Let me post the relevant part from the comment here for the benefit of the users.
Sri Chinmoy was a spiritual master who wrote on various topics especially in the form of poetry. Here, he talks about Agni and the first Shloka of the Rig Veda:
‘Agni’ means fire. This fire refers to the aspiring flame that rises
from our inmost being; again, ‘Agni’ also refers to the fire god
himself. We are all aspirants; we are all seekers of the infinite
Truth. It is we who have to embody Agni, the flame of aspiration, in
the inmost recesses of our hearts. We also have to grow upwards with
this flame until we become the embodiment of Agni, the fire god
himself.
I wish to offer you the following sloka from the Rig Veda:
Agnimile purohitam
yagyasya devamrtvijam
hotaram ratnadhatamam
Agni mile means “I adore or worship the flame, Agni.” Purohitam
yagyasya means “the priest, the household priest, of the sacrifice.”
Devam means divine and rtvijam is the priest or minister who
officiates at the sacrifice. Hotaram is the Summoner or the Invoker.
Ratnadha means “the one who founds or establishes the jewel of
ecstasy, the inner wealth, the nectar"; tamam is the superlative of
Ratnadha. Ratnadhatamam is “the one who more than anyone else
establishes the inner ecstasy.” So the first verse in the Rig Veda
dedicated to Agni runs thus in free translation:
“O Agni, I adore Thee,
O priest, O divine minister
Who officiates at the divine Sacrifice,
Who is also the invoker, the Summoner,
Who most bestows the divine wealth upon us.”
He also continues to mention the limitation of this translation:
I would like to say that translation can never do justice to these
sublime and profound Sanskrit words. I use the English words ‘priest’
and ‘minister’, but I get to be excused for doing so. These English
equivalents can never convey the meaning of the word rtvik, the
invoker, the Summoner of the Supreme, the one who officiates at the
sacrifice. Anyone who knows both Sanskrit and English will immediately
feel that there is a yawning gulf between the Sanskrit words rtvik and
hotaram and the English words ‘priest’ and ‘minister’ and so forth.
For more, read here: http://www.srichinmoylibrary.com/dcg-6
