I would define the quality of radiance as an individual being's intrinsic goodness, divine love, and creativity shining forth into the external environment. I would also say that this shining goes beyond the normal confines of physical proximity, and can reach others in a non-local way. Furthermore, radiance can vary in degrees of subtlety--not always being obvious in a glamorous form, but rather glimmering and shimmering in more discreet vibrations.
Fortunately, I've witnessed different examples of radiance--in the AYP community, at my workplace, and even in my family, dysfunctional as they sometimes are. But what interests me is whether this often qualitative phenomenon can be turned into a quantitative characteristic. In AYP, Yogani describes the core samyama sutras as qualitative (love, radiance, unity, etc.), and the sutras of cosmic samyama (feet, navel, earth, galaxy, etc.) as quantitative. The former are much more malleable and transient, whereas the latter are more fixed in a sense of relative positionality.
If there was a scientific, systematic way of calculating someone's individual radiance (and therefore, their ability to positively influence the global environment), we could change the economic system on a fundamental level. Currently, the economy is based on debt, compound interest, and material profit. Someone's net worth (in dollars) is a reflection of how much material they've accumulated. How much property they own, how much control and power they wield in a business, how many human beings they employ, how much attention they can garner or absorb via a product or service. You see what I'm getting at?
There's almost a parasitic, suction cup effect connected to the flow and accumulation of money. The design of the capitalist system encourages competition and perpetuates a cancerous spread of excess and imbalance. Too much in one person's hands, and too little in the impoverished areas.
So, not to start an socioeconomic discussion, but what I'm saying is that if spiritual value could be incorporated into the economic idealogy of our culture, we would be much better off. We could create $karma dollars$, which would determine a person's net worth based on how much they are actually contributing to the health, abundance, prosperity, and spiritual progress of the whole, rather than how much they are absorbing into their personal possession.
Yogani says that the result of enlightenment is an outpouring of divine love, not an amassing of material wealth or celebrity attention. Couldn't this paradigm be incorporated into our economic system?
Anyone share this vision of spiritual economics?