You cannot travel on the path until you become the path itself

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

As I departed the airplane and approached the terminal in Cusco, Peru, the faint echo of music wafted through the air. When I entered the terminal, something I never would have expected happened.

My eyes welled up with tears. In front of me stood a band of about 10 Peruvian musicians playing guitars, wooden flutes, mandolins, percussion and hand drums.

Their music, which was traditional Peruvian folk in style, so deeply penetrated my heart that in an instant I felt I was returning home to a part of myself I had long ago forgotten. I experienced my soul opening as it began to commingle with the energy of those to whom I was a foreigner- and I had an epiphany right then and there.

While I knew my house was many thousands of miles away in California, my home was right where I was in that moment, in the presence of others who looked so different from me, and yet my soul confirmed these "others" were clearly a part of my family.

In that moment, any anxiety or fear I might have had about being a stranger in a distant and foreign land simply dissolved.

Shirley MacLaine once wrote, "The more I traveled the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends."

It is truly extraordinary how people from just about every culture open up to us as we open up to them.

I had a similar experience on a journey to China last year as I sat in a crowded restaurant in Beijing. However, this time it wasn't with musicians; it was as I gazed into the eyes of a young Chinese girl, perhaps 3 years old.

She stood outside staring at me through the window and appeared to be looking directly into my soul. In that holy instant I saw the face of God, and once again all sense of separation dissolved and I was "at home." It was the peak moment of the entire trip for me.

The single common element in my encounters in both Peru and China and every other country to which I've traveled were the people.

What I've come to love most about travel to other countries is not just the amazing historical landmarks and the stunning beauty of uniquely different landmasses, but the people.

By experiencing diverse cultures so unlike that of my own, I've been given the opportunity to witness, marvel at, respect and appreciate our differences and, even more so, the universal sameness we all share.

To be able to be so present with others in their own habitat so far from mine and at the same time feel a deep and profound sense of connectedness is a rather disarming experience.

Sometimes I wonder what might happen if every human being had the opportunity to travel to foreign lands and see for themselves that we have far more in common than we have differences.

Perhaps that is where true world peace might start. When we can look beyond size, age, gender, nationality, color, culture, religion or any of the other many labels we tend to place upon others and ourselves, we shall realize we are all very much the same.

We all are born; we all die. We all laugh; we all cry. We all know joy; we all know pain. We all share the same planet, and we all share the same name: human being. This to me is the deeper meaning of traveling the world.

Dennis Merritt Jones is the spiritual director for OneSpirit Center for Conscious Living in Simi Valley. His website is www.OneSpirit.org.