The Law of Attraction

[Otis]

Dear all,

 

Many of my friends in the dance community talk about Abundance, Manifestation and the Law of Attraction as if they were something that everyone knew existed.

 

And, honestly, I have had many experiences which provide anecdotal evidence supporting these notions. But I've also seen plenty that refutes them.

 

What do the Bums think about these concepts? Is there, at least, some truth to them? Or can they be better explained by other forces in the universe?

Edited March 21, 2011 by Otis

[Birch]

Red car game.

If you want to count red cars, you'll start seeing them. All over.

I'd akin this one to belief and biased evidence-forming. Fake it until you make it. Want to feel good right now? Just do it :-)

Slap a smile on your face:-)

IMO what it's good for? An inventory of belief.

Perhaps an inventory of value?

Still, amongst the countless books out there on LOA, I can almost bet I know who's making more cash :-)

I'd take what's useful from all that stuff about belief and then make your own mind up about what you want and what you believe and how you believe any of that happens.

[RiverSnake]

I've seen proof enough in my own life. You attract what you are.

[angelo]

You attract what you are.

[torus693]

.

Edited March 21, 2011 by torus693

[torus693]

.

[Adishakti]

Check the book by Esther and Jerry Hicks titled 'The law of attraction'. Pretty good. Kinda explains the process of how Law of attraction comes about through the 'Law of Deliberate Intent' , the 'Law of Allowing' and another one about attracting things moment by moment - I forget what this was called. They have been writing this stuff for a long time now, way before The Secret was out.

[Jetsun]

You attract what you are but it's just egotism to think most people have power over what you are all the time, just sit down to meditate and you see you have no power over your thoughts and just do a bit of observation in life and you see most people are completely reactive to life and get blown this way and that by their emotions. You can set intents to do something but what do you do with conflicting intents which undermine your aim? it still comes back to finding a way to let go and unlearn things which are blocking your progress which is more or less what Lao Tzu says, rather than exclusively focusing on what you want by repressing anything in you that opposes it.

[Sloppy Zhang]

Tried it, and worked frighteningly well.

 

The thing that I don't like about it is that you are too disassociated, not involved enough in the mechanism of it. If you can't perceive energy, where the universe is heading, how things are progressing, then you have no idea what it is you are screwing up for whatever offhand reason you want. And I don't like that. So I never tried the method again.

 

And for the record, I practiced the method with 100% skepticism. I was not actually expecting it to work, and that's part of the reason why it bothered me so much when it FAR exceeded my expectations, again, to a frightening level.

[Maddie]

I think this poll should ask a few more questions because I clicked yes I do believe it works, but I do not think its a good idea. There have been a few times that I tried to obtain what I wanted through my crown chakra (which is basically what the law of attraction per "The Secret" teachs how to do) and every time I got a clear and distinct waring from the Universe (to whom I was sending the request) that if I went ahead with my request that I would indeed get what I wanted but to the detriment of my spiritual path. Perhaps if there was a question in the poll like "do you believe it works, but think its not a good idea" would be a good one? I think driving your car off a cliff to get to the bottom faster works, but is not necissarily the best method one would want to use to do so. ;-)

[unmike]

I think this poll should ask a few more questions because I clicked yes I do believe it works, but I do not think its a good idea. There have been a few times that I tried to obtain what I wanted through my crown chakra (which is basically what the law of attraction per "The Secret" teachs how to do) and every time I got a clear and distinct waring from the Universe (to whom I was sending the request) that if I went ahead with my request that I would indeed get what I wanted but to the detriment of my spiritual path. Perhaps if there was a question in the poll like "do you believe it works, but think its not a good idea" would be a good one? I think driving your car off a cliff to get to the bottom faster works, but is not necissarily the best method one would want to use to do so. ;-)

 

Similarly to this view, I'd like to posit another choice: I believe it works, but only in that it is a tiny, warped picture of the mechanism. They hit on some gold, certainly, but their elaboration of the process is juvenile and misleading.

 

Besides, it speaks nothing to the morality behind the actions one takes and makes. When the head and heart are not in the right place, this power still functions, but its outcomes are less than wholesome.

[Cat Pillar]

I must've been doing it wrong, it never worked for me.

