In Book Five, Section 113 of Jalaluddin Rumi's Masnavi, the tale of Sheikh Muhammad Sar-Razi of Ghazna functions as an allegory for the Sufi concept of seeking spiritual death to attain true divine life. The ascetic, consumed by an intense longing for a vision of God, repeatedly seeks physical death—throwing himself off a mountain and into deep water—but is miraculously preserved. His lamentation over surviving illustrates the mystical perspective that earthly existence in separation from God is equivalent to death, whereas physical death, which brings eternal union with the Beloved, is true life.