http://glossary.cassiopaea.com/glossary.php?id=883&lsel=S

Service to Others and Service to Self

From a cosmic standpoint, both polarities are necessary. This does not however mean that these can be effectively reconciled at the human level. Thus the cosmic call on the human is to choose one or the other.

Gurdjieff discusses STO and STS in Beelzebub's Tales as follows:

'. "If the notions recorded on this Boolmarshano were put into ordinary language, they could be stated in the following words: "'Evidently we men, also like all the existing units of the World, are formed and always consist of the same three independent forces, by means of which the process of reciprocal maintenance of everything existing proceeds; namely, of the following three independent World forces: "'The first of these forces constantly arises from the causes which proceed in the Prime Source itself and from the pressure of the newly arisen, and issuing from it by momentum flows out of that Prime Source. "'The second World force is what this first force be- comes, when, after having spent the momentum which it has received, it strives to reblend with the source of its arising, according to the fundamental World law called "The effects of a cause must always re-enter the cause." "'Both of these forces in the general process of reciprocally maintaining forces are entirely independent, and in their manifestations have always and in everything their own properties and particularities. "'The first of these two fundamental forces, namely, that one which for compelling reasons always manifests outside the source of its arising, must constantly involve; and the second one, on the contrary, striving to blend with the cause of its arising, must always and in everything evolve. "'Owing to the fact that the first of the mentioned three independent forces arises from vivifying actions proceeding in the very foundation of the cause of everything existing and thus receives in its presence the germ of the possibility of manifesting vivifyingness, it may be considered as "Good," that is, as a factor for the actualizing of the backward-flowing effects which in relation to this first force can and must be considered as "Evil." "I Moreover, the first of these forces, which is manifested from inevitable and compelling causes arising in the Prime Source itself, can from this point of view be considered as passive. And the second backward-flowing force, because it must constantly resist in order to have the possibility of penetrating backward or at least the possibility of withstanding the opposite-flowing first passive force which has received its momentum from the Prime Source causes, must be regarded as active. "And as for the third independent World force, this force is nothing else but only the result of the clash everywhere and in everything of these two fundamental descending and ascending independent forces. "'Although this third independent force is only the result of both first fundamental forces, it is nevertheless the spiritualizing and reconciling source of every World formation. "'And it is the spiritualizing source of every World formation because it arises and must exist in them as a presence all the time while the given results exist which arise from various unusual mutual resistances occurring between the said two fundamental forces flowing in entirely opposite directions.' "And so, my boy, it was in this sense and in this meaning that the words 'Good' and 'Evil' were first used by this unfortunate Makary Kronbernkzion.' [End quote]