Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume II - Part 2
What you feel about physical things is true – there is a consciousness in them, a life which is not the life and consciousness 
of man and animal which we know, but still secret and real. That is why we must have a respect for physical things and use them rightly, not misuse and waste, ill-treat or handle with a careless roughness. This feeling of all being conscious or alive comes when our own physical consciousness – and not the mind only – awakes out of its obscurity and becomes aware of the One in all things, the Divine everywhere.