STO is automatic, STS requires the choice?

[speedforce131]

In all honesty, I'm not convinced the whole STO/STS trope has turned out to be very helpful at all.  As near as I can discern, it has resulted in way more confusion than clarity.

I do admit it's caused a lot of confusion. This thread is a great example of why. But it's not for the lack of proper teaching by the Confederation. Because I've learned the ins and outs of it as much as one could from studying. In my personal life, or should I say incarnation, my true self planned for maximal separation to gain the wisdom of doing so. Because I know and have experienced the pain of separation, I also know what it means to be unified. I understand STO and STS in part because of it.

At the core, it is quite contradictory to lay out a philosophy whose central tenet is that we are all one being, and then promulgate an ethical theory which rests upon carving out the "self" as something apart from everything else.

This is a confusion of STO/STS. STS works because you've gained the wisdom of separation from others. In the process, you've also learned how to gain power and manipulate other selves. At the very best using this concept, you would've learned how to run a fully functional society. The end result is that it is a proximity of service to others (or other-self, which is STS). For example, Trump is STS because he is pro America only. True STO is pro-world and all life.

So where is the "self" in all this?  If a parasite in my brain caused me to take a risky action that brought harm to another, why should "I" accept the karma of that, and agree to future suffering to "learn love"?  Go torture and harass the parasite to be "more loving" is what I'd say to the so-called "Lords of Karma".  Seriously what a joke!

This is also a confusion of what karma actually entails. If theoretically there was a parasite that caused your brain to harm another, you would not be karmically responsible for that.

Nonetheless, if you want to explore "STS" (whatever that means to you) I say go for it!  Personally, I have much more respect for a being who is unabashedly selfish, than a bunch of posers hanging out in the sinkhole wasting life energy and mucking things up for the rest of us who have grown tired of the merry-go-round of earth.

I would highly suggest against it. Even if you have the best of intentions, it is negative in nature and takes more effort to pull off successfully. Think about how difficult it is to sustain a lie. Eventually it'll weigh down on you and beat you. You have to create a whole house of cards that supports other lies, thus having a mountain of lies. That's just an example. STS is more intricate than that.