WHAT ARE STO AND STS?

BY TOM MONTALK

[…]What are STO and STS?

They are the two fundamental pathways that conscious evolution can take. They denote one’s spiritual polarity. In other articles, I prefer using the more generic terms positive and negative.

These dualities follow from the fact that 1) you are conscious, 2) your consciousness is individualized, which gives you a sense of “self”, 3) you interact with “others” who are also conscious and individualized, 4) you have the freewill to choose the relation between your “self” and these “others.” Consequently, you either choose to grow at their expense (be predator), let them grow at your expense (be prey), or grow in a way that benefits both/all/most (neither predator nor prey).

The STS or “Service to Self” path means serving self by exploiting others, but since big fish eat little fish, that also means being exploited by more powerful predators, hence STS existence also makes one prey. Thus both predator and prey comprise the STS polarity. In being predator, the system becomes unbalanced in one’s favor. In being prey, it becomes unbalanced in others’ favor. Either state is one of imbalance where a part of the system suffers and hence the whole system suffers from not being in its most optimal and efficient state where the greatest evolution for the greatest number of beings may occur.

But the STO pathway is beyond that predator-prey dynamic. As an STO being, you would be cognizant (and directly perceptive, rather than merely taking it on faith) of the fact that all is One, that by helping others you are helping the “you” in “them.” You would work toward the maximization of energy, growth, freewill, awareness, and power of everyone including yourself, in a balanced and harmonious way. This is not just an intellectual “going through the motions,” but a free-spirited expression of the love, empathy, wisdom, and liveliness that wells up from the true and permanent core of sentience within you, also known as spirit.

In this way, you are helping the system as a whole, bringing it toward greater efficiency and efficacy in moving conscious evolution forward toward ever-greater congruence with the infinite Creator, thereby helping the Creator achieve self-realization. The impulse to accomplish this comes from the spirit (divine intelligence) within, and so the feedback loop between internal and external/transcendent Creator is thereby closed.

STO bears some similarity to “light”, “divine”, and “good”, while STS relates to “dark”, “infernal”, “evil.” But unlike the latter terms, there is no moralistic, relativistic, subjective, “because my religion said so” dimension to it. Rather it follows logically from such concepts as freewill, self, other, and conscience/empathy or lack thereof, which are universal and self-evident concepts from which we each can identify, confirm, and draw conclusions. Thus properly defined, the terms STO and STS avoid the many pitfalls of the vaguer subjective terms.

The phrase “helping another” is also cause for confusion. The problem arises when people don’t differentiate between the lower and higher parts of another person. They are unaware which of the two they are actually helping and thereby growing or exacerbating. Are they worsening another’s STS tendencies through this help? Or are they facilitating another’s spiritual empowerment and awakening? They think help has to be blind and unconditional, in their minds incorrectly meaning without discernment or discretion. That only ends in heartbreak, loss, and burnout. Nor do they recognize when a person is thoroughly under the control of his or her lower aspect and cannot be helped at this point in their evolution. Love must be fortified with wisdom; otherwise one ends up as prey, which is STS.

How is this not dualistic thinking?

It is dualistic, but for good reason. Freewill is the ability to choose, and choice requires at least two genuine options. The two most fundamental, profound, and enduring options are whether to observe, honor, and support the divine spark within all, or to disregard and act against it. And thus are born the STO and STS pathways. To believe in freewill is to admit the potential duality of its expression.

STO and STS comprise a legitimate duality, perhaps the only one. There are plenty of false dichotomies, all of them existing within the STS realm where illusion, deception, manipulation, and ignorance are the norm. It is right to call these out as dangerous forms of dualistic thinking. But don’t let these examples lead to the erroneous conclusion that all dualism is false. Discerning between real duality and false dichotomies is important.

