From Thesis I, a different take on "material". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi

“When it comes to learning to control the body and its experiences, we are as children compared to the great Eastern civilizations. In many respects, what the West has accomplished in terms of harnessing material energy is matched by what India and the Far East have achieved in terms of direct control of consciousness.” -- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York: Harper Perennial, 2008), 103. found on Quotenik