We can speed up our development by correcting ourselves with the Upper light (the path of Kabbalah), if we aim at correcting ourselves through the path of Kabbalah instead of the path of suffering. The difference between these two paths is that Kabbalah greatly accelerates our spiritual development.
The more one aspires upwards, the clearer he sees how low he exists and descends even lower, the quicker he “rots”, like a seed, in his own eyes and, after being born, starts to “sprout”. At the beginning, we do not realize that our urge towards the spiritual comes from above – but how else could this urge emerge in egoism! And so we desire the spiritual only because we don’t know what it is; for spirituality is death, a complete antipode to egoism, our current nature.
As we are unable to put our hand into fire, so we are unable to make ourselves receive altruistic properties – they are so adverse to us. But egoism itself pushes us towards the spiritual (also because it feels pleasure only from the Light).
Courtesy of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQSaYgAp2lw