Truth in a Nutshell Perspective

The English painter, Constable, once told a lady who was surprised that he was painting a building she thought unattractive: “No, Madam, there is nothing ugly; I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may, light, shade and perspective will always make it beautiful.”
_{Merlin Waterson quoted in Simple Pleasures}

*****

As an artist, what Constable meant by perspective was the physical viewpoint from which an object is seen. Likewise, we also use the word “perspective” to refer to a viewpoint. If we live by simple, honest and loving values, it gives us a mental perspective in which plain things become beautiful. Maharaj Sawan Singh said:

A palace will appear as dreadful as a graveyard to a person who is bereft of love. But even the ill-furnished and dilapidated huts are beautiful if they are brightened with the spark of love. Through love, even jungles become filled with happy life, and without love, populated cities may appear bleak. Love is the richest of all treasures. Without it there is nothing and with it there is everything.
_{Maharaj Sawan Singh, Philosophy of the Masters, Vol. II.}