[Enishi]

It works to an extent but it's not some all encompassing force. Your own small ego is not the center of reality! It can't turn assholes around you into saints for instance, maybe just that they tend to ignore you more or aren't as pissy on certain days when you're nearby.

Edited March 21, 2011 by Enishi

[Ulises]

I'm into this for some time now...IMO David Spangler's is the most interesting approach.

 

A review from his book on manifestation,"Everyday Miracles", strongly recommended:

Co-incarnational Manifestation

 

Manifestation is the act of bringing something into existence or the fact of its emergence into the world. Manifestation can occur through ordinary or extraordinary ("miraculous") means.

 

Co-incarnation is the mutually evocative and co-creative dynamic of reality -- the way things evoke and shape each other, providing contexts, motivators, resources, history and meaning to each other.

 

David Spangler suggests that our universe is essentially co-incarnational. He notes that quantum physicists speak of matter and energy in terms of fields of probability. What we see as reality is a manifestation of fields of probability drawing each other towards 100% probability, at which point they co-incarnate as "real" phenomena.

 

Co-incarnational manifestation, then, is the way the universe unfolds, the generative dynamic that brings everything into being. It is a vital process underlying universal intelligence. It provides a way for us to consciously join The Universal Dance, and evoke the things we need even as the world evokes what it needs from us.

 

That's the best I can do right now to summarize this highly intuitive field. Here is a more detailed writeup I did in January 1998 immediately after reading David Spangler's book Everyday Miracles.

 

* * * *

 

I have always responded negatively to the popular New Age idea that the universe and Spirit exist to give us prosperity. The fact that the world is in such a state of suffering -- generated in no small part by such alienated, privileged attitudes -- makes those ideas almost repugnant to me.

 

But the work of David Spangler is different. I found Spangler saying things that have been cornerstones of my own work on co-intelligence for years, that I've heard no one else address. One of my hottest inquiries has been into what sort of co-intelligent spiritual practice could help us actually experience the co-creativity involved in every situation and moment. This concern is so central to Spangler's own spiritual practice that his rituals and reflections constitute a very coherent answer to my inquiry. The fact that I will have to rework it considerably to fit my own sensibilities does not contradict Spangler's approach: He encourages readers to do exactly that. His sensitivity to human diversity -- and the ramifications of that diversity -- are refreshing.

 

While most people would call his overall approach New Age, I see him tapping the best of the New Age while deftly avoiding the pitfalls that have most troubled me about many New Age proponents. For example:

-- Spangler advocates looking at how whatever we're doing impacts the ecological and human systems in which we're involved.

-- He fully acknowledges the dark side of life and our humanity; he has none of that saccharine "sweetness and light."

-- He validates individuality and rationality even as he validates unity and intuition.

-- He doesn't say "you create your own reality" so much as "we all co-create our shared reality."

 

Among the most delightful surprises for me was to find him describing in detail five of the six components of wholeness I articulated several years ago -- a model I considered revolutionary. He explicitly includes in his approach unity, diversity, relationship, uniqueness and interiority. He implicitly includes context and, of course, I think it would strengthen his model to make it explicit. But I have come to see my own model as seriously incomplete in the face of his. Lately I've been wondering if I should add to my model "possibility" and "manifestation" as dynamic dimensions of wholeness. "Possibility," in this sense, includes fields of probability and what quantum physicist David Bohm calls "the implicate order" out of which phenomena arise. The word "manifestation" here refers to all emergent particularity (the specific forms of which are always emergent) -- what Bohm called "the explicate order" -- i.e., the observable reality which "unfolds" from the invisible implicate order. Adding these two elements to the model will ultimately help me explain why combining unity and diversity (or uniqueness and relationship, or interiority and context) generates new possibilities without deteriorating the health of the systems involved.

 

But the personal point I want to make here is that I am quite captivated by the implications and potential of David Spangler's approach. I recommend his book Everyday Miracles very highly. It has not only given me a promising tool to address thorny problems in my own life (by manifesting improved conditions), it has finally pointed me in directions that clarify the sort of spirituality and metaphysics that have long been implicit in everything I do. As well as providing more grist for the mill of my co-intelligence work.

 

One thing I hope to manifest with David Spangler is some insight into how the insights he's outlined could be applied at the level of social systems -- communities and societies. I already see some great potential synergies with things like open space and future search conferences.

 

But here's some more of his ideas that so excite me.

