In Farid al-Din Attar's 'Conference of the Birds', the 'Discourse of the Beloved of Tus with His Disciple' employs the metaphor of extreme physical dissolution to illustrate the Sufi concept of Fana (annihilation of the ego). The beloved instructs the disciple to 'melt completely in love' until he becomes as thin as a single hair. This diminishment symbolizes the complete shedding of selfhood and worldly identity. Only when the seeker's ego is entirely eradicated can they attain ultimate proximity to the Divine, represented by finding a place in the 'Beloved's lock of hair'. The poem explicitly warns that if even a 'hair's breadth' of self-existence (ego) remains, it will lead to profound spiritual ruin, metaphorically described as the rising of seven hells.