A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

In Western religions, establishing a personal relationship with God is the ideal.  But is such a personal relationship possible in Vedanta?  How can you have a personal relationship with a God that is impersonal? 

Yet Vedantists who have had a mystical experience, for instance, would never say that it was an impersonal experience, mystical experience defined as union with God.  They might say that it was beyond description, but they would not say that it was impersonal.

In early Vedanta, allowance was made for the "individual personal experiential knowledge" of God.  This kind of knowledge they said was not mere epistemic knowledge (knowing about something) but was a direct, unambiguous knowing, leading to liberation.  This acquiring personal knowledge of God and its concomitant liberation is referred to now as "sramanic culture" and is significant in its influence on the development of mainstream Hinduism.  So there is precedent for a personal relationship with God.

One other point needs to be made here.  Tat tvam asi in Sanskrit means "that are thou," and refers to the relationship between the Atman, the subjective aspect of the Brahman, and the Brahman itself.  The Atman IS Brahman and therefore it does not make sense to speak of having a personal relationship with Brahman when a person IS Brahman.

And finally, is God, or Brahman, truly impersonal?  Different schools in Vedanta argue it differently.  For example, Dvaita argues for the personal, while Advaita supports the impersonal.  It is more realistic perhaps to say simply that God is both personal and impersonal, and neither personal nor impersonal.