(Follow these links for Part I or for Part II)
Creative Destruction is a theme I’ve tried to get away from. Particularly these last few years, as I’ve worked to build a new life, in a new formation, in a place called New Jersey. But it comes back to me—creative destruction—seemingly unbidden, and trounces through my well organized life: upturning shelves, emptying closets, hunching in the shadows.
So here in Part III, I’m going to take a long look at the contents thrown off the shelf. Sit with the heaps pulled out of the closet. Peer back at the shadow.
In Part I of this series, I explored the basics of Creative Destruction as I’ve come to understand it. Simply defined, Creative Destruction is the process of transformation, driven by consciousness, to refine forms of expression. I explored themes where this dynamic appears and highlighted a broad range of examples.
As different as they seem, a broad range of examples hints at dynamic transformation that occurs when a life force within a form no longer fits and seeks fuller, truer expression: the big bang, falling in love, migrating to a new country, birth, death, and other expansions of consciousness.
The first installment of this series was composed as a tapestry of fiery threads; sentences like wicks to light something up inside myself and hopefully to light something up inside of you. Writing and reading as exploration and creation—as a true inviolate art. This is what I’m dedicated to. I want to find a new vision, receive fuller insight, but first I need to develop a new way to see; a way devoid of platitudes and unattainable ideals. I must tender this process in myself if I hope to share—that’s what I’ve always thought. But now I realize that I was waiting for a polished, finished thing to share, so instead, I’m sharing the process. Which is what essays are all about. I remind myself that the French word, essai, means to try.
In Part II, I shared insights of Creative Destruction from behavioral economics including my favorite quote from Joseph Shumpeter. He is credited with coining the term Creative Destruction around 1942, and described it as innovation that “incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating the new one.”
To demonstrate this concept, I used examples like the phonograph replacing the piano; the computer replacing the typewriter; the car replacing the horse and buggy. In each example, some new, unexpected innovation replaced the previous technology. Too outdated? How about cell phones replacing landlines or social media replacing social life. Still too outdated?
Back to the point. Economic systems are like living entities, like us, highly sensitive and responsive to incoming modification. Driven by innovation, economic systems incessantly destroy previous forms to create new ones. Driven by intention, we do the same. We grow. We change. We destroy old cells in our bodies. Destroy outdated ideas in our heads. Destroy outworn ways of being. We are in the process of becoming, incessantly.
The truth is, this process of Creative Destruction is life. Life progresses from point to point, phase to phase, ever onward in the stream of space/time. It doesn’t stop. Any good esotericist will tell you, we create through our intention and attention: energy follows thought. But it’s not that clean and clear, is it? There are things that happen in life that we don’t intend. Painful things. Difficult things. Things that seem impossible to surmount. I gave quick examples about Creative Destruction without a pause to understand the process, often painful, difficult, seemingly impossible to surmount yet must be repaired.
And this is where I was when I started this series of essays on Creative Destruction: in the pit of a painful, difficult situation, seemingly impossible to surmount yet requiring repair. There is an esoteric dictum that states humanity learns through the shattering of forms. I’ve worked with this sutra for years, turning it over and over to understand the meaning. When I consider this sutra through the lens of Creative Destruction, I recognize a fiery truth. But first I had to look back.
Way back. Back into my familial ancestry and then I expanded the lens. What is stored in our shared genetic memory? What does the collective spiritual and religious wisdom of humanity say about Creative Destruction?
Turns out, it says a lot. There are many archetypal echoes of Creation Destruction (and this is not a comprehensive compilation). The Phoenix. The Egyptian bird Bennu. The Slavic folklore of the Firebird. There are practices that involve Creative Destruction, like the Tibetan Buddhist practice of sand mandalas. Monks, with care-filled single-pointed focus, pour out colored grains of sand in intricate geometric patterns and upon completion, begin the ritualistic destruction of the form. From the devotees of Kali Ma or Shiva, or the Tower card pulled from the Tarot, Christians who worship beneath the cross, or Jews who mourn the destruction of the Temple and honor the rise of Rabbinic Judaism, or esotericists who focus on what’s built in consciousness not what’s lost in form—creative destruction stories abound. The list goes on and on. Learning through the shattering of forms is a familiar process in the human family and it seems we’ve been working to understand it as far back as we’ve been a species.
There’s a trap in the shadow of this teaching. I guess the shadow is always full of traps, which is why we should always keep an eye on it. The esoteric dictum that states humanity learns through the shattering of forms isn’t the last word. The learning doesn’t end at the shattering of forms, it begins. It begins our work of repair. Re-Pair. As in, drawing matter and spirit into closer, more integrated relationship.
Like most people, I want to rush to the joyous ending where we all live happily ever after. I want the creative part of Creative Destruction. I want to post smiling pictures on social media and have a neatly organized storyline and respond yes everything’s great when prompted by the casual how’s it going? I want to tell you I’m all repaired.
So in spite of my best intention for this to be the final installment on Creative Destruction, it looks like the beginning. I’m not repaired. But I’ve returned to Patanjali’s first yoga sutra: This is the beginning of instruction in yoga (or) Now the instruction of yoga begins. This reminds me that right now, this moment, here, is always fresh. Always beginning. The Torah teaches that each moment of every day is created anew, teeming with the Divine, and alive with possibilities. The essence of the Beginner’s Mind is to see what arises without projection or predisposition: to see things as they truly are.
In the world of Creative Destruction, this is practically impossible; it is a world of effects. It is complex and tangled like Kali Ma’s hair. It is Jacob the Godwrestler’s narrative, messy and often repugnant. It is the manifest reality in the process of becoming. It is ever changing and magnificent. Like the big bang. Like birth. Like death.
And, there is a world of causation. Hidden within the world of effects is a lighted substance of cause. Within my form, and all forms, consciousness pulses with possibility. This is where our practice of weaving begins. This is the discipline of union, of relationship, of yoga. Now begins our practice of uniting the causal with the world of effects. Now YHWH, the great Breath of Life, breathes us. Now yoga begins.
Now is the beginning of re-pair and this work begins again and again.
The work of weaving the world of matter with the lighted substance of love. This practice requires that we learn a new asana [posture]: an alignment that invigorates the light. A posture that actualizes our will to re-pair cause and effect. To bring the past and future together in a more beautiful now. This alignment in space and time allows us to observe, to be still, and to know; to be liberated and to liberate the fierce power of love. To repair.
And this is what I want to share. Here is a podcast as a sample of the sessions I’ll share next year through the Northern Colorado Yoga School. This one is on the theme of liberation—surprise!—and it includes a brief talk along with a Vedic Chanting practice to free us up for greater service in the world.
Reach out if you have any questions or needs. I love hearing from you all. In the meantime, I’m wishing you a blessed Thanksgiving and a wonderful time of GivingThanks.