For the Dagara, the well-being of the community is of great importance and ritual plays a large role in healing both the individual and community as a whole. Malidoma Somé tells us that rituals, including the initiation ritual that takes place at the time of puberty, "help to reawaken the intensity that brought us here. Making ritual a part of daily life will help to rekindle the intensity that keeps us on the path of our purpose." (35)

Ritual helps people to remember why they are here. Somé states that healing happens when people remember their life purpose because in doing so, they reconnect with the world of Spirit. The Dagara hold that when we are born, we forget why we came here. While the individual may forget his or her purpose in life, the individual's community recognizes each person's unique gifts. Malidoma Somé states, "We look to the physical world, the community of people, for help in remembering our purpose… Purpose is something that the individual has framed and articulated prior to coming into a community." (33) When a woman becomes pregnant, the Dagara elders communicate with the Spirit world in a ritual of asking the fetus what his or her life purpose is and how the community can help him or her to fulfill this purpose.

Somé states that if these rituals and divination systems are not available, we can find our life purpose by seeing what we are naturally drawn to. "Therefore it is not necessary for people in the modern world to go to some kind of wise man or authority to have their purpose assigned to them. The leadership that they need lies within their own relationship to the world of Spirit and the ancestors." (33) One's dreams, instincts, and inspirations are pointers for one's life purpose.