It is mentioned in Bhagavatam (sanskrit) - which means that Lord Krsna is just like a boy who is playing with His own reflections in water. So just as a boy sitting at a water reservoir is playing with His own reflections, so this is the principle of playing with His own energies and that the material world is like a reflection of the original spiritual world, for we see that the material world resembles the spiritual world.
So therefore it is true that by using material examples out of material nature, we can express certain spiritual principles. Elsewhere in Bhagavatam Prabhupada explains that because the material energy has been created by Krsna, the psychology of Krsna is manifesting in material nature, and therefore, through material nature, we can understand Krsna.
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, CC Seminar 2003)