Eckhart Tolle and Cesar Millan discuss how calm assertiveness and human consciousness shape dog behavior. Tolle calls dogs "Guardians of Being," while Millan explains how a trainer's presence and balance directly affect the animals they work with.
The most important element is the human's state of consciousness, state of being with the dog. And you call that calm assertiveness.
Yes.
Your work with dogs, a large part of that is actually your work with humans. You need to show humans how to be with dogs.
I train people, I rehabilitate dogs.
Yes.
Nice to meet you all.
Thank you. It's all so good to meet you. I've seen you many times and admired your work so much.
Well, thank you, sir.
There's a lot of wisdom in what you do.
My grandfather passed that to me.
He did.
I was very little when he said, never work against Mother Nature. So I was raised in Mexico on a farm and you know, low income kind of side.
Yes.
But very rich on instinctual, spiritual level.
Yes.
You know, so I always say I'm an instinctual man and men of faith. Then I learned to be, to charge. And then I also learned a man has their own feminine side, which in Mexico is against, you know, men will practice feminism, you know, so America pretty much complete me, you know?
Yes.
So the four worlds to me is the instinctual world, intellectual world, emotional world, spiritual world. So when I came to America, I came with instincts and faith.
Yes.
And so America is my father, Mexico is my mother.
Wonderful, wonderful.
Yes, that's me.
Yes.
There's a book by this best selling writer, Malcolm Gladwell, and that's actually his latest book is called what the Dog Saw. What the Dog Saw. And I didn't realize until I opened it in the bookstore that that's one of the essays in the book is actually about you, what the Dog Saw. And it says a little bit about your life. Very interesting. And there he mentions that at first you were not as good with people as you were with dogs, not as present with human beings. And you learned that. How is that going?
I tell you how I learned. I'm a good follower too. I listen to my wife. That's the one who opened the door for my wall of distrust. Because animals never hurt me.
Yes.
So I don't have a negative experience being with dogs. And I was fortunate to be around packs of dogs. So that was my family, outside my family. And so my relationship with Mother Nature has no anxiety, no fear, no tension, no nervousness. There's no past or future. It's just in the now and its possibilities. It motivates me, it inspires me. See, it brings a lot of great stuff about me. And so I can only feel joyful when I'm around dogs, you know, and when I am, when I was around Human before my awareness and I work on my issues, it was distrust.
Yes.
You know, so I didn't know how to communicate or integrate with my own kind.
Yes.
You know, and so that became my journey.
Yes.
So I did a lot of introspective, you know, conversation. I surrender. I do follow what I practice. You know, sometimes you have to be assertive and sometimes you have to be a follower. Meaning you surrender to what? To what you need or to what is available to you.
Yes.
And I know that in your work with dogs, perhaps the most important element is the human's state of consciousness, state of being with the dog. And you call that. I think one word you use is calm assertiveness.
Yes.
And that's really. That's something you have. That's your work with dogs. A large part of that is actually your work with humans. You need to show humans how to be with dogs.
I train people, I rehabilitate dogs.
Yes, that's right. Because in the dog, perhaps with dogs, I know the same applies to humans also. But with dogs, I feel in a dog there's a core of goodness that is, that is so obvious. And in some dogs, of course, it becomes obscured by bad conditioning because of what happened to them when they were young. And the beautiful thing is when you heal a dog of that dysfunctional behavior, even a vicious dog, and I've seen one or two episodes on your show where you worked with very vicious dogs. They were, I remember a smile. You gotta bring us up. And of course, some humans are like that too. But the. And so the dog went. And after a while that goes. And suddenly the core of goodness shines through. The essential nature of the dog shines through.
Animals don't fight balance.
Yes.
Animals biggest goal is to achieve balance.
Yes.
My client's biggest goal is money. My client's biggest goal is to be seen as a lovable person. My client's biggest goal is to have a soulmate. And that's a beautiful goals, but animal lives in the present and animals follow a calm, assertive or calm, confident source of energy.
Yes.
I haven't met a dog that say, I don't want to be balanced. No, I don't. I rather just chew all the walls. I'd rather just lick my nails all day long the whole entire day they go for a walk. And I have met a lot of people who question what's balance? And what is that important to me? How does that make me happy? You know, money makes me happy. People loving me makes me happy. God loving me makes me happy. So it becomes about me. What I love about dogs is how they bring we. It's all about the pack for me. My journey is not about the money. Money is a byproduct of loving what you do.
Yes.
Now also humans, the many humans, unfortunately, they're the only opportunity, or so they seem to believe, where they can actually manifest that connectedness with another being is through their dog. For some humans, they can't do it with people because with people, the human mind is always in the way. You can't sense the goodness in people very often because there's too much stuff going on in their mental, emotional field. With a dog, you can sense, I walk with my dog in the street. People often stop and say, ah, love, what's her name, what's his name? But for a moment, there's an outflow of love. And perhaps that's the only time on that particular day that they have this outflow of love towards another being. So the dog doesn't have the. The heavy conceptual human mind. That in the way of this is why I call dogs Guardians of Being. And when you just look into the eyes of a dog, there's something that responds deep within to their being, so it can awaken your own connectedness with being, being with a dog. And that's why I find this so spiritual, to be with a dog. And there's a little book which I'm going to give you or send you, a little cartoon book, the Guardians of Being. It's all about dogs. And I know you feel that very deeply. I can see how you can relate to that.
Sam.
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