 

David Spangler defines manifestation as "the art of fashioning a co-creative, synchronistic, and mutually supportive relationship between the inner creative energies of a person's own mind and spirit and their counterpart within the larger world in order to bring a new and desirable situation into being." His approach recognizes and facilitates manifestation as acquisition and creation and invocation -- by both ordinary and extraordinary (seemingly miraculous) means.

 

He finds visualization, affirmation and positive thinking useful in some situations, but often problematic. For example:

-- Creating a clear, precise image of what we want

can narrow our options, focusing our attention

on what is familiar and causing us to overlook

manifestations which show up in unexpected forms.

 

-- Attempting to "program the unconscious"

through the repeating of affirmations can become

mindless instead of mindful, passive instead of

passionate. It can blind us to unexpected

manifestations and channel our intention into

verbalization when images or narratives might

be more appropriate for us or our project.

 

-- The assertion of positive thinking to dispel doubts

and fears can deprive us of important information,

suppressing aspects of our individual or collective

wholeness (our "shadow") or aspects of reality we

need to understand and deal with.

 

 

For Spangler, manifestation is more than using such tools as visualization, affirmation and positive thinking to focus the mind. There is "a deeper force at work as well, and it was attunement to that force that constituted the core of my approach to this inner art."

 

"What I set out to find was something like an 'aikido of desire.' I wanted a way to use the energy of my desires to take me to a deeper part of my own being that was in touch with the holistic or spiritual side of the world's being.... I have opted for a technique in which our desires become potential points of reflection and invocation.... Manifestation is a way of using any desire as a starting point for a spiritual journey."

 

"Of course, there is much more to a spiritual practice than manifestation.... However, it can be an opportunity, no matter how trivial the desire, to explore connections, patterns, alignments, and the flow of both material and spiritual energy through your life. When you make manifestation a spiritual practice, then the perspectives it brings overflow into other aspects of your life. You begin naturally seeing yourself and your world in terms of interconnected and co-incarnational [mutually evocative and co-creative] patterns. The reality of the community in which we all live becomes more apparent. The vision of your incarnation becomes broader, more ecological, more compassionate. Your attitudes and actions reflect a larger, more complete humanity." Ultimately, "the inner art of manifestation" is about being a fully-conscious "co-creator of our collective cosmos,... [shaping] a reality that honors and reveals our full nature and that, in co-creative alignment with the sacred, empowers and nurtures all of life."

 

This practice involves realizing that we are not only "particular" bodies or personalities. We are also extended selves -- fields, systems or patterns that extend out into space and time through infinite webs of interrelationship that are continually evolving in complex, chaotic ways. Whatever we want to manifest is already part of this infinite extended self, or part of its potential evolution. Chaos and "living system" theories suggest that small initiatives and powerful visions can shift the evolution of such systems in desirable ways. Manifestation applies that insight.

 

But the whole approach is "co-incarnational" (or, alternatively, co-intelligent). The object of our manifestation -- what we are trying to manifest -- is not only part of our extended self; we are part of its extended self. Whether it is a relationship, an object, a job, or anything else, when it manifests in our lives, we manifest in its life -- and we will change each other. Manifestation is a two-way street; together, we and the object of our manifestation will co-incarnate each other's next stage of being. This is something to prepare for -- both for our own sake, and to deepen our understanding of what we're doing here -- and because that preparation increases the probability that the manifestation will be successful.

 

One further insight I'd like to share, which is mostly Spangler's and partially mine, inspired by him. We are all part of the universe's endless manifestation of evolving wholeness -- which shows up as healing, learning, realization, love, etc. In a very real sense, everything that exists is participating in that universal manifestation project. Our own healing and spiritual growth, it seems to me now, involve primarily our intentionally serving and consciously participating in that project. To the extent we undertake our personal manifestation projects as part of that larger will and welfare, our intention is aligned with the larger benign flow of the universe, and thus increases both the probability and desirability of the success of those undertakings."

 

***

[Ulises]

I love this...

 

"With It" Magic

 

"A few years back I was a presenter at a conference on the Western Magical Tradition held at the Findhorn Foundation Community in northern Scotland. Both practitioners and scholars of various forms of magic came from all over Europe and North America to attend. Like so many conferences in which there are more speakers than anyone knows quite what to do with, the afternoons were taken up with panels in which five or six presenters are jammed together and given a few nanoseconds each to present the breadth and depth of their knowledge before being exposed to questions. As you can tell, though I've both been on and seen some very good panels, I'm not fond of the form.

