Appreciate Your Material World

Prefer to read? Here’s a transcription of the video:

I want to talk today about appreciating the material world around us. First of all, everything material around us comes from planet earth.
Either nature that grows above the earth or parts of nature that are within the earth. Minerals and everything that we have today that we’ve created civilization with comes from that, either from above the earth, trees, the wood, the food we grow or you know, the cars we drive with petrol because there is, there’s oil in the earth.

Just as examples, we tend to forget that cause when we use our smart phone, we don’t think it comes from directly from the earth, from what we might call the dirt. It’s gone through so many iterations and evolved so much that we have such a technological society in the West at least, but all over the world.

But it all comes from the origin of planet earth.

It’s the first of all, this is a wonder and what we perceive as dirt is actually a source of gold, in the metaphor of it, and wondrous capabilities combined with our ingenuity, our creativity. Because we are the creative force on the planet.

And so we have the capacity to imagine something and then bring it to life and manifest it.

We have the capacity to take a tree and see a boat in it or see a chair in it or see fire coming out of it. We can see a Bush or a plant and we can imagine how we can reproduce that and create a vegetable garden so that we can nourish ourselves and our communities.

So there is so much to appreciate about our planet and then about the material world that comes out of it, whether it’s organic material like in nature or something we’ve created organically or since then been able to evolve to produce technology, printing machines, language books.

I mean, it’s endless, clothes, fashion. It’s endless what we’ve been able to, to produce everything coming from nature, from planet earth, medicine cures, flying to the moon. Everything,. It seems like it’s so advanced, but it all comes from the same planet earth. So instead of saying, I just want to be spiritual, the material world is here today, gone tomorrow has no value. It might serve me to eat and to sleep and to, you know, do the minimal that I need to do, but it has no other value.

Instead of saying that we should use our capacities, our creative capacities to go into the imaginal, our minds, our emotions, our spirit, and choose what we want to bring from that realm, from that dimension, and then express it in the material world.

And so today’s video is about how to first of all, appreciate the material world from this perspective. And so I invite you today to practice appreciating everything material that is around you. Now you can do it by putting your timer on your smart phone for every 15 minutes or 30 minutes or an hour and stop and think, okay, what’s material around me now?

So you drive in a car to work maybe or you see clients in an office and you have two chairs. All of these are material things and it’s all technology. Even if it’s what we would call today, high technology or low technology. It’s all part of technology, human creativity, human capacity to imagine, observe and invent something and bring it to material manifestation.

So as you drive in your car, appreciate, appreciate your car for the value it brings you, where does it take you? What does it allow you to do? Then think of the history of how it evolved and think of all the people who contributed their love and care and dedication and creativity and hard work, blood, sweat and tears to evolve our technology to the point that you can go to a store, buy a car, and then be transported from a place you are at to a place you want to go.

It allows you may be to express your calling because it takes you where you need to go. Or it’s allows you to connect with a friend because you’re going to meet them. Or it allows you as a parent to care for your children cause you’re going to go pick them up and, and take them to an activity that they have to do. And so look, it brings you connection and parenting and self-expression and so many other things depending where you’re going with your car.

So there’s the value that it brings. You can appreciate that there’s the history of how it got here, if everything came from that same earth, either above the ground or under. And think about the evolution of transportation and appreciate all the people, all of humanity that came through to get to bring it to this point where you can drive your car and express your calling or connect with a friend or be a good parent.

So a way to appreciate and material thing that you are experiencing and that you are using and that serves you is to say thank you. Thank you for supporting me in so-and-so.

Thank you for allowing me to travel or to have my coffee cup stay warm as I’m driving in my car for an hour. You can begin to see how everything that you touch has a value. It serves you in a certain way.

And so take a moment just to give it a blessing. Say thank you to it, appreciate what it gives you and how it serves you and what you do, how that serves others, how you going to a meeting is going to serve down the road other people through the products and the services that you and your company might be developing.

So you see this interdependent network or web. So there’s so much to be appreciative of.

And then just think of the materials that this object is created of and think how did these materials come to be? How did we evolve from this earth above or below the earth into this technological material?

And then think of the people who created it, the people that at certain crossroads propelled the product forward and then the people who were not innovative, but to support it, to make it come true, to create it, to manifest it. You know, like ants, just a colony of human beings who enjoy putting time into what they were doing to bring food on the table to their families or take their kids to college or just have a home that they can afford.

And so then suddenly in this one product that you’re looking at, one thing you can see all of humanity. So you can see how appreciating the material thing is actually appreciating everybody’s spirit, everybody’s creation, everybody’s innovation, dedication, hard work, including yourself. Because when you decided to buy this car or when you decided to buy this specific book that you are reading, you’re supporting somebody else’s calling who wrote the book.

So you can also appreciate yourself for paying attention, for appreciating other people’s creation.

So to summarize, appreciate the material world is an expression of the spiritual reality. Either the evolution of nature or the evolution of us, the human species of humanity. And every product is a point of conversions, of history, of people’s spirit and people’s qualities and abilities, capacities, genius, creativity, love and dedication for what they were doing. And then there’s also your appreciation, your love, your care of people’s creative expression in you purchasing it or experiencing it so it doesn’t go to waste in a sense, are using it for the purpose for which it was created.

So have fun with it. You can really put your timer on every 15 minutes and just stop and say, am I sitting on a chair and my driving in a car? Am I working on a computer? Am I writing on a piece of paper? Am I eating food? Am I using a plate? I’m wearing shoes. I’m wearing earrings. It’s endless.

Have fun with it. Enjoy it, and leave a comment below. I’d love to hear what realizations you’ve had once you start appreciating the material world around you.

Blessings.