What is the most spiritually moving place you have been

[Claredemoon]

For me, despite not being Catholic, it was Norte Dame in Paris and the interior of the Sagrada Familia. I especially felt I could feel God's presence in the latter. I'm just interested to hear about other places people have been spiritually moved, doesn't have to be Christian

It wasn't a place as such but when I travelling around South America, I travelled on an overnight bus.

It was hot, packed, noisy and you couldn't get a decent sleep.

I woke up feeling weirdly really refreshed at about 4am just as the sun was coming up. We were up really high on a mountain road and I could see the orange sun breaking over lush rain forest below. You could smell clean, damp air outside and occasionally hear monkeys screaming.

The few passengers that were on the bus were just looking out of the windows in silence. A really weird feeling of tranquility and appreciation came over me. I looked around at the bus full of people who didn't know each other and would go their separate ways (to all different parts of the world) in a couple of hours and it hit me just how many people there are in the world, all with their own individual complex stories and how unlikely it was that us 30-odd people would have ended up on this same bus.

I'm 100% atheist by the way

Quite right OP. Spirituality, serenity, peace and morality are not the sole premise of people who believe in God. I’m an atheist.

It’s a nice thread which reflects all faiths and non faiths. Refreshing!

@triedperson I'm glad you are enjoying it and absolutely agree with you!

Stonehenge.

Although several cathedrals as well, but Stonehenge was something more.

Maybe I shouldn't have used the word god, I know it gets peoples hackles up.

Although spirituality is something other than the material world, no?

Crowland abbey
Crowland
Peterborough

Never been to a place where I have felt so close to my late dd
Ide never been there before either

I’m not religious but I visited the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula in Brussels eleven years ago, and it absolutely took my breath away. They had the choir singing in there and so many candles lit, it was completely spectacular and I felt really overcome with emotion. Photos don’t do it justice to the reality.

Worth Abbey, after compline when the lights are turned off and the church descends into quiet. It's the only place I've ever been where silence is not an absence of noise, but an entity itself. It thickens and deepens and envelops you.

Atheist here. For me it was the Bahai’i Lotus Temple in New Delhi. Went as a tourist and ended up feeling something move and shift in me. Incredibly moving.

I've found Lindisfarne, Iona and Walsingham to be very 'thin' places in different ways.

One of the most beautifully spiritual places I ever visited was a mountainside in the Austrian Tyrol. I was just so moved by the beauty and grandeur. A group of us went and sang 'oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder...' and it was just stunning and the presence of God was tangible.

A massive tent on a showground in Somerset (with the smell of cattle lingering) (a Christian festival)

Loads of others but those stand out.

I would second @thinkofablinkingnamewoman and say amritsar. I think it is partly to do with the fact that so many different people from different walks of life come together there and it is so peaceful.

Also in general I feel that you can see/feel the beauty of creation anywhere. Sometimes a little glimpse of nature or a small kindness shown by someone make me feel so full of joy! So perhaps not a place but anyplace?.

The Italian Chapel on Orkney.

I am also another person that finds spiritual peace from nature. my local park has a long beautiful tree lined path, when I go walking through it early of a morning I am often hit by the beauty of the trees. But One time running through it I came to a stop and the sunlight, the breeze, me panting breathlessly, I just became overwhelmed with gratitude. my arms automatically rose up in thanks for my health, my limbs, my eyes that i could see the beauty, that I was living in peacetime, that the sky was clear. I wanted to get down and bow my head on the floor I felt such a sense of awe and gratitude. Usually I fidget and am distracted in regular prayer but I felt profound peace that morning.

Walsingham and Glastonbury for me. Glastonbury in general because it makes me feel very connected to other people who just have inquiring, open minds and hearts.
Walsingham, because I went on pilgrimage there and it was so intense to walk along in procession praying the rosary. It was a full body experience - the words being spoken, the physical actions of walking along, bowing at the name of Jesus, feeling the beads through my hands, the sounds of everyone praying around me and the crunch of the ground under my feet, the smells of the countryside and the sun beating down on my back. All wrapped up in an amazing sense of collective and personal journey and destination.

Both mine have been said already - Newgrange in Ireland and Stonehenge. I'm an atheist and not even faintly Druidic or Pagan - I have a couple of witchy friends and it all makes me shudder tbh - but the long history of spirituality in those places makes me feels very close and connected to people in the past.

The Jewish cemetery in Warsaw. It wasn’t easy to find, if you know what I mean, but when I slipped behind the closed door I found a little wilderness of beauty and meloncholy. And then a visiting group of schoolkids began to sing the Hatikvah .... it was breathtakingly haunting. History felt very close.

Saint Paul's cathedral. I've cried many tears in there coping with sexual abuse. I felt safe there.

The Pantheon.
The Macintosh Library at Glasgow Art School
My least spiritual space (which surprised me) was the Vatican

Cornwall. I'm aware though that it's about how beautiful it is.

No ones going to say the toll booths for the Dartford crossing are their spiritual home?!

The Sacre Couer
Temple of the tooth in Kandy

Oh and Durham Cathedral

No ones going to say the toll booths for the Dartford crossing are their spiritual home?! I think it's possible to have a spiritual experience in a dark place or moment though. Even the Dartford crossing Although there's beauty in that there bridge.

The Golden Temple (harmandir sahib) in Amritsar, India. It is the most beautiful place, I went during the day and was blown away, but My mother in-law went overnight to help with “sewa” (which means to help or do charity work, she is from India and very religious and part of her religious belief is to help do charity work) and helped with the cleaning of the artefacts and prayer areas. She says that seeing the holy book being brought to the prayer area with so much ceremony and respect was the most humbling beautiful experience. Few documentaries on YouTube about it that are good.