VISITING sacred places, persons and objects may be regarded as encounters of the human and divine. These encounters evoke in the visitors` hearts a sublime, transcendent and holy feeling. When visitors to a sacred place describe their experiences as `... a serene spiritual experience ... beyond words... .`, these may echo in those of us who have had similar visits to our own sacred places. Such visits often tend to enrich, for some, inner spirituality, while for others, who do not believe in any sense of sacred or holy, they may wonder at, or even question, such experiences.

Sacredness is a concept that evokes veneration and sublimity rendering us often speechless, as the above comment of a friend admits. Lutf Zada rightly argues that when complexity rises, precise statements lose their meaning and meaningful statements lose precision.

Language can support us only thus far and surrenders when its scope shrinks in light of extraordinary experiences. Such experiences know only feelings as reality, not words.

The concept of sacredness is all-pervasive in world religions and other traditions. The sacred can be defined in many ways. For example, when probed, artificial intelligence takes it to mean `something regarded with reverence and respect, often associated with the divine or holy`. It adds, and rightly so, that different cultures have unique sacred persons, things, symbols, rituals and practices that are venerated and celebrated based on their beliefs. AI further tells us that sacred texts, places and objects are central to worship and spiritual life. At a philosophical level, thinkers may view the sacred within the context of ethics, morality and human experience.

So, the notion of sacredness is all-pervasive to so many dimensions of human life, such as revealed texts, inspired poetry, sacred places, revered things, art, literature, architecture and rituals.

Such sacred objects or places have a purifying, sanctifying and transforming role when they are approached with humility. Being a subjective experience, the sense of sacred is often private; it cannot be shared with others. Sacredness is associated with human ingenuity of meaning-making, a quality uniquely seen in humans.

The experience of sacredness may be subjective; what seems to be a `sacred` thing, or object or a place or time may appear to others as normal, devoid of any such thing. This is why each religion or a sacred tradition develops elaborate rituals that are aimed at generating the senseof sacredness or holiness. They are experienced very differently by different participants. For example, millions may experience the ritual of Haj or ziarat of a sacred place or a mausoleum, but each one may undergo a very different nature of experience. Some may get transformed, others may go back as they came without changing much.

Obviously, a lot depends on one`s perspective and belief with which one participates in an experience of the sacred.

Even when we consider the teachings of the prophets, sages or reformers, people respond to them differently. The Quran gives an example of this. `Behold, as for those who are bent on denying the truth it is all one to them whether thou warnest them or dost not warn them: they will not believe. God has sealed their hearts and their hearing, and over their eyes is a veil; and awesome suffering awaits them` (2:6-7).How would we understand the `sealing` of hearts, hearing and veils in their eyes? Does this mean lack of capacity to think? The Quran regards them as `...deaf, dumb, blind... .` (2:18). It even dubs them worse than animals; `Do you suppose that most of them listen or exercise their reason? They are just like cattle; indeed, they are further astray from the way` (25:44). Thus, the Quran ascribes this state of human thinking not just to refusal to listen or give thought, but stubbornness. The Quran says, `And they [on the Day of Judgement] will say: Had we but listened or pondered, we should not have been among the inmates of the burning fire` (67:10).

Thus, the feeling of sacredness may be developed through listening (obviously with the inner ear) and watching closely the marvels of creation (the Quran calls them aayaat). These divine encounters develop a sublime feeling, often spurred spontaneously, not consciously generated.

Sacredness is a feeling of the divine, at the intersection of the human and suprahuman, through the experience of, for instance, a sacred thing, meeting an enlightened person, or while undergoing a ritual wherein the participants try to transcend themselves to the realm of the sacred and the holy.

The wnter is an educationist with an interest in the study of religion and philosophy