My Dog Teacher

A dog makes a living by giving nothing but love. If we don't have a phobia toward dogs we accept them for who they are. Their love is unconditional. Free from ego. They don't care how they look or what they say and we welcome that behavior. There is no self-centered agenda. The behavior also makes us feel superior and important. To feel important and seen is a basic human need. Dogs jump out of their own skin in their excitement of seeing us. Why don't we humans do the same? What would happen if you would start being our authentic selves? Well, babies and young kids have similar behavior patterns and trigger similar feelings in us. We feel superior, in power, and seen. In our development, as human beings, we experience a shift around the age of 9 and 10. This period of our lives in anthroposophy is called the “Rubicon” phase.  We start to develop a sense of self and start to experience a feeling of separateness from the world around us. We start to project and reflect on the world around us and start to form a picture of ourselves that we want to fill out. But what if we are not separate from the world around us? When did we agree that the I ends with the border of the skin? Our actions and interactions with the world around us are extensions of ourselves. Dogs don’t seem to develop that sense of ego. If they would recognize themselves in the mirror. Who knows maybe they do but don’t care because self-obsessive behavior like that doesn’t’ add life quality.
To live free and in a state of liberation I should maybe start asking myself more often: “What would my dog do?”