Recently I came across the Hindu word ‘darshana’ which I understand means the strangely intense feeling a person may experience when in the presence of a holy place.  Now, like most people, I have been in several churches, large and small, over the years.  I have also been fortunate enough to have visited several world-famous cathedrals and have gazed in awe at the beauty and grandeur of them. I have felt the weight of history in them, the intense awareness of the famous people who have walked on those stones and worshipped in those places.  (I have also been dismayed at the unfortunate, but I suppose necessary, commercialisation of them). These were, and are, holy places for thousands of people but the feeling of ‘darshana’ was not there for me.   Only twice have I felt it.  Once when I was walking by myself in rain forest late one afternoon on a grey, misty day.  I came to a waterfall and an intense feeling of something – was it awe?- swept over me.  I felt beyond doubt that at some time in the past, this had been a sacred site.  The other occasion was when my late husband and I were exploring the remnants of an old Roman road somewhere in the north of England.  It was a heavily-wooded area and no one else was around.  A feeling, similar to before, suddenly came over me.  My husband also experienced something unusual.  Whether it was the same as I felt I do not know, but he felt something.  I have wondered since if these instances were  ‘darshana’ and if it was it was significant that both occasions were out in the open.