Welcome to the program. In this episode you are going to get familiar with the views of Ayatollah Khamenei regarding the importance of struggle against one’s carnal soul which drives human being toward committing every evil deed.

Jihad or struggle against the soul is so important that the leader of the Islamic Revolution says, “In Islam, the main and pivotal point for reforming the world is the reformation of the human soul. Everything begins from here. The soul is a collection of human instincts which, if they are properly controlled, properly applied, properly enforced, they will lead man to the zenith of perfection. Every human has an unruly self, a drunken elephant that if you heed it and regularly hammer its head, it will not destroy you; its behavior will be controlled and this very soul will be the source of your progress.”

The great Prophet of Islam calls the carnal soul as the most important cause of turning humans into roguish and evil persons. As a matter of fact the biggest enemy is inside us. Any moment that we manage to harness this venomous snake we will be victorious. But whenever this enemy rises it will subjugate the intellect and the spiritual power inside us. That is the moment of our failure and wretchedness.

Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says, “He who doesn’t care about killing thousands of humans and chemically bombing families and children and easily commits crimes; this is human in the face but he is the servant of his unruly soul and he is a fierce wolf inside. If one does not heed his inner education he will turn into such a human.”

The Leader believes that oppression, poverty, hunger, promiscuity, insulting human beings and violating human dignity are all due to the existence of unruly and savage individuals who are indeed the slave of their own carnal soul. This arrogant and avaricious people have deprived a great part of the human community from the divine bounties at the expense of fulfilling their insatiable desires.

To become true human beings we have to refer to ourselves and embark on self-purification and self-building. But this is a tough task so that it is called jihad against the soul (self) in the words of the divine leaders. In order to struggle against the carnal soul, Ayatollah Khamenei recommends, “At times it is also necessary for the individual to come out of his own self. Every individual should bring himself out of the prison of carnal desires, egotism and vanity to look at the outside. We all need this change. The human nature is mixed with defect. When can we remove those defects? Once we see them; when we know them and accept that we have defects. If we consider ourselves as absolute we have become proud. We think that we have no defect. The soul, that is, the decadent dimension of our existence, the dimension which insinuates carnal desires and drives us toward them, our weak points and defects originate from there. We must have a self-review to see the defects.”

One of the effective ways to struggle against the soul is the remembrance of God. The Leader of the Islamic Revolution says in this regard, “The soul should be controlled. This control is the remembrance of God, taking refuge by God, feeling need toward the Lord, feeling humility before the divine greatness, feeling one’s vices against the Absolute Beauty and Almighty God. All of these stem from remembrance. He who is pious, i.e. controls himself and remembers God; he will not be the source of vice, oppression, corruption, tyranny and evil against others. This divine remembrance will repeatedly prevent him and deter him: [as the Qur’an says] the daily ritual prayer prevents from evil deeds; it doesn’t mean that it ties man’s hands but it means that it overcomes the instincts. Some people think that the ayah ‘prayer prevents indecencies and wrongs’ means that if you perform prayer indecencies and wrongs will perish. No, it means if you perform daily ritual prayer your inner advisor becomes vigorous and it will keep telling you of the evilness of indecencies and wrongs. And telling, repeating and suggesting to the heart will naturally affect it and make it humble. That’s why the daily ritual prayer should be repeated. Fasting should be repeated once a year, Hajj once in the life, prayer should be repeated several times a day. This is the importance of prayer.”

Another important point for self-building is self-calculation. It means every night the individual should look into his acts of the day to find the evil deeds. Then he should try to repel the vices and seek God’s help for this hard task. The Leader says, “This calculation of the soul is a good thing. Man should calculate himself. Then he must reduce his sins one by one. We have got used to some sins. Sometimes man has got used to committing 5 or 6 or 10 sins. We have to make effort to quit them one by one and reduce these weak points one by one.”

Imam Sajjad (AS) used to supplicate to God, saying, “My Lord! I am ashamed of You due to my weak points and defects. I am angry at my soul and satisfied with You.”

These were the words of the 4^th infallible successor of the Prophet of Islam, who was given the epithet “Sajjad” or the “One who prostrates a lot” and “Zain al-Abedin” or “The ornament of the worshippers.” That great servant of God used to pray and supplicate to God in this way. So, what should be our supplication and praying?

Ayatollah Khamenei states, “Reviewing one’s self is this very behavior of Imam Sajjad (AS). In this way the individual will cover the sky of perfection step by step to become perfect. If the lofty humans emerge and manifest their beauties and spiritualties it is due to reviewing themselves and seeing their defects and shortcomings. This is contrary to the one who shuts his eyes to all these weak points, considers himself free of these, becomes proud of himself and the little blaze of light which exists in him and every human being so that he is satisfied at this. Some of the individuals are satisfied with the least goodness in themselves. Such a person cannot cover the path of perfection.”

RM/SS