As Ken Wilber points out, it’s helpful for us to be able to shift between zero-, first-, second-, and third-person relationships with the divine. (I think I probably added the zero one since it acknowledges no-self more explicitly.)
When we pray or open to the divine in a second person relationship, we can do it through aspects of the divine or intermediaries – avatars, Buddha aspects, saints, angels and so on, or we can connect with God as a whole. These two approaches complement each other and give us a taste of different flavors of the divine.
God – Brahman, Big Mind, Oneness, Spirit – is primary, and all the other ones secondary. They may be entry points to the divine, but God as a whole is always the context and source. For me, it’s important to have my relationship with God as the primary and the other ones secondary.
There are several reasons for this. It reflects reality. It helps me connect with my own wholeness and what I am. In my experience, it brings in the aspects and intermediaries anyway. To put it simply, the one to trust in is God.
And I have personal reasons as well. In the initial awakening, it was the divine that woke up to itself as everything without exception. Everything was revealed as God. It was a kind of cosmic awakening. So it’s natural for me to primarily relate to God as a whole, and I notice it does myself good as well since it helps me to connect with what I am, Big Mind.
The seed of this article was a Vortex Healing teacher (RW) talking about how he prefers relationships with the aspects of the divine over a relationship to God as a whole. Perhaps it’s because his conscious connection with the divine first was through gurus and avatars? For me, it’s the reverse. Both are equally valid and different flavors of how the divine explores and experiences itself.