place in the universe, and this promises to be a first-class flight for the mind, body and soul. Along the way, we will have our breath taken away by a bounty of beautiful destinations, great and small, far and wide, from the mighty peaks of Nepal to the submarine canyon of Nazar, and plenty more in between.

By the end of this adventure, well hopefully have found the various meanings yes, plural of life as seen through the eyes and lives of these landmarks, as well as the patrons and pilgrims who worship them from near and afar.

However, in advance of embarking on this spiritual journey towards the Great Before and the Great Beyond, we must first define what spirituality is, and how weve applied this in making our final selection of places. It wasnt easy. Spirituality comes in multiple shapes and sizes, many forms and functions, and can have all sorts of differing significance to citizens from all corners of the world: It is as rare as it is ever-present.

For some, spirituality is something tangible a touch of a temple wall or a view of a stained-glass window, for example. For others, it is simply something you must feel in your soul.

History teaches us that spirituality is a connection to deities, God and the divine, transmitted through various forms: An embrace of our mind, body and spirit at sunrise or sunset; a baptism of water from a large wave or sacred lake; a pilgrimage to the promised land; His (or Her) presence at a monolithic rock standing solo in a desert: none can be denied.

Spirituality is the metaphysical and physical attachment to that divine ideal that humankind has together placed upon itself over the millennia. It is a sense, a feeling, created in order to gain a better, deeper and more enduring understanding of our world, and how we came to be. In effect, it is to know the unknown. A spiritual moment can be encountered within at any time, wherever you are or whoever you are with. In the same way that meeting a person for the first or final time can feel sacred.

Spirituality, simply, is a connection. A connection to this world, to the divine, to each other, to the past, and as the destinations in this book will attest, the physical and symbolic manifestation of Heaven on earth. We have included 100 of those special, sacred, extraordinary landmarks that made a connection, at once grounding us to our world and offering something beyond it.

To define what spirituality is has been the quintessential adventure by every human, tribe or race since their own respective dawns. The search for spirituality, and the places that represent it, binds us together by allowing us to see the world, and their history, through their eyes. As you adventure through this book, youll soon come to discover that no matter how different each destination may seem, all of them are connected in some way.

Todays world is a super-busy place. Full of noise and stuffed with distraction, each new day bringing more opportunity to gain distance from the spiritual connections that bond us together. We created this book as a moment to pause, reflect stop and think about the places of spirituality that exist in front of your eyes, as well as being the ideal travelling companion for explorers seeking inspiration on their next soul-searching spiritual voyage into the unknown, without having to leave home.

We hope you find what youre looking for within...

See you at the next stop.

The places in this book range in age from millions of years old to only a few decades. In order to give some perspective as to what was happening around the world and when certain monuments were created, these pages show the approximate relative creation or foundation dates of certain places.

KEY

Location

Religion or type

Origin date of spiritual interest (approximate)

Annual visitors

Best time to visit

Size/height

Humans have pondered the reasons for existence for thousands of years, and have felt the need to worship a form of higher being for almost as long. This has been evidenced all over the world, as monuments were constructed around thanksgiving, homage or devotion in some of the earliest forms of idolization.

Greece