Reflection – Day 009

What has dogma got to do with God? It certainly isn’t God. It certainly isn’t spiritual experience. But it is the map to God and it is the guide to understanding true spiritual experience in all its colourful forms. We cannot be guided by spiritual experience, for against what do we measure it? It may well be exciting, sensational even, but it leads us nowhere. Enlightenment? Enlightenment of what exactly? Dogma may seem dry, it may not be thrilling, but it is the thing that unifies the millions of personal experiences through the eons to a single direction and towards a singular goal. He created us with a handful of earth, a handful of many qualities and hues: black, brown, white, red and yellow; hard, rough, soft, smooth and fertile, yet earth all the same. He created us with a single purpose and a single path on which to travel. Dogma may not be feeling the presence of Allah, it may not be colourful or exciting, but it is the map. And as long as we are prepared to travel we have a chance of success, but without this map we will not be getting anywhere fast at all.