To serve is to succeed ... Here to inspire and honor all those who serve.

"It's time to shift our thinking.
It's time to get your shift together.
It's time for eyewear professionals to
become agents of change going forward;
it's time to return to the days of providing full service;
to improve our hands-on craftsmanship skills; it's time
for those who know to teach those who do not know; and
it's time for those who do not know to surrender their ego."

"To serve is to succeed. Service is the answer.
What is the question?" Hari S. Bird, Optician

"There’s no other way on the planet to free your
soul unto the destiny and unto God but by serving
those who need a hand -- smiling at them, wiping
away their tears, forgiving them." Yogi Bhajan

"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was
service. I acted and behold, service is joy.” Rabindranath Tagore

This is the Age of Service.
Service is those human actions, which
contribute to the well-being of others, i.e.,
anything you do to lighten somebody's load.
When we put service first, success has to follow.

Opticianry is ultimately defined by how
well the eyewear makes contact with the
Patient, not by the number of customers served.
Many optical outlets are 'ready-to-wear' stores where
eyewear merchants sell 'one-size-fits-all' merchandise,
and where numbers of sales and customers is paramount.
This environment has prostituted the practice of Opticianry.

"Successful people are always looking for
opportunities to serve others. Unsuccessful people
are always asking, 'What's in it for me?'" -- Brian Tracy

"Mankind has entered the Age of Aquarius,
otherwise known as the Age of Ubuntu. It is where
All for One, Won for All rules. It is the Age of Inclusion,
Compassion and Service." -- AllForOneWonForAll.com

"We are all pioneers in the Age of Aquarius. No man can
give a man anything other than love. No man can give a
man anything other than hope. No man can give a man
anything but service. The only thing you can do is act
like a forklift and go into the dirt and lift the other person
and put him on track, so he can proceed." -- Yogi Bhajan

"You are here to serve, to uplift, to be graceful, to give hope,
and to give the very deep love of your soul to all those in
need. Through service you can win the world." -- Yogi Bhajan

"All you have taught your children is, "Get 'A' grades, and become
a great taker." You have never taught them to be givers. Those
who are not givers know nothing about God." -- Yogi Bhajan

"Your value is not in how many experiences you have had.
It is in your stability -- in how much sacrifice you can do.
Your value is in how effectively and how consistently you can
live for others. Your value is in how you can take command of
yourself and others in any situation. Your value is in your capability
of firmly planting yourself in the neutrality of your higher consciousness
and standing as a pillar of strength, turning every negative to a positive.
Your value is how quickly you are there when the call comes." -- Yogi Bhajan

"I do not know any work that is more important for the evolution of
humanity’s collective consciousness and our own evolution as
spiritual beings, than to heal the wounds that block us from fulfilling
our destiny and prevent us from feeling satisfied with life, and then
to learn how to help others heal their wounds." -- Sat Santokh Singh

"Man's purpose is to serve. Service is an intrinsic value, not a value to
be added. Those institutions that are of the Piscean Age whereby their
success has been measured by money must adopt the Aquarian Age
paradigm, 'To serve is to succeed', or become irrelevant." -- Hari Singh

"Capitalism as practiced in this the Age of Aquarius is hopelessly flawed.
Today's capitalists have it all backwards. The new paradigm: Serve the
consumer and profit will follow, i.e., service trumps the dollar. Those who
fail to put serving consumers first will become irrelevant." -- Hari S. Bird

"We are not permanent here. Nothing around us is permanent.
Everything moves on. This is the spirit of the universe. As the
Aquarian Age has to come, the Piscean Age has to leave.
And so, the people who are Pisceans shall eliminate
themselves in many ways." -- Yogi Bhajan

Most of the world's religions and mythologies point toward the year 2012 as a major turning point in our planet's history. We are in a time called "between the worlds," the countdown years to a New Age. (See The Signs of Kali Yuga.) Those famous seers of time, the Mayans, end their calendar in 2012. It is the time when our solar system and all its planets enter what is called the Photon Belt.

