In plain words
When the meaning has been lost, it is better to stay quiet; but when people add a false meaning and grow many meanings out of it, harm upon harm has multiplied and the true meanings have not stood.
In these rites of yajña and yāga, in the Ṛgveda, they described all the many deities with these mantras. Of these, they chiefly described 33 deities. Among these Sūrya is chief. All these deities were, like men, possessed of many limbs. This principle of Sūrya pervades the whole world. In this yajña Sūrya has one name, ṛtvik. He has another name, Hotā. He has yet another name, Brahmā. To take all that has been offered and hand it to the many deities: that is the work of this Sūrya. The form of the deity Agni is nothing but the reflection of Sūrya. They have shown that Agni too has a form. Agni too has a mother and a father. You saw it this morning, the araṇi. One stick below, one stick above, and the churning of it. This god Agni burns his parents to ashes the moment he is born. The lower stick is the mother. The upper stick is the father. From these two the god Agni came forth. This Agni has a form too. All his flames are like tongues. All his rays are like heads. That is why they described him with mantras such as this: “Sahasraśīrṣāḥ puruṣaḥ sahasrākṣa sahasrapāt.” This principle of Agni lies within every one. Every being is a form of God: that is the truth of it. Through chanting such mantras and offering to God, all these reach God and He grants Śānti through them; only by this has the welfare of the world grown.
As the fire, so the smoke. As the smoke, so the cloud. As the cloud, so the rain. As the rain, so the crop. As the crop, so the food. As the food, so the Buddhi. Today, because there is no smoke that is the form of the mantras, all our dispositions are going to ruin. The smoke offered to God in these fires turns into clouds; from sacred clouds come sacred drops of water; by that rain a sacred crop grows; from sacred crops sacred food comes to us; and from sacred food a sacred nature arises in us. The root cause of these base and wretched dispositions growing in man today is nothing but the decline of such sacred yajñas and yāgas. “What fruit comes of pouring all this ghee in here somehow in this way, spending so much and doing a yajña of this kind?” So say many people, reviling it in many ways. They blame it; they criticise it. What it is about is understood only by those who know; those who do not know understand nothing of it at all.