She encourages them to find what they always longed for, a king who will help organize their kingdom. Instantly, all the birds see the ornament on her breast, the "symbol that she had entered the way of spiritual knowledge" (Attar, The Conference of the Birds, 234). The importance of this ornament runs rampant throughout the poem. Just as it is a symbol of spiritual knowledge, it is an ornament of her holy soul. The Hoopoe found her inner soul and became one with God, the King of the universe. All the birds looked upon this with reverence, they too want to organize their chaos and unite themselves to become one with God. The Hoopoe began to prepare them for the journey to find their own inner holy ornaments. Attar directly ties the way to find the ornament with Sufism. By using birds to symbolize human souls, Attar prepares the readers for the journey of Sufism.
             Furthermore, Attar describes that when the journey is completed, one will not only find spiritual knowledge, but also the knowledge of earthly materials. He uses the Hoopoe to show this. The Hoopoe not only has an ornament on her breast, but is also wearing a crest on her head, symbolizing the "crest of truth." The crest shape is the sign of Islam. The crown is a sign of material wealth, in which through Islam and through the way of the Sufi, Hoopoe was able to achieve the spiritual wealth to understand material wealth. Because of the materiality part of the achievement, many birds get excited. Very few, however, were able to look beyond the materiality into the spiritual, and survived the journey.
             The "Crest of truth" can also be viewed in metaphorical light. Truth can be seen as a range of three mountain chains, in which there lies one valley on each of the two troughs. "The first valley is the Valley of Quest, the second is the Valley of Poverty and Nothingness, beyond which one can go no farther" (Attar, The Conference of the ...