In Poem 48 of Attar's Mokhtar Nameh (Chapter 4), the seeker's journey is depicted as an inescapable paradox of spiritual survival. Attar emphasizes that the path demands utter humility and unconventional exertion, symbolized by making one's head into a foot. The poem contrasts the spiritual death of stagnation with the annihilation of the self during the journey: if the seeker chooses to stand still, their faith departs, but if they journey forward as required, their life or ego is consumed. This illustrates the relentless, perilous, and transformative nature of the mystic path, which demands complete self-sacrifice.