But you might say, "Well, then why do we have lessons? If there are no tenets, what are lessons for?" The answer is that it is like learning the alphabet, which is one stage. When a person can read a book, that is another stage. He needs books to practice reading: it does not matter what book you take up to read, you can practice reading with it, you do not have to take it as being an inspired scripture. Similarly the exercises which are given in the form of lessons or instructions are just lines of thought to follow until you get accustomed to these different lines of thought when inquiring into metaphysical and spiritual subjects. But you do not have to accept them as rigid tenets or doctrines or principles, and then make out that Sufism is limited to them!