Alan Watts

Popularly, Amitabha is somebody else. He is some great compassionate being who looks after you.
Esoterically, Amitabha is your own nature; Amitabha is your real self, the inmost boundless light that is the root and ground of your own consciousness (Buddha-nature).
You don’t need to do anything to be that. You are that, and saying Nembutsu (Namu-Amida-Butsu) is simply a symbolical way of pointing out that you don’t have to become this, because you are it.