I learned a couple of days ago (and recently reviewed) a Torah in the Notzer Hesed about achdut, oneness, where he quotes the Rebbe Meir, the Premishlaner Rebbe, (a student of the Baal Shem Tov) who says that one time The Baal Shem Tov and his students were praying and because the students were so bent on attaining greatness through lofty levels of prayer, there was too much resistance in the heavens and their prayers were going unanswered. There happened to be with them a simple man who was praying simply with a broken heart, and it was only through his merit that in the end their prayers were all answered.
He explained this story like so: Every thought is a sacred hall to God, and if those thoughts are bent towards personal greatness they are rended away from their holy purpose, and the residents of Heaven push such people away so that they cannot draw close. This is the source of 'foreign thoughts'(מחשבות זרות) during prayer. It is only when someone humbles themselves, connects themselves to the klal (singularity) of Bnei Yisrael, recognizes that their mission is one with everything in creation, only once they derive joy from this, and take great joy in the performance of the wonderous mitzvoth that they are permitted to enter into loft holy thoughts, the sacred halls of God.
The ikar is happiness in performing the mitzvoth. When we get caught up in greatness or any of the other side-effects of drawing close to God, that's when we are pushed away and forced to approach with renewed sobriety.
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