In the beginning of the work, we don’t know what is real, we don’t know what is not real, and we have no idea how to find out the difference. We are scared, we are small, we feel as if we don’t know. And if we did know how to go about it, we still wouldn’t actually be able to do it. So the teachings are necessary. But these teachings are boats to cross the river of ignorance; they are not the other shore. Their descriptions of some of the features of the other shore are not the same as the shore itself. In order to get to the other shore, we need to abandon our boats. – Diamond Heart Book Five: Inexhaustible Mystery, ch. 3