There may be one genuine duality, but it has been imitated by numerous illusory ones. To throw out the genuine along with the imitation is a straw man fallacy and a win for the STS Matrix Control System. Example: rejecting religious moralism in favor of moral relativism, and in the process ignoring the higher objective ethical framework beyond both. Likewise, to accept the imitation along with the genuine is also a win for the Matrix. For example, believing that certain religious, political, or social norms are expressions of absolute good.

What about Service-to-All?

This concept was invented by those who misinterpret STS and STO as meaning predator and prey. They view “Service-to-All” or STA as being the transcendent, balanced, and neutral alternative to that dichotomy. STA is based on the misconception that Service to Others means “serving only others, while ignoring self,” such as being a doormat or ascetic who is weak and neglectful of his or her own well-being. By neglecting yourself, you handicap your future ability to do good, thereby decreasing your total positive impact and increasing imbalance, which is STS.

Properly defined, STO means serving self through serving others in a balanced way that is of maximum spiritual benefit to all. It means being neither predator nor prey. It does not mean being a doormat, nor neglecting personal well-being to the point of interfering with one’s future ability to serve, which is a shortsighted form of martyrdom. So what some define as STA is already the correct definition of STO, therefore the term STA is unnecessary. What they call STO is actually the prey component of the STS predator-prey dynamic. Therefore, instead of [STA (neutral transcendent) | STO (prey) | STS (predator)] it should be [STO (neutral transcendent) | STS (prey vs. predator)].

The difficulty with treading the STO path is that it involves maximization of energy balance and freewill in a system, and supporting this balance requires an intelligent exercise of freewill to consistently hit the sweet spot for any given situation. To balance a broomstick is hard, while letting it fall is easy. Being STS is easy because no genuine spiritual intelligence is needed to be a passive lump being preyed upon, or to give into reactive behavior and let yourself fall under Matrix influences into animalistic or demonic states.

The only daily challenge STS predators have is in being cunning and watching their own backs. The irony is that every STS predator is prey to a bigger STS predator except the one at the very top of the food chain, and even that entity is perilously close to collapsing under the weight of its own darkness. Thus to be STS means to be both predator and prey.

We humans are 3D STS and we are preyed upon by more powerful 3D STS humans (criminals, international bankers, negative secret societies, psychopathic corporations, etc.) who themselves are fodder for 4D and 5D STS beings who prey upon them as well as us. Meanwhile, we eat plants and animals, who eat even lower lifeforms. That is the STS food chain.

STO beings are outside that food chain, ideally neither feeding on us nor contributing to the amount of imbalance in the system. They follow the dictum: do no harm. This they observe to the best of their ability, and that ability increases the higher the density.

[...]How do densities relate to the STS and STO concept?

The higher the density, the more intense and pure the expression of STS and STO archetypes. That is because as consciousness grows in power, intelligence, energy, sophistication, understanding, perception, and love of self / others, the complexity and scope of what it can do likewise increases. Thus it is able to better express the STS or STO archetype.

The choice to align as an individual with the STS or STO pathway begins in 3D due to this being the level where self-awareness, freewill, and thus self-determination first arise. Up to that point, one simply acts according to one’s nature as predetermined by physics, chemistry, biology, and occult factors.
This brings up an interesting point, though, which is that the STS and STO archetypes are reflected even in 1D and 2D, at least in rudimentary ways. For example, among the elements some are more lifegiving and noble, others more poisonous and disintegrative.

Compare oxygen and uranium, for instance. Oxygen is an important component in biologies. Uranium meanwhile is not essential to life; instead it is an unstable element whose decay is a pure expression of entropy. By destroying DNA, its radiation knocks down what evolution has built up. Wilhelm Reich, who experimented with orgone (etheric) energy, found that ionizing radiation turned healthy orgone into deadly orgone. Likewise, clairvoyants can sense differences among the auric energies of various minerals, some having a vitalizing and healing effect, and others an interfering, discombobulating, or lowering effect.

