AROMATIC OIL OR KEROSENE?

From what I've seen, the attitude to obstacles in Breslov is different from that in many other frum circles. It is generally accepted that, if you run into a lot of obstacles when trying to get a project off the ground,  it's reason to stop and think: maybe there is something wrong with this project, so it would be best to abandon it and work on something else instead.

Yet Rabbeinu in Torah 66 is emphatic that the greater the goal, the more formidable barriers one has to overcome in order to reach it! So if something doesn't come easy, this should increase your desire to reach this goal because now you can see that this is really something special.

Today I've thought of the parable from the Talmud that Rabbeinu quotes in Torah 6 and realized that it shows another facet of the same idea. When someone comes to buy kerosene, the merchant says to him, "Measure the quantity you need for yourself", and this can usually be done very quickly. But if someone comes to buy aromatic peach oil, the merchant says instead, "Wait, we'll both measure it, so I may also inhale its fragrance."

So when you want to do something big and holy (or even small and holy), it will usually require a lot of waiting. But if you don't have to wait, if everything goes your way fast, this is reason to stop and think: maybe what you thought to be aromatic oil is actually kerosene!