 

At this conference, one afternoon panel provided a bit of unexpected drama, though I imagine not in a way the organizers appreciated. It was a panel for which the theme was "What is magic?" As I recall, there were four or five panelists, and the first speaker was a man who had written a beginner's book on magic and spirituality. His definition was that magic was very simple, a kind of "playing with energies" that everyone could do. This went uncontested until the last panelist had his turn to speak. He was a well-known and respected author of many books on magic, as well as a competent practitioner. He had been quite visibly restraining himself from saying something until his turn came, but then he practically leaped out of his chair in agitation and said, "Magic most certainly is NOT playing with energies!" Then, shaking his finger at the first panelist, he proceeded to verbally demolish him, stating that magic was anything but simple, and that it was a deep and profound discipline that was not for everyone. He let it be known in no uncertain terms that his fellow panelist had no business speaking in this conference if he was going to spout drivel. This in turn led to a shouting match between the two which eventually led to the organizers' coming on stage and shutting the whole thing down.

 

I hadn't realized till then how much fun a conference of magicians could be!

 

I have to admit, though, that even after that, the definition of magic remains elusive to me. The word magic is used loosely in a number of different ways and contexts, from the excitement and wonder of a romantic evening to stage illusions to the profound spiritual disciplines of alchemy and hermeticism. If I say I'm a magician, then just exactly how am I describing myself? What really is magic? Perhaps behind the disciplines and the rituals, the techniques and procedures, it does come down to a play of energies innate in all of us, though now I might think twice before saying so on a panel!

 

 

 

 

I once had a conversation with a non-physical being to whom I asked this question of the nature of magic. He seemed puzzled and asked me what I was talking about. So I explained to him what I had in mind and he said, "Oh, you mean life!" Another being was more helpful, but only just. "When you pick up a glass of water," he said, "for you it's simply an act of will. You wish the water and your body responds by picking up the glass. It seems instantaneous to you. But at the level of your cells, a great deal more goes on in the form of energy exchanges and molecular alterations, all of which you don't experience. What you call magic, with your rituals and correspondences, is to us equivalent to these molecular activities at a cellular level whereas what we call magic--the magic of the soul, if you wish--is like the direct experience of will and its consequences. We will and it is done."

 

Nice trick when you can do it.

 

At the heart of what this being was saying was relationship between two states for which will was a bridge. In his case, the bridge was direct, but in our case, the relationship or connections needed to be built up between ourselves and the object of the magic, hence the use of ritual or correspondences. The image was like the difference between teleporting directly between San Francisco and New York on the one hand and traveling from one city to the other through a series of connecting railway links. His point was that as we were able to form deeper and better connections or relationships, our magic would change. It was a matter of the wholeness in us matching the wholeness of the cosmos.

 

Thinking of magic as relationship and connection has been helpful to me, more helpful than thinking of it as ritual or alchemical processes on the one hand or playing with energies on the other. More precisely, it gives me a starting point in thinking about magic and the making of magic. I can think of it, for instance, not simply as the use of the will to produce effects in the world but as the forming of relationships or connections co-creatively with the world that have consequences, hopefully desired ones.

 

Why is this important? Because I believe as human beings we need to move to a partnership model of our relationship with the rest of creation, not simply for moral or spiritual reasons but because it works better. It is closer to the truth of things. If I think of magic as the projection and imposition of my will upon the world, whether through the astral light or the etheric plane or some other intermediate dimension, I am acting as a separate agent. I am not really engaging the world. I am acting upon it but not with it. I am making links through correspondences and rituals, but I am not making wholeness. I am not participating. In the end, whatever the success of my magical operation, the world and I remain separate. We remain strangers to each other.

 

Whatever magic is or can become, I believe it calls us to be not just in the world, or even less to have power over the world, but to be with the world in spirit and in wholeness. It is a "with-it" magic."

 

David Spangler

Edited March 21, 2011 by Ulises

[Taomeow]

Having studied subtle phenomena tackled by taoist sciences, notably ganying, I submit that the "law of attraction" has about as much to do with the real thing as a pyramid shceme with the pyramids of Giza, or a vague idea of how an internal combustion engine works with driving a car.

