755. As children we learned "when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father who is in secret; and thy Father who seeth in secret shall reward thee openly". These instructions are of course completely correct when it is a question of stabilising the disciple's conscious or most intimate, personal contact with the very highest being. What is this precept other than an expression of, for example, the very meditation through which we have just acknowledged the solution to the mystery of life? The "closet" referred to here is not only a room with four walls and a locked door. If that were the case, it would be a shame for the many human beings who in present times go around with neither a closet nor a home. These instructions refer to such a closet only in order to indicate that one should rather pray in such a closet than make a spectacle of one's intimate prayer, that is to say one's meditation or special verbal act of addressing the Godhead, in the streets or other public places or in a group of people, such as has largely become the fashion or the custom in religious movements. But this precept has also another and even greater purpose in referring to the closet, namely, to state that the being who is praying and the Godhead must come into such a contact with each other that the prayer in fact becomes a personal, intimate conversation between them, without involving unwelcome disturbance from beings with contrary views. The precept leads to a direct, personal act of addressing an invisible providence or a godhead, entirely without the assistance of any known, visible fellow being. The precept is therefore especially encouraging or stimulating in a situation in which our prayer is of such intimate or secret thoughts and wishes that one refuses to confide even in one's closest or most trustworthy friend, because one knows in advance that here one would not be met with understanding. In this case the intimate attitude to the Godhead is not only justified but also absolutely necessary if the prayer is to be heard at all. This kind of appeal is, as we shall see later, able to trigger off a telepathic connection with the Godhead.
      At this point the objection might be raised that since our neighbour is the same as the Godhead, no situation should arise in which one refuses to express oneself to this neighbour. Such a refusal would be the same as refusing the Godhead. But this is not quite correct. The neighbour we are referring to does not constitute the whole of the Godhead but expresses merely a certain specific sensory faculty in the Godhead's mentality. And through this neighbour's sensory faculty the Godhead cannot possibly experience anything other than what this neighbour can grasp or understand. The limit of this neighbour's sensory range is the limit of what God can experience through him. If we, for example, find ourselves in a situation in which we represent a mental field, a type of thought or a wish, that no one in our surroundings can understand, neither will the Godhead be able to sense our mental condition through or with the help of these fellow beings, since these cannot be the Godhead's rightful sensory tools in the field in question. That this is correct is proved to be a fact through the misunderstanding, antipathy or persecution that this particular situation would predispose us to if it were the case that we disclosed it to these beings.