Course XLV - Teaching 10: Modesty of the Eyes

The Ordained Sons offer their lives and their entire being to the Divine Mother, and the seal of this loving offering is the daily effort of the Sons to make it perfect.
Especially the eyes are the magnetic control of this eternal and daily offering.
A continuous sacrifice of the sight is indispensable for a true Ordained Son.
Eyes are the mirror of the soul, and should be the mirror of the Son’s Renunciation. Now, our eyes will not be useful to satisfy one’s curiosity or appetites, but just to see what one wants to see and decides to see; therefore, our eyes must see inward.
When a being loves, he does not wish to see anything except his beloved person, and walks as if he were thoughtless and absentminded.
We should not forget Campoamor’s verses in relation to a young woman in love:
“Because nobody looks at my eyes,
they are shut forever”.
So, love impedes beings to see and often causes to say, “I do not feel like seeing anything or anyone”, because sight along with thought is concentrated on memory and image, and this produces pain.
If an Ordained Son loves the Divine Mother and suffers when anything separates him from Her, then he cannot desire to see anyone except His Mother, and since any external thing is rather images that distract and move away from the unique end and perfect image of the Divine Lady, he must lower his eyes always with modesty.
Modesty in his eyes, a permanent gift of an eager soul for perfection, should be an urgent need in the beginning of spiritual life and mainly in the Seminary.
Those aspirants that come from the world are full of fantastic images that they wish to forget, and they can do this more easily when do not superpose images over images.
Also, in people of the world who use to see anything that happens around, even those things that do nor concern them, their habitual curiosity disappears in an admirable way when they do not look.
Modesty in the eyes is also like a balsam for worldly tiredness and prepares the soul for an intimacy with the Divine Mother that abides within.
Ordained Sons: your eyes must be continuously modest: neither look nor want to see anything except what is strictly indispensable. Your eyelids must be lowered, without affectation and naturally. Not for this you will seem an eccentric person, since it is not correct to look at the face of a person that you greet and when you say goodbye, but your eyes must reflect modesty during your conversation.
This virtue increases your spiritual beauty and due composure, since your eyes half-open give a particular charm to your face, and when you do not look everywhere, especially in the street, your composure is serious and attractive.
Perchance is there a more spiritual and beautiful face than that of the Buddha? But, what does grant to him so transcendental and characteristic beauty? Why does that face acquire eternity throughout years? It is especially beautiful by virtue of his way of looking. His half-closed eyelids allow his eyes to glimpse just forward, and his glance ignores surrounding images and comprises the soul and eternity of things.
It is indispensable to acquire the habit of looking with modesty from the Seminary. When the Ordained Sons are carried by their apostolate to the whirlpool of the world, just then they realize the total importance of this virtue.
Whoever lacks the habit of not looking, with difficulty can acquire it in the world or during an intensive work. In a Son, his temptations and disappointments are always a result of being unable to restrain his glance in due course.