Prayer is mostly thought of as a religious notion. But in fact, isn’t it really just exercising the mind to shape and launch intentions targeted at an aspect of ourselves whose charter is to fulfill those intentions? Would it be helpful to think of the divine realm and even God as extensions of our own mind? In the same way we conceive of having a subconscious that serves us, and frustrates us at times, isn’t God serving a similar role, and is every bit as real and connected to us as our own subconscious is, a part of us?

We can meet you halfway in answering this question, in the same way we meet you halfway when you are launching a prayer request or a request for healing on the part of the self or others. In other words, it is not all up to you if you have us to lean on. By the same token, it is not all up to us because we need your intention to get our attention and enable us, literally, to spring into action on your behalf. Without your specific thoughtful request, we are powerless to help most of the time other than perhaps to keep you breathing at a minimum. This leaves the ball in your court and an equal part of the power needed being in your hands in order to have a divine intervention of any kind take place. This reflects not only your power technically but your standing with us, as well as reflecting the responsibility you have for conducting your affairs and seeing to your needs as best you can, at least as a starting point. It is easy for people to become overwhelmed. This is when you need divine support and assistance the most. There needs to be preserved enough presence of mind to make a meaningful request for divine help from a position of at least enough strength to be supported by your belief in us and the possibility of this happening by seeing yourself as worthy—those are the minimum requirements, as usual, to launch a divine request with a chance of it being answered. So when you think of us as a part of you, it is true in the sense we are within you and we are engaged with you, and we are listening and watching you all the time and are aware of and privy to everything that happens including your own thoughts, both on the conscious level as well as the deeper reaches of the mind—even during the dream state. There is, however, a potential pitfall in viewing us as a part of you, owing to the fact people often disparage themselves and would themselves feel this is a diminishment of the divine, to bring it down to human level. Our intention to promote a divine/human partnership is not to reduce ourselves to your level, but to raise you up to ours, for you truly are a part of us. So your question is a thoughtful one and reflecting that very reality, it is not hubris to think of us as being components comprising a whole, with you included, but there is a functional reality that we are the totality and you are a subcomponent. We would rather see you retain your self-identity and appreciate and extol the virtues of your sovereignty to be separate but entitled to divine consultation and assistance at any time, anywhere, for any reason. That is still not true equality in terms of the physical reality of the respective energies between the human being and the divine, but in terms of engaging in a partnership, it is the partnership that creates a state of equality because it is an agreement to share an encounter, an experience, and an outcome. It is no different than someone engaging a business for a particular purpose—in most cases, other than sole proprietorships with a one-person operation, you will be interacting with a representative and one or more individuals with expertise in a certain function who will carry out and see to your needs being met in the products or services that business produces, but you will not be engaged directly with the totality of that organization from the CEO level to the administrative oversight and managerial levels to the workers, not to mention all of the housekeeping functions and those personnel. So we think the answer to your question will best be served by reinforcing the idea of and the wisdom of a human partnership with the divine when needing assistance of any kind, and to visualize that as walking hand in hand to effect an interchange in discussing needs as well as the execution of a divine implementation through the energies of the human and perhaps others who are arranged and suitably motivated to take part in bringing about a desired outcome. That preserves the reality that we are functionally separate, from your perspective, but are equal in desire to see good things happen for you, and that is the basis of the contract we have together you can invoke at any time. It is that partnership that is a part of you with our being in residence, so to speak, within your energy to be called on at any time through prior agreement.