 

"You attract what you are?" What ARE you?..

 

I have seen two-year-olds with brain tumors. I have seen a man whose hands were stained with blood of thousands of innocent people die peacefully in his bed, surrounded by a loving family, at the age of 90. People who believe every complex "why" is reducible to a simple "because" will cite past life merits and crimes, karma, and so on. This may be true, but then it is not compatible with "you attract what you are" in this current life, since indicators of what it is you are as an entity not limited to this-here life are absent, and more often than not people attract "something" that doesn't seem to have anything to do with what they are in this life, as in the above examples.

 

So one might want to take a pick... either believe in karma, or in the law of attraction, but not in both simultaneously. 'Cause if you believe in karma, it means the only thing you are equipped to attract is your karmic debt, and what you focus on, put out, etc., is irrelevant -- a debt is a debt. Whereas if you believe in the law of attraction, it means you attract what you focus on and put out, which means your karmic debt is irrelevant. However you slice it, it looks like an either-or deal. (Of course the very crux of "new age" is being able to hold two or more mutually exclusive beliefs simultaneously. )

[Dagon]

I agree with TaoMeow on this.

 

Creating a group and calling it something is where the division begins.

 

I am suprised by how many people have a rep to uphold or an image to sustain.

 

I try to get along to everyone equally and not hold a biased perspective or stereotype. It is easier said than done at times though.

 

If you want to fit in with something, try fitting in with nature.

Edited March 22, 2011 by Dagon

[Dagon]

I think we all have far more in common the the little nuances that create the indivudual perpective.

[Ulises]

[suninmyeyes]

Hey Tao Meow,how about "you"are attracted or attract becouse your karma-actions ?

 

 

If we want to attract something(whatever)we either have to know what we want(this is tricky becouse the idea has to be streamlined crystal clear and consistent).Or have to dislike the idea intensly which is also way of feeding the attraction becouse mind constantly dwells on it-this is done by most of us uncounciously and it is one of the reasons why people often feel stuck in life ,unfullfilled etc.

So reprograming actions is the key.

All this of course implies free will which IMO exsits at some plane of being/life or maybe I am just pretending it does(this part is debatable).

 

However I do believe in the law of attraction (didnt know it was a new age thing too)as I have observed this in my life for a while now .If I am hungry I go certain food which is attractive to me becouse my karma(something makes me cringe about this word though,preheps it has been misused a lot)-mind body programing,same for lifestyle,housing,jobs ..Even gravity,the way moon is attracted in earths orbit,the way bees work ..They all seem to be subtle laws of attraction.

As to why was I born in my family and not the one up the road and went through expiriences that I went when a child I can guess but have no real expirental knowledge wherther "my soul"was attracted and am trying to find out further with interest.

[Taomeow]

Hey Tao Meow,how about "you"are attracted or attract becouse your karma-actions ?

 

Hey Suninmyeyes,

 

wouldn't this eliminate free will one hundred percent?.. Since you trust it to "exist at some plane of being/life" (as do I), this premise would take us once again into the domain of incompatible beliefs... i.e. "the law of attraction is the law of attracting karma-action" or, to put it in traditional terms, "the law is the will of god."

 

If we want to attract something(whatever)we either have to know what we want(this is tricky becouse the idea has to be streamlined crystal clear and consistent).Or have to dislike the idea intensly which is also way of feeding the attraction becouse mind constantly dwells on it-this is done by most of us uncounciously and it is one of the reasons why people often feel stuck in life ,unfullfilled etc.

So reprograming actions is the key.

All this of course implies free will which IMO exsits at some plane of being/life or maybe I am just pretending it does(this part is debatable).

 

However I do believe in the law of attraction (didnt know it was a new age thing too)as I have observed this in my life for a while now .If I am hungry I go certain food which is attractive to me becouse my karma(something makes me cringe about this word though,preheps it has been misused a lot)-mind body programing,same for lifestyle,housing,jobs ..Even gravity,the way moon is attracted in earths orbit,the way bees work ..They all seem to be subtle laws of attraction.

As to why was I born in my family and not the one up the road and went through expiriences that I went when a child I can guess but have no real expirental knowledge wherther "my soul"was attracted and am trying to find out further with interest.

