III

HIDDEN FORCES AROUND

There is no visible foe, but the unseen

Is round us, forces intangible besiege,

Touches from alien realms, thoughts not our own

Overtake us and compel the erring heart;

Our lives are caught in an ambiguous net.

SRI AUROBINDO

Savitri, Book Six, Canto Two

A grisly company of maladies

Come, licensed lodgers, into man's bodily house,

Purveyors of death and torturers of life.

In the malignant hollows of the world.

In its subconscient cavern-passages

Ambushed they lie waiting their hour to leap,

Surrounding with danger the sieged city of life:

Admitted into the citadel of man's days

They mine his force and maim or suddenly kill.

Ibid.

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