Philip Kapleau is said to have quoted frequently this otherwise unknown story:

An old Eastern monk said, "I went to my teacher with nothing and came away with nothing." Someone asked, "Why bother to go to the teacher, then?" The reply was, "How otherwise would I have known that I went with nothing and came back with nothing?"

The puzzle about Steps 10, 11 and 12 is that there is no point in doing them ... but the only way to determine that there is no point in doing them is to do them. When we hear, "Oh, there is no reason for doing the last three Steps," common sense says to us that we might just as well not trouble with them at all. But that simply goes to show the uselessness of common sense when it comes to the spiritual life. Spirituality is not about hearing something from a master, or reading something in an inspiring book. It's about finding out for ourselves by doing. When we are told, "There is no point in doing the last three Steps," the only way we'll know whether that's true is to do them, day in and day out, and see what happens.

And when we do that, something interesting happens. Those Steps turn out to be the very basis of the spiritual life. Our experience of doing them daily becomes the most precious thing we have. And yet, when someone asks us what the point of doing them is, we can only reply, "Well, there is no point ...."