Unproduced Stillness

Silence, stillness, and awareness are not states and therefore cannot be produced or created. Silence is the non-state in which all states arise and subside. Silence is itself the eternal witness without form or attribute. As you rest more profoundly as the witness, all objects take on their natural functionality, and awareness becomes free of the mind's compulsive contractions and identifications, and returns to its natural non-state of presence. [...]

The aim of spiritual practice is to discover in your own present experience That which the movement of thought never touches. This does not mean to suppress the thinking mind, nor does it mean to attempt to understand by using thought. What I am pointing toward is the Unknown: the already, ever-present, silent, still source that not only proceeds thought but surrounds it. You must become more interested in the Unknown than that which is known. Otherwise, you will remain enslaved by the very narrow and distorted perspective of conceptual thinking. You must go so deeply into the Unknown that you are no longer referencing thought to tell you who and what you are. Only then will thought be capable of reflecting that which is true, rather than falsely masquerading as Truth.

What I am talking about is a condition where the mind never fixates, where it never closes, where it has no compulsive need to understand in terms of ideas, concepts, and beliefs. A condition where you are no longer referencing the mind, feeling, or emotions for security in any way. What I am talking about is the complete surrender of all separation until liberation becomes a permanent condition, and you are forever lost in the freedom of the Absolute.

--Adyashanti