PREACHING OF THE PERSONAL IMPERSONAL GOD IN THE TEACHINGS OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

The article examines the concept of God presented in the teachings of the world-famous Indian religious reformer and public figure Swami Vivekananda. The thinker seeks to reconcile the understanding of God in Hinduism and Western religious traditions and argues that God has both personal and impersonal aspects at the same time. The purpose of the research is to reveal the essence of the idea of a personal and impersonal God proposed by Vivekananda, as well as to clarify the possibilities and conditions for the predominance of one aspect of God over another. The article takes the characteristics of the personal existence of God in Christianity as the basis for understanding God as a person in the views of the Indian thinker. The estimation of the representation of the personal aspect of God in Vivekananda views is carried out from several points of view. A biographical approach provides the necessary basis for the subsequent hermeneutic analysis of his works. As a result of its application, the versatile influence of a complex of life circumstances and relationships with other personalities on the thinker's views on the Divine is revealed. There is a displacement in Vivekananda concept of the impersonal aspect of God by the personal aspect in the last years of his life. Along with the biographical approach, the analysis of the provisions contained in the teachings of the thinker and characterising his views on the Divine from several sides of the teaching is carried out. The analysis of the declarative side of the teaching, taking into account the context of Vivekananda's propositions, indicates the equivalence of the personal and impersonal aspects of God. The analysis of the anthropocentric side is based on the Advaitist view of the neo-Hindu thinker about the human soul as a divine essence. The study of the attributive side of the teaching also indicates the predominance of the personal aspect of God. The analysis of the substantial -hypostatic side of the teaching demonstrates Vivekananda's attitude to God as a substance, but not a hypostasis, characteristic of Indian religious metaphysics. The author of this article reveals a tendency to strengthen the personal aspect of God in the work of the mature period of Vivekananda, which is justifi ed by the infl uence on the thinker's views of the specifi cs of the socio-historical conditions of the formation of Indian society at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries. Vivekananda builds his religious and philosophical teaching taking into account the need to educate a free personality for a future independent India. The study concludes that speculative disputes about aspects of God are not of primary importance for a neo-Hindu thinker, since Vivekananda emphasises the importance of the practical benefi ts of religion for society.