Jnana / Bhakti: The doctrines of jnana and bhakti contradict one another outwardly because of the difference of levels and modes, but neither is absurd in itself: to say that the world is unreal, or that it is real, or that it is both at once, or again that it is neither one nor the other, is true according to the perspective adopted, and these perspectives result from objective reality and not from human arbitrariness. [GTUFS: LSelf, Orthodoxy and Intellectuality]

No doubt, the loftiest ideas, above all metaphysical truths, do not necessarily entail emotions properly so called; but they necessarily confer upon the soul of the knowing subject the sentiment of certitude, and also serenity, peace and joy.* Fundamentally, we would say that where there is Truth, there also is Love. Each Deva possesses its Shakti; in the human microcosm, the feeling soul is joined to the discerning intellect,^ as in the Divine Order Mercy is joined to Omniscience; and as, in the final analysis, Infinitude is consubstantial with the Absolute. (*In Islamic language, knowledge in fact brings about a “dilation” (inshirah). ^ “It is not good that the man should be alone,” says Genesis. And let us recall that there is no jnana without an element of bhakti.) [GTUFS: SurveyME, Ambiguity of the Emotional Element]

Jnana-Marga: The third and last mode of spirituality, in ascending order, is the path of knowledge (the Hindu jnana-marga, the ma‘rifah of Sufism); its dependence with regard to doctrine is the closest possible, in the sense that doctrine is an integral part of this path in an immediate manner, whereas in bhakti doctrine can be reduced to very simple syntheses and is practically situated as it were outside the path; on the other hand, jnana is completely independent of any doctrinal formulation, and this precisely insofar as it realizes the “spirit” which, while necessarily expressing itself by means of the “letter,” always remains transcendent and incommensurable in relation to its symbols. There is a sentence from Meister Eckhart   which expresses admirably the general attitude of the jnani: “Truth is so noble that, if God wished to turn away from it, I would remain with Truth and leave God; but God Himself is Truth.” The speculative faculty, which constitutes an essential qualification and a sine qua non for jnana-marga, is the natural ability to contemplate transcendent Realities; we call this ability “natural” because the one who possesses it makes use of it more or less like any other faculty, that is to say, without the intervention of a “supernatural” state: thus, the jnani has in his state of ordinary consciousness the knowledge which the bhakta gains in a “state of grace.” [GTUFS: EyeHeart, Modes of Spiritual Realization]