Metaphysical / Mystical: “Metaphysical”: concerning universal realities considered objectively. “Mystical”: concerning the same realities considered subjectively, that is, in relation to the contemplative soul, insofar as they enter operatively into contact with it. (GTUFS: LogicT, Understanding and Believing)
. . . the two wisdoms, the one METAPHYSICAL and the other mystical; it would be entirely wrong to take certain mystical or unitive formulations as authority for denying the legitimacy of intellectual definitions, wrong at least for anyone who is himself outside the special state in question; for in fact it happens that certain contemplatives, speaking in the name of direct experience, reject doctrinal formulations, these having become for them “words,” which does not always prevent them from putting forward other formulations of the same order and possibly of the same value. Here we must avoid confusing the strictly intellectual or doctrinal plane, which has all the legitimacy and so all the efficacy conferred on it at its level by the nature of things, with the plane of inner experience, the plane of ontological perceptions or of mystical “perfumes” or “tastes.” It would be as wrong as to dispute the adequacy of a geographical map because one had undertaken an actual journey or, for example, to pretend that because one had travelled from North to South, the Mediterranean is situated “above” and not “below,” as shown on the map. (GTUFS: UIslam, The Path)
Metaphysical Certitude (foundation): The foundation of METAPHYSICAL certitude is the coincidence between truth and our being; a coincidence that no ratiocination could invalidate. Contingent things are proven by factors situated within their order of contingency, whereas things deriving from the Absolute become clear by their participation in the Absolute, hence by a “superabundance of light” – according to Saint Thomas – which amounts to saying that they are proven by themselves. In other words, universal truths draw their evidence not from our contingent thought, but from our transpersonal being, which constitutes the substance of our spirit and guarantees the adequacy of intellection. (GTUFS: PlayMasks, In the Face of Contingency)
Metaphysical Discernment / Contemplative Concentration: Metaphysical discernment is a “separation” between Atma and Maya; contemplative concentration, or a unifying consciousness, is on the other hand a “union” of Maya with Atma. Discernment is separative* and is what “doctrine” is concerned with; concentration is unitive and is what “method” is concerned with; “faith” is related to the first element, and the “love of God” to the second.
(* This is what the Arabic word furqan signifies, namely, “qualitative differentiation”, from faraqa, to separate, to discern, to bifurcate. It is well known that Furqan is one of the names of the Koran.) (GTUFS: LightAW, Religio Perennis)
Metaphysical Truth: Metaphysical Truth is both expressible and inexpressible: inexpressible, it is not however unknowable, for the Intellect opens onto the Divine Order and therefore encompasses all that is; and expressible, it becomes crystallized in formulations which are all they ought to be since they communicate all that is necessary or useful to our mind. Forms are doors to the essences, in thought and in language as well as in all other symbolisms. (GTUFS: SurveyME, Introduction: Epistemological Premises)