 

To a taoist, the valid concept is "ganying," resonance. You don't necessarily attract stuff, you can repel it, create interference patterns within it or experience it as interference patterns within you, your life, even your afterlife, etc. Resonance means you interact with things that have similar "existential signature" -- new age people like the (rather mechanistic) term "vibrational frequency" but leave out characteristics that turn "frequencies" into music: timing, tempo, tembre, pitch, an infinite variety of instruments that can produce the same frequencies resulting, however, in quite different melodies (or mechanical noise, as the case may be), and above all polyphony, co-creation. It's as though everyone who believes that when you put out love you get love in return and when you put out a desire for money you get money forgets that they aren't playing solo... This "law" as presented by its proponents presupposes a self-centered mind successfully ignoring the "existential signatures" of all other minds, hearts, livers, kidneys, stomachs, and so on, and would perhaps evolve to full-blown grandeur mania if little episodes of ganying, "synchronicity," that of necessity happen in every life were to be taken too seriously (and occasionally are, I've seen people who think they "do" synchronicity and regard it as a sign of some powers they have.)

 

I do agree that the bulk of what we attract (via ganying and also other players -- wuxing, notably, to say nothing of yin-yang and other fundamentals of existence) we do attract unconsciously, because being unconscious is a default state of current humanity and most of its individual representatives. But I don't think "reprogramming" is the answer -- most people already do nothing but run unconscious programs. The answer is more like eliminating the programming, far as I'm concerned. The answer is consciousness where the "unconscious" has now usurped such power. Or, to put it in traditional terms, "know thyself."

[mike1234]

I don't know if it works or not, but I'm sure that any success from such a thing is rooted in common sense: Constantly focus on exactly what you want, and take action. I don't believe that you can just send something out into the universe and sit on your butt.

[Taomeow]

I feel I need to expound a bit on my statement above -- "Resonance means you interact with things that have similar 'existential signature.' " This should perhaps read "interact harmoniously." Besides resonance, there's also this other phenomenon, dissonance. If your drives are unconscious, you may be putting out 10 units of whatever energy (e.g. the energy of intent) toward harmonizing with a certain flow of events while your unconscious is putting out 100,000 units of its own energy toward harmonizing with something different that happens to be in drastic dissonance with what your surface consciousness thinks it intends. What will the practical outcome be? Which frequency will be drowned out?

 

This is absolutely realistic in biological terms, because the lower brain commands infinitely greater resources of energy than the neocortex. Brain functions that get preferential distribution of energy in any form -- innervation, blood supply, electrochemical and neuroendocrine activity, etc. -- are those of the lower brain, unconscious in most modern people -- to say nothing of your body which has a mind of its own, also unconscious in most modern people (BKF put it in harsher terms in his recent interview, asserting most Westerners -- though I wouldn't limit it to Westerners, I would say "most modern people" -- are "dead to their bodies.") The organs of communication between the neocortex (the part of you that thinks and believes stuff) and the body (the part of you that lives your life) are the brain stem and the lower and middle brain, and these parts are the chief consumers of your overall cerebral energy. If there's a disconnection there, i.e. if your neocortex can only "want" things without having access to these lower brain control rooms, it will never succeed directing the resources of its intent where it "wants" them to go, because the energy of "wanting," "thinking" or "believing" is very low compared to the energy of "living." If you can't convince your organs in charge of basic life functions -- heart rate, respiration rate, thermoregulation, blood pressure, oxidation, cellular communication, etc. etc. etc. -- to communicate with your organs of "thinking and believing," your system will summarily ignore your "thinking and believing" as insignificant in the grand scheme of things as it understands it, and just go about its business without paying any attention to your "wants," "beliefs" and "bright ideas."

 

And so on... big subject. Larger than life. Gotta stop somewhere though.

[Sloppy Zhang]

I don't know if it works or not, but I'm sure that any success from such a thing is rooted in common sense: Constantly focus on exactly what you want, and take action. I don't believe that you can just send something out into the universe and sit on your butt.

 

You'd be surprised.

[mike1234]

You'd be surprised.

 

Any examples that aren't just coincidence or a confirmation bias?

 

 

One of my core beliefs is that I can conjure any type of mental emotional state that allows me to transform myself into the kind of person that can achieve my goals. I prefer this to throwing spirit darts out into the world, and waiting. I can't approach the world as a beggar.