According to Imam and his pupils, it is freedom that facilitates the progress towards perfection, since man has been endowed by God with intellect, willpower, and speech.
They divide human freedom into two social freedom and spiritual freedom.
According to their thining, social freedom means that human being should not be exploited by others.
One of the goals of the Prophets of God was to make people aware of social freedom, in order to rid minds of slavish attitudes.
Others should not create obstacles in his path of growth or exploit his intellectual and physical capacities to their own benefit.
The main program of Prophets is spiritual freedom, while the main loss of our era is that we always speak of social freedom but we do not speak of spiritual freedom of human being.
In our era, the manmade schools of thought speak no word regarding spiritual honesty, whereas social freedom is impossible to achieve without spiritual freedom.
Imam Khomeini, the late founder of the Islamic Republic through his theological works stressed the need for self-purification in order to gain spiritual freedom.
According to Imam Khomeini’s thinking, the accomplishment of social freedoms and civil liberties were impossible until individuals and societies overcome their lusts and carnal desires.
Basically, everything originates internally. So, while quoting a hadith which expresses, “The freeman is free in all circumstances,” the Imam says:
Let it be known to you that contentment comes from the heart and the absence of neediness is a spiritual state, unrelated to external matters that lie outside the human self. I have myself seen certain persons among rich and wealthy classes who say things which no honorable poor man would say.
This point is not restricted to wealth alone. All other conditions are like that.
For this reason, the Imam invites all, particularly the theology students, to begin with and reform themselves, saying that: The first thing that the learned in religious sciences and the seekers of this perilous road must take into consideration is self-reform during the period of studies, counting it as far as possible to be the foremost of their duties, for this is harder and more obligatory than all the duties and obligations dictated by shariah and reason.
It is from this aspect that Imam Khomeini describes the significance of the combat with the self as follows:
“Thus the combat of the self… implies overpowering one’s own powers and faculties, and placing them under God’s command, and purging the domain of our body of satanic elements and their forces.”
“Thus, the combat of the self is the combat of greater importance. This is superior to being killed in the way of God the Almighty.