In Book Five, Section 14 of the Masnavi, Rumi employs vivid animal analogies—such as a snake eating dust, a wood-worm praising its block of wood, and a dung-worm content with filth—to illustrate the concept of spiritual blindness and carnal attachment. These metaphors represent the carnal soul (nafs) which remains oblivious to sublime spiritual nourishment (the light and food of the soul) and is desperately attached to transient, base material pleasures. Rumi argues that just as these lowly creatures cannot comprehend a superior environment or finer food, the worldly person who is trapped in material indulgence denies and remains completely blind to divine sustenance.