SB 5.18.38
karoti visva-sthiti-samyamodayam
yasyepsitam nepsitam iksitur gunaih
maya yathayo bhramate tad-asrayam
gravno namas te guna-karma-saksine
Translation by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada:
O Lord, You do not desire the creation, maintenance or annihilation of this material world, but You perform these activities for the conditioned souls by Your creative energy. Exactly as a piece of iron moves under the influence of a lodestone, inert matter moves when You glance over the total material energy.
Purport by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada:
Sometimes the question arises why the Supreme Lord has created this material world, which is so full of suffering for the living entities entrapped in it. The answer given herein is that the Supreme Personality of Godhead does not wish to create this material world just to inflict suffering on the living entities. The Supreme Lord creates this world only because the conditioned souls want to enjoy it.
The workings of nature are not going on automatically. It is only because the Lord glances over the material energy that it acts in wonderful ways, just as a lodestone causes a piece of iron to move here and there. Because materialistic scientists and so-called Sankhya philosophers do not believe in God, they think that material nature is working without supervision. But that is not the fact. In Caitanya-caritamrta (Adi 6.18-19) the creation of the material world is explained as follows:
yadyapi sankhya mane ‘pradhana’ — karana
jada ha-ite kabhu nahe jagat-srjana
nija-srsti-sakti prabhu sañcare pradhane
isvarera saktye tabe haye ta’ nirmane
“Atheistic Sankhya philosophers think that the total material energy causes the cosmic manifestation, but they are wrong. Dead matter has no moving power, and therefore it cannot act independently. The Lord infuses the material ingredients with His own creative potency. Then, by the power of the Lord, matter moves and interacts.” Sea waves are moved by the air, the air is created from ether, the ether is produced by the agitation of the three modes of material nature, and the three modes of material nature interact due to the Supreme Lord’s glance over the total material energy. Therefore the background of all natural occurrences is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as confirmed in Bhagavad-gita (mayadhyaksena prakrtih suyate sa-caracaram). This is also further explained in Caitanya-caritamrta (Adi 5.59-61):
jagat-karana nahe prakrti jada-rupa
sakti sañcariya tare krsna kare krpa
krsna-saktye prakrti haya gauna karana
agni-saktye lauha yaiche karaye jarana
ataeva krsna mula-jagat-karana
prakrti — karana yaiche aja-gala-stana
“Because prakrti [material nature] is dull and inert, it cannot actually be the cause of the material world. Lord Krsna shows His mercy by infusing His energy into the dull, inert material nature. Thus prakrti, by the energy of Lord Krsna, becomes the secondary cause, just as iron becomes red-hot by the energy of fire. Therefore Lord Krsna is the original cause of the cosmic manifestation. Prakrti is like the nipples on the neck of a goat, for they cannot give any milk.” Thus it is a great mistake on the part of the material scientists and philosophers to think that matter moves independently.