How to understand scriptures

Before india got independence, many people from Britain used to come to India. They used to write books on the culture, and the way of living in India. One person came to Andhra Pradesh, and started observing how people live. He went to a lake and started observing one person. That person was a washerman. He had so many clothes which he brought from people in the village. He put all the clothes in hot water for some time. Then, he started hitting the rock with the clothes to clean the clothes. Initially, he hit with right hand, then with left hand. After hitting for some time, he put that cloth, in a bucket, and took another clothe, and did the same thing. He did that for few hours, and left. That british man observed all this and started writing book.

People in andhra pradesh are big fools. They don't have even common sense. They are trying to brake a big rock by clothes. They were thinking that, they could brake a rock by clothes. They are using hot water with clothes, so that they could brake the rock easily. And for few hours they tried to brake with both the hands. They could not break, and finally gave up. Next day, they came again and tried the same thing. How foolish are they?

Any body who knows little bit about washing clothes in India can understand that, the above writing is the foolish writing. But, for those who do not know, it may appear as correct, eventhough it is completely wrong. If we want to understand about someone, instead of directly observing someone, and commenting on that, we should directly go to that person and ask his/her reasons for doing that. Then only one can understand properly. Otherwise, we get only wrong information. Same thing applies in the case of scriptures also. From any verse in the scriptures, we can give hundreds of meanings. And foolish people takes only one meaning which they like, and starts criticizing the scriptures.

To understand any verse in any scripture, one must understand the author's intent, NOT one's own interpretation. 90% of the present spiritual books does not consider the author's intent in any of the scriptures, and because of that people are losing the belief in the scriptures. Everybody criticizes manusmruthi because it gives more authority to brahmins. But, those whoever criticizes do not know the definition of brahmin. Many scriptures including Bhagavadgita, and Bhagavatham clearly says that brahmin is not a right which one gets by birth. By birth everybody is a sudra. One must get so many qualities to become a brahmin. Scriptures also mention that, in kaliyuga, everybody is a sudra. So, in this age, no body gets the authority mentioned by Manusmruthi.

Without understanding the author's intent of the scriptures, one should not criticize any of the scriptures.

Based on the teachings of Sri Sri Sri Tridandi Sriman Narayana Ramanuja Chinna Jeeyar Swamy