There aren’t many, no. The vast majority of people answering questions on the topic of spiritual enlightenment online have had an awakening experience, possibly found their consciousness/awareness/stillness, but still watching their persona from this perspective, that is, they’re still largely dreaming. They have awakened into their dream, but not from their dream. They have become the watcher of the dream, which is also a constructed identity. This isn’t the enlightenment historical masters and sages spoke about. The one they spoke about is just too painful for most people, it’s too much to take. The ultimate liberation can only come from the ultimate pain.

From the ego’s perspective, awakening from the dream is death, it’s mental suicide. That’s what Buddhahood is - the complete acceptance of the ultimate. Awakening into the dream is simply acquiring an elevated perspective on life. There’s a tremendous difference between the two, profound. Buddhas have no perspective on life, they do not know what’s gonna happen to them, and they do not have rules they live their life by. They are life.

But even that modest awakening experience is earth-shattering from the perspective of the separated state, so all the right books get read and all the right terminology gets adopted, and many enlightenment teachers are born. Most don’t know what they teach but consider themselves very, very advanced. As we all know, on the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog.

It’s not to say that these people can’t help anybody, they surely can. One of the most prolific communicators of enlightenment in the west was Alan Watts, who wasn’t himself enlightened, but he probably helped more people shift their perspectives than almost anyone else, especially with the proliferation of the Internet, even though he gave his lectures in person.

But shifting one’s perspective is still not enlightenment. Enlightenment is not for everyone, it’s only for those who want truth and nothing but truth, not just contentment, not just become calmer or wiser, but the ultimate, the absolute.