From the majestic Himalayan Mountains to ancient Jerusalem and Mecca, sacred places around the world have a deep and spiritual meaning for many of the world’s religions.

Some holy sites are natural and some are human-made; some are famous, some are less known; some are grand and some are of a humble nature, yet they all share the same sanctity that has called forth reverence throughout the ages.

Today on The World Around Us, we will journey to some of the most consecrated locations around the world with anthropologist and photographer, Martin Gray. Mr. Gray has traveled the world to visit more than 1,000 holy places in over 80 countries.

His photographic works have been published in National Geographic and his own Places of Peace and Power website which has received more than 25 million visitors. In 2007, Sacred Earth was published as a photographic atlas of holy places around the globe and will soon be available in Japanese and Russian. Mr. Gray has been invited to numerous conferences worldwide to give his presentations on hallowed sites.

Let us now continue our conversation with Mr. Martin Gray about these blessed places.

It was in the United States of America that Mr. Gray experienced his first sacred site on the glistening white sands of New Mexico. The White Sands National Monument is the largest gypsum dune fields in the world, covering 275 square miles.

The Americas are also graced with other sacred spots such as Mount Shasta in California, USA; Medicine Lake in Canada; the Church of El Sisne in Ecuador; Lake Titicaca in Bolivia; and the Irazu Volcano in Costa Rica, among many others. Mr. Gray describes some of the special pyramids he has visited in Mexico.

There are some other sacred sites around the world that have pyramids. Teotihuacan in Mexico, outside of Mexico City, has a pyramid there that may be older than most orthodox archaeologists say.

Across the Atlantic, the European continent also has many holy sites. From Armenia’s Holy Etchmiadzin to England’s Stonehenge to Russia’s Monastery of Trinity, these places attract faithful pilgrims from around the world. Mr. Gray talks about the history of two Marian shrine destinations: Lourdes in France and Fatima in Portugal.

Bernadette Soubirous had all of these visions, where a feminine apparition happened. It said it was the daughter of God. There is this young woman that saw this water come out of the ground and this apparition manifested to her and talked to her. Same thing, Lourdes and Fatima, 1917, I think. So those places became pilgrimage sites by virtue of the people that came.

The birthplace of some of the world’s great past Masters, such as Lord Jesus, Prophet Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him, Prophet Zoroaster and Bahá'u'lláh, is in the Middle East. Spiritual seekers are naturally drawn to this holy land.

Among sacred places in the Middle East are Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Petra, and Pir-e-Sabz shrine. One of the holiest sites visited is Mecca in Saudi Arabia. As the birthplace of both Prophet Muhammad and the Islam religion, all Muslims make the pilgrimage to this revered land at least once in their life if circumstances permit.

I’ve been to Mecca. There were 1.1 million people in the great Mosque in the building, and another three million really close around the mosque. It’s beautiful.

There's an Islamic sacred site in western Algeria called Tlemcen. There are 3 Shiite mosques in Sunni, Iraq. And then there's a place called Nan Madol. There are a few sites out in Melanesia, Polynesia, Micronesia.

Continuing on our journey eastward, we cross the biblical Red Sea and arrive on the continent of Africa, regarded as the cradle of civilization. Africa is home to such holy places as the Arc of the Covenant, Mount Sinai, the Mosque of Touba, and the pyramids. Thousands of people visit the Egyptian pyramids every year, marveling at the construction and in wonderment of its original purpose.

When we talk about pyramids, there are only two types. The pyramids that are very, very old, and then the pyramids that aren’t so old. And by not so old, to me is, 3000 BC forward.

The World Around Us will be right back after these brief messages. Please keep your dial tuned here to Supreme Master Television to discover what the Great Pyramid beholds.

There's no rule. There's nothing that you’ve got to do. Don't hurt anything and do what your heart tells you to do. Just enjoy it. Just be there.

I'm trying to awaken people to the idea that the Earth is sacred. Everything I can see is a gift: the Earth is giving to me. So I try to ask people to say, “Thank you to this living being that allows you to live here.”

Today on The World Around Us, Mr. Martin Gray, anthropologist and photographer, introduces us to some of the world’s most sacred sites.

You have some sites in Egypt that are really important like the Sphinx and the Osirion. There are a few other things there that are pre-Egyptian. And some people even say they were built pre-10,500 BC.

If you look at the layout of places on the ground according to their celestial alignments, and then if you look at their positioning on sacred geographical grids: Aha! You get something very, very interesting because a lot of times the place of these structures on the land is in a relationship to the positions of the stars in the sky from that latitude at different times.

Mr. Gray illustrates that these great works of architecture had lofty spiritual purposes.

In the Great Pyramid, there is this one chamber, the larger chamber, and there is a tremendous amount of geometry in all of the lengths, in the widths, in the volume inside of this. And so here you have this pyramid built with sacred geometry on a particular line.

The geometry the pyramid focuses on something inside, it’s at a place on the air; there is all the celestial power coming. It all focuses it into this room that has sacred geometry in the building of the room, and there is a coffer, a big stone which never had a lid.

And people would lie in there at certain times, and because this sort of focusing of a variety of energies at a certain place at a certain time in this chamber, it allowed people to have these extraordinary awakenings, spiritual awakening experiences, or oracular experiences, where they could see somehow into the future. There were magnificent things that happen to people in the Great Pyramid, in that box. But that’s the only pyramid like that in the world. All the others are different.

Asia abounds with sacred sites which include Mt. Fuji in Japan, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Mount Kailas in Tibet, and Cheju Do Island in South Korea. In India, the home of yogis and saints, the people venerate all life.

Southern Indian Hinduism or Hinduism in general is a really good one for this. You have so many different types of deities. All these goddesses and gods, and they each did different things at different places. So you see a really fine sort of indication of the different qualities of places in India.

In India, there are these Kumbh Mela sites. There are actually 4 – Nashik, Ujjain, Haridwar and Allahabad – which used to be called Prayag. Now it's Allahabad, where the Kumbh Mela happens. Each one of those are water sites along rivers. Each one of them is sacred on a particular astrological date that happens every so often.

Millions of people come especially to the Kumbh Mela because they feel at that particular time, there are some qualities, some energy, something that gives people an experience of divinity forever. It guarantees enlightenment and freedom from birth. 25 million people went there during the month period. It's magnificent.

Our Earth, a home to over 6 billion human inhabitants, is a living entity that sustains the life of countless flora and fauna. We have a responsibility to be caring stewards of our nurturing planet.

We mine the earth, then we manufacture something, and then there’s pollution that comes out of it. And then the things are wasted, become obsolete, and thrown away. So you have this planet being overwhelmed by the amount of junk that we human beings put out.

Then you have lots of other problems, spread of AIDS and depletion of non-renewable natural resources, and they are all completely interwoven with one another and the global super structure is shaking. We are losing animal species. Our planet is in such dire straits, and I know there is an awakening of consciousness on this planet. This is extraordinary. It’s not just the notion. I’ve been all over the place and I see it everywhere.

Mr. Martin Gray speaks of his philosophy on life and his deep respect for all God’s creations.

Don't hurt anything. Get up in the morning and put goodness and beauty into the world. Be really nice to people.

The whole world and every being, everything, is sacred.

Our sincere appreciation, Mr. Martin Gray, for graciously sharing your brilliant photographic talent and knowledge to introduce some of our planet’s holy places. May the conviction that “every being is sacred” resonates deep within human consciousness as our world evolves toward an era in which the sanctity of all life is honored.

Thank you, global viewers, for joining us for today’s The World Around Us. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television. Words of Wisdom is up next, after Noteworthy News. We’ll see you again.