Photons are sources of light, similar to thought, they occupy no volume, have no mass. Photons are being emitted from the center of our galaxy. As a solar system we are entering a light realm, a higher frequency purification and cleansing zone. And as our planet moves through this photonic energy band this highly ionized, light photonic energy has severe consequences for any individual who is toxic with negativity and darkness. The planet enters this space around every 13,000 or so years.

Our sun's energy is affected, as are the electrons that comprise everything around us. This change in galactic light affects our DNA, which will receive and transmit differently. It is no exaggeration to say that all we have known is to be different. We are literally moving into a different time-space continuum (the second coming?). And this change requires different ways of living. Different ways of being. Different ways of relating. (See The Transformational Mantra of Planet Earth.)

Yogi Bhajan has told us that, "The Age of Aquarius is on our head whether we feel, know, understand or not. Past is going to be obsolete, and teachers of the Age of Aquarius are going to help humanity."

We live in a polluted environment, in a society that emphasizes drugs, short-term crisis thinking, and which ignores the inner dimensions of a person. This orientation has created a world of great suffering. The subconscious plays a major role we are not aware of in how we experience life. We are looking to the past for answers for today and tomorrow, not realizing that the past exists only as an experience we have in our subconscious minds. We become attached to these imprints and this prevents us from moving forward in life. In Kundalini Yoga we have the technical know-how to deal with the subconscious mind on both an individual and societal basis. We learn how to clear it, how to stop the repetition of past errors and the re-living of past pains. These are essential teachings for this time...

Awaken your own awareness. Then you can help. You can serve. You can contribute. You can do your part to help humanity enter this New Age and make the dream of world peace a reality... Take a deep breath. Listen to your soul... Many await your help. -- Harijiwan Singh

We receive value when we see the value of others.
We gain our beauty when we see the beauty of others.
We gain wealth when rejoicing in the good fortune of others.
Each moment, we too shall be blessed if we quietly bless others.

And, in honor of these...
"All gave some, some gave all,"
please click on the Medal of Honor.

'Professional Egotism'

There are a number of conflicted forces at work within the ophthalmic dispensing industry, which keep us from making progress. The two biggest are:

.) We have not yet effectively dealt with the reality that the majority of current dispensers are woefully under trained and extremely challenged when it comes to handcrafting prescription eyewear. For instance, I know senior Opticians who attend Optical Workshops who are unable to adequately customize eyewear directly on a Patient. (The number one complaint by prescription eyewear consumers is they are unable to acquire well-fitting eyewear.)

.) There's also a lot of what I call professional egotism and shaktipad (see NOTES* below), whereby many 'Opticians' are unable to admit, either through ignorance or antipathy, that they really do not know how to adjust eyewear, i.e., handcraft eyewear directly on a patient. Many only think they know and take umbrage when challenged. They have convinced themselves that they need no more training because they've been adjusting frames for years, and they see no need to change.

Regarding this 'professional egoism' issue, we suggest that we ask this question of those dispensers who claim they already know how to fit eyewear, and those who claim that they have been working as an Optician for several years. "Have you had any formal training in handcrafting eyewear directly on the consumer?"

The problem is that many folks are self-taught, and most of those who came up as apprentices were taught by dispensers who have had no formalized hands-on the consumer, frame-adjustment training.

This decades-old history is the main reason, not price, that Opticianry as a profession has lost, and continues to lose market share.

Therefore it is incumbent on those who know to teach those who do not know. And it is incumbent on those who do not know to surrender their ego. OpticalGuidelines.com

*NOTES:

EGOTISM is the feeling or belief that one is better, more important, more talented, etc., than other people.

SHAKTIPAD is a state of egotism in which an optical dispenser is far less experienced, knows far less than they think they know, and who fails to acknowledge it. The worst case scenario is the optician who falls into the trap of convincing themselves and others that only they know the best way, and that the old ways need to change. Beware of the 'tiger's bite'! Shaktipad is a consequence of 'riding the tiger' of pride. One must ever be alert to the signs of shaktipad in order to take appropriate action. In the case of an optical dispenser in the state of shaktipad, the remedy is to seek out practical training with the attitude of a perpetual student, i.e., one who surrenders their ego, realizes that learning never stops, and that one can always improve their skills. See Ego Eradicator.

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