Imam explains the matter through his famous book "an exposition on Forty Hadith" as follwing:
The first stage of humanness is yaqzah. It signifies the awakening from the slumber of obliviousness and the intoxication of physical nature, and the realization of the fact that man is a traveler and like any other traveler he also needs some provisions for this journey.
His morality and character are his provisions for this journey.
The only means of undertaking this hazardous and perilous journey on this dark and narrow path, which is sharper than the sword’s blade and thinner than a hair, is manly courage.
The light of this path is one’s faith and one’s good qualities. If he is lazy and negligent and gives in to weakness, he will not be able to cross it with safety and will fall headlong into the hell of disgrace and into the gorge of perdition, Imam futher explains.
And one who cannot pass safely over this path will, also, not be able to pass over the Sirat in the Hereafter.
My dear, be brave and tear apart the curtain of ignorance and folly and deliver yourself from this terrible abyss.
‘Ali (A), the Lord of the Pious, the unique wayfarer of the paths of heavens and the real guide, used to cry out in the mosque so loudly that he could be heard in the neighborhood:
Equip yourselves and be ready, your departure has already been announced.
No preparations will be more beneficial to you than your good moral characteristics and merits, the heart’s piety, the righteous deeds, and the purity and spotlessness of your conscience.
If, supposedly, you are a person of incomplete and apparent faith, you should cleanse yourself of these impurities so that Divine mercy will put you amongst the righteous and pious servants of God.
Only the fire of repentance (tawbah) will clean these impurities, when the self is melted in the furnace of self-reproach with the fuel of remorse and return towards God.
Today perform this smelting yourself, in this world; otherwise only God knows how many centuries of the Hereafter it will take for your soul to be refined in the furnace of Divine chastisement, and with a fire of which it has been said:
It is the fire of Allah, kindled, which leapeth up over the hearts. (109-6-7)
It is much easier to purify oneself in this world, as changes occur rapidly in this world; but in the next world, the process of change will be a prolonged process, and the effacement of one evil attribute of the soul will take several centuries.
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