Bhagavad Gita 5.14
न कर्तृत्वं न कर्माणि लोकस्य सृजति प्रभुः । न कर्मफलसंयोगं स्वभावस्तु प्रवर्तते ॥
na kartṛtvaṃ na karmāṇi lokasya sṛjati prabhuḥ | na karma-phala-saṃyogaṃ svabhāvas tu pravartate ||
Translation
The lord creates neither agency nor actions for the world, nor the union of action with its fruit. Nature, however, takes its course.
Reflection
What link in the chain of your own outcomes have you been attributing to the lord, when nature was already in motion?
Read this verse in its chapter: Chapter Five
Svabhāvas tu pravartate. Own-nature, however, proceeds. Three things the lord does not do: he does not invent the agency, he does not author the actions, he does not glue the fruit to the action. Nature does all three under its own forward motion. The verse is the chapter's strongest statement of impersonal causation. Shankara reads this carefully: the verse is not denying providence. It is denying that the impersonal cosmos requires the lord's personal intervention at each link. The wheel turns on its own once it is set going.