The Dangers of Excess in Life
Excessive Watering Turns the Rose Yellow
5/6/2026 CE
Man escapes from deficiency towards abundance, only to discover after long striving that abundance itself is but another face of want. He thirsts for favour as the traveller in the midday heat thirsts for water; the moment he reaches the spring he drinks until he is full, yet scarcely has he drunk before he chokes and is stifled. It is as though the nafs were an ocean without shore, or a fire that, whenever wood is cast into it, flares up all the more and never knows satiety.
More than once I have stood before a rose in a garden, contemplating the perfection of its form and the splendour of its beauty, marvelling how Allah has placed within this small creature a wisdom beyond the grasp of many minds. The rose cannot live without water, yet that very water may also bring about its demise. A single drop revives its veins, whereas a river suffocates its roots. Between the drop and the river lies one of the secrets of existence: that goodness, when it exceeds its proper limit, turns into its opposite, and that a blessing, when indulged to excess, becomes a trial garbed in the cloak of blessing.
What we observe in the flower we observe likewise in the human being, though man is less disposed to acknowledge it. When he has amassed wealth, he desires wealth beyond it; when he has attained one cause of comfort, he seeks another, then a third and a fourth, until his life resembles a caravan that knows only movement but has forgotten its destination. Woe to the one who set out in quest of tranquillity and returned laden with clamour, who departed to find rest and came back burdened with loads.
In the hand of the wise, money is a staff upon which to lean; in the hand of the heedless, it is a chain he drags, only for it to drag him. How many imagine that they steer their fortunes, only to find—when it is too late—that the mount is in fact riding them, leading them wherever it wills. Wealth begins as an obedient servant and little by little grows until it sits upon the throne of the heart, and its owner becomes the watchman of what he owns instead of the owner of it.
Astonishingly, man does not always covet money out of need; rather, he imagines that behind every increase lies a new gate of happiness. He resembles a child chasing the rainbow, convinced that, once he reaches its end, he will seize all its colours, yet with every step he moves further from his goal. If he acquires a house, he longs for a mansion; when he has the mansion, he yearns for an estate; when he gains the estate, he looks beyond it. Thus life races on like a shadow at sunset, while the soul remains where it began, thirsty for something whose name it does not know.
What most corrupts life is that the very means of delight lose their taste when they multiply. A blessing is like perfume: a whiff suffices to animate the spirit, but excess of it strangles the breath. It is like music: placed rightly, it charms the heart; allowed to run without pause, it becomes mere noise. It is like the lamp’s light: it guides in darkness, but were the sun to approach the earth by a hair’s breadth, it would burn it. It is not the things themselves that bestow happiness or rob it, but their measure, their place and their bounds.
One of the afflictions of excessive luxury is that it alienates a person from the small joys that are the true provisions of life. The man accustomed to lavish tables may find no savour in a warm loaf fresh from the tannūr; the one habituated to travel amid every comfort may see no beauty in the road; the one who has surrounded himself with an array of entertainments may lose the ability to enjoy a friend’s conversation, a book, or a quiet evening. Luxury, when it exceeds its limit, lays upon the eye a veil of silk—soft to the touch, yet one that still obscures vision.
How often we have seen people whose vaults grew fuller while their hearts grew emptier. One of them sits atop a mountain of gold as a thirsty man sits upon the seashore: water surrounds him on every side, yet none of it quenches his thirst. He possesses comforts of which kings once dreamed, yet he does not possess an hour of pure serenity. The very wealth he amassed to build a fortress of protection has turned into towering walls that block him from air, sun and people.
This does not mean that virtue lies in poverty, nor that good resides in deprivation; for just as excess is blameworthy, so too is neglect. Wisdom is found in that precise point where the soul stands between need and desire, between sufficiency and greed, between benefiting from a thing and becoming enslaved to it. Only there does man find his balance, just as the bird finds its balance between its two wings—were it to lean to one side, it would perish.
The most beautiful things in this world are not those that can be stocked in warehouses, but those that dwell in the heart. Tranquillity cannot be bought, contentment is not an import, love is not extracted from mines, and peace of conscience is not acquired in markets. These are all more precious than gold, for they render gold itself of little danger and much benefit.
Thus, the happy person is not the one who has many means, but the one whose means remain simply means. The truly rich is not the one whose hands are full, but the one whose spirit is not impoverished by constant craving. The deprived is not the one whose money is scarce, but the one whose desire has expanded until it becomes like a hole in the ship’s hull: whatever is poured into it is swallowed up, only to demand yet more.
If you seek an image that encapsulates all this wisdom, look upon the rose after rainfall. A gentle drizzle leaves on its petals pearls of light so that it appears as a bride adorned for the dawn. But when a torrent submerges it, the rose bends as though carrying its sorrow upon its shoulders, its colour wilting little by little until yellow pervades its face. So too is the human soul: it needs of the world that which revives it, not that which drowns it; that which serves it, not that which enslaves it.
Thus the rose, by its sweet silence, speaks more eloquently than many sermons and books. It says nothing, yet it whispers a timeless wisdom to all who listen well: not every gift is good when it becomes abundant, and not every increase is growth when it passes its limit. Just as excessive irrigation turns the rose yellow, so too does excessive accumulation of wealth, multiplication of comforts, and attachment to diverse luxuries render life itself colourless, bereft of fragrance, and transform the happiness we pursue into a refined misery that smiles upon the faces while gnawing at the hearts in silence.
Disclaimer: This article was translated by AI. Original post: https://t.me/DrAkramNadwi/9350