"Spirituality and travel have been linked from the beginning of human history. The oldest spiritual quest that we have an inkling of is ancient man's quest for the House of the Sun. One can imagine our ancestors seeking this house where the sun must surely have set. How many unsung voyages since that time have been inspired by the setting sun and its ancient choir of steepled light? The eye is drawn relentlessly towards the rising and setting sun, and where the eye wanders with hope an imagination, there goes the soul. It is perhaps no accident that monks and holy men and women of all religions have gone on pilgrimage and journeys of knowledge since the beginning of recorded history.
"Buddhism spread from Nepal and India in the third century B.C., at roughly the same time that Alexander the Great surged to the East in the hope of finding the ends of the earth. Who knows what gods or demons drove Alexander? We do know, however, that he was a pupil of Aristotle and that the God Aristotle preached was a God of perfection who drew all things to himself. Alexander sought this perfection on the road of conquest and discovery. Hundreds of years later, Christianity spread throughout the Greco Roman Empire with the injunction to go and teach all nations. Five centuries later Islam rose and spread its message through the ghost footpaths of that same empire. They were all travelers in search of spiritual booty and adventure. They still are."