In early 2D, some plants are harmless and live in balance with nature, even providing nourishment and thus supporting life. Others are poisonous, parasitic, predatory, and generally dangerous. Fungi, bacteria, insects, and animals likewise polarize into a spectrum from the archetypally more positive to the more negative.

So you could say that every species is representative of an archetype, and that archetype is closer toward the STS or STO end of the spectrum. This is explained by an occult perspective whereby every 2D species actually has a group oversoul that exists as an individualized 3D persona in the astral plane (with which shamans interact, like when they talk about communicating with the spirit of a particular plant or animal species) and this persona is what is polarized more toward STS or STO.

Now, there is a natural order to our world whereby everything that lives must eat. Some forms of eating are more STS than others. Eating low on the food chain is less STS, but there is a limit dictated by biology.

Obviously we cannot live by eating dirt, and so we must eat plants. But even fruits and plants don’t always provide sufficient nutrition, so we may require animal products as well to the extent that our personal genetics and lifestyles demand; some people do well on a vegetarian or vegan diet, some do not, and some are in denial about how poorly they are faring on an inappropriate diet. Note that killing or impairing oneself through malnutrition, on the assumption that one is sparing life, is actually an STS act when the resulting tiredness, loss of clarity, and illness keeps you from doing the novel and positive things you came here to do; in that case, there is a net loss in the growth of the system. Therefore the final tally, the big picture, the long-term consequences are what ultimately determine the value.

In eating, a life is taken (or denied, as in the case of eating a fruit or seed) to serve oneself. The natural order is that higher eats lower. That is the STS food chain as allowed within the divine framework to the extent that it supports life. Lower is sacrificed to advance the evolution of the higher, hence the system as a whole progresses toward a higher state. As long as the higher uses that nutrition to output an equal or greater amount of novelty in the system than was taken through eating, there is negative entropy and hence a net gain overall.

The problem is when lower eats or harms higher and retards evolution, thereby slowing or inverting the natural order. Only the most archetypally STS of 1D and 2D forms exhibit this trait. There is a fascinating phenomenon in demonology where certain lifeforms tend to pop up synchronistically when there is a demonic presence around. We are all familiar with Beelzebub’s association with flies. Centipedes, poisonous snakes and spiders, cockroaches, scorpions, mold, ant swarms, and wasps are better examples.

What is it that sets these apart from other lifeforms including predators like lions, which don’t seem to have a demonic association? The answer is that these are lower lifeforms of a poisonous or predatory nature that have the ability to harm something much higher on the evolutionary ladder, and often do so without mercy or discretion. How is that any different from what demons do? Hence the archetypal resonance between the two, and why one often accompanies the other. Physical lifeforms associated with conditions of cold, damp, death, decay, disease, putrefaction, and darkness are mirrors (as above, so below) of the demonic hierarchy doing likewise at the etheric and astral levels. Demons are vibrationally lower beings who seek to poison our consciousness and feed off the decay of our spirit.

So, even though the individual STS and STO paths begin in 3D, enter their sublime expressions in 4D, and attain perfection in 5D, they still have their mirroring resonances in 1D and 2D, just that life at those densities lacks the self-determination needed to embody those paths at the individual and freely chosen level. In 6D, STO beings have moved beyond individual evolution toward evolving further in soul groups.

6D STS beings don’t exist except as a harmonic overtone of the collective consciousness of STS beings in the lower densities. In other words, STS exists in 6D only as an archetypal thoughtform, an impression stamped into the etheric and astral substrate, a malicious command injected into the program known as existence, an artificial intelligence that carries out its given directives — this I have termed the “Corrupt Demiurge” in my Gnosis articles..."

 ~from STO, STS, and Densities   ~Tom Montalk

YOUR DONATIONS ARE DEEPLY APPRECIATED!

Related:

The Positive/Negative Realms of Higher Densities
Two Approaches to Embodiment and the Importance of Using Both in Your Self-Mastery / Awakening Process Efforts