Thinking Aloud -"Ekam Sat Viprah Bahuda Vadanti."

Ekam Sat Viprah Bahuda Vadanti.
Apart from other relevant thoughts, a query was raised by a scholerly member in a Forum in which I am a member:

"Is Religion the biggest trick played upon us by the Universal Consciousness?"

This is what I wrote on the subject:

Wonderful thoughts to ponder over. Briefly I share my thoughts on this(It may not be in the same order in which you have expressed.) Religion is a collection of doctrines and people follow them. Spiritual aspirations are not confined to religious people alone. Some time or other these quires arise in our mind, and these can be solved by our mind alone. We cannot find the answer outside of us. The relationship between the creator and created is unique, All our queries originate from this only. If we could find an answer for them it is the "Sat, the unchanging Truth". It is like taste of sugar or spice. All the book knowledge cannot give us the taste, unless we experience them. Book knowledge contains the perception of some one else, not ours. 

“Truth is a pathless land”. Said Jiddu Krishnamuti and continued "Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection.".

Desire:

Desire is the main force which motivates  all activities in this world. Without desire nothing will act in this world.  "The basic urge, which impels man to act, is desire. Whether it is education, wealth, career, worldly pleasures or even the goal of liberation from bondage, it is the desire to achieve some end, which gives the impetus to human actions. So it becomes vital to understand when desire takes root in the human mind. According to the scriptures, desire sprouts in an individual even before birth; the embodied soul is fully aware that God is providing an opportunity to work out its Karma and hence desires to put an end to rebirth. But due to worldly affliction it forgets this goal the moment it is born and the desire instead becomes deflected to material gains."

It  (Kama) is one of the four purusharthas or objectives of  human birth (ie) Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha.

Manusmrithi says in   Ch II .4. "Not a single act here appears ever to be done by a man free from desire; for whatever (man) does, it is (the result of) the impulse of desire". 

Interestingly if we think a bit, we will understand all the actions of living beings are directed towards only one purpose, to multiply its own specie . 

“Multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.” ―(Charles Darwin)