strings: Is there an entity apart from the self, which looks at the self and dissolves the self? Is there a spiritual entity which   supersedes the self and destroys it, which puts it aside? We think there is, don't we? Most religious people think there is such an .element. The materialist says, "It is impossible for the self to be destroyed; it can only be conditioned and restrained—politically, economically and socially; we can hold it firmly within a certain pattern and we can break it; and therefore it can be made to lead a high life, a moral life, and not to interfere with anything but to follow the social pattern, and to function merely as a machine". That we know. There are other people, the so-called religious ones —they are not really religious, though we call them so— who say, "Fundamentally, there is such an elemenj. If we can get into touch with it, it will dissolve the self".