Question: What causes the delays in the spiritual work?

Answer: There are delays that are intentionally given to us from Above, but these are not delays along our way but beneficial interruptions called “help against.”

Interruptions that don’t help us to advance are not “help against,” but are actually real delays that a person is responsible for since he is the one who creates them because he does not use the means he was given and doesn’t arrange for the support of the environment. This is the reason for the delays, and so there are beneficial delays and there are delays that hold us back and draw us away from the goal.

A spiritual action doesn’t take long if a person arranges the forces, the means, the environment, and the whole system in advance. Then he responds in “real time,” which means only with the delay that was intended on the part of the Creator taking into account a person’s attributes. Therefore, it is not considered a delay.

Let’s say I was supposed to clarify a certain question in two days since that’s the time it takes for the processes I go through naturally. If I did it in two days, it means that I didn’t cause any delay and that I advanced normally. Therefore, the time of a person’s spiritual correction is called “60 years,” “70 years” or “80 years.”

But if I don’t mobilize all the means I was given in order to respond correctly, then it is I who cause the delay. Then delays can be expressed not only in time, but also in many layers of thoughts and strange calculations in which I wrap myself, and thus become blocked, unable to decipher correctly the Creator’s contact with me. It is as if I become blind and deaf and cannot make the necessary clarifications and thus get stuck in this state for a long time. These are the obstacles that a person creates by himself which prolong his advancement.

So we should constantly hold on to the right environment called “the teacher, group, and books,” which is the only means through which a person can connect to the Creator.
[101110]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

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