James: Yes, from one point of view. No, from another. Of course it depends on your definition of enlightenment. If there is such a thing as enlightenment, it would be an event that happened to a person. The only other possibility is the Self, existence shining as whole and complete unborn bliss-full awareness, but that doesn’t work because it is not aware of the presence or absence of anything in this world. Speaking as if it was a person, one can say that it is perfectly satisfied with itself and the world as it is at any given moment. Vedanta’s definition is someone (it has to be the Self because what isn’t the Self in our non-dual reality?) who is perfectly satisfied with his or her self and the world at any given moment.” So, in that sense there are “enlightened” people, meaning people who know beyond the shadow of doubt, “I am unborn immortal awareness” and consequently are satisfied in every way. So in this sense, enlightenment is simply firm knowledge “I am the light of consciousness.” There aren’t a lot of those people, which is why you probably believe that there are no enlightened persons, but there are.
