Afterthought: So I'm not quite sure . . . alright, I'm no where near sure . . . what I was positing about the nature of enlightenment being different now from what it may have been before. Maybe it's just been attitudes about enlightenment changing. Maybe it's the absolute vs. the relative, and perhaps they both function simultaneously.

That is, perhaps there is an objective absolute, ultimate reality, God if I may, or G-d, that we shouldn't even be bothering with on a functional level because it's just so way beyond that it's ten thousand times more inconceivable than pointing towards a 4th spatial dimension.

puzzle: Point towards the Fourth Dimension now!

An ultimate, objective clarity. Which is fine, I'm totally fine with things that I can't go near. Once when I was trying to get a physics professor to consider "faster than the speed of light", he refused to do it, even hypothetically, it's just impossible, and I was just like, "OK, whatev".

(Imagination dictates that going faster than the speed of light is possible.)

But on the relative level, the realm of our reality, this physical manifestion, maybe enlightenment can and has changed, not just in conception or definition, but in actuality. Relative actuality. After all, our conception of reality changes, too. It's relative. What we thought was reality before Einstein is very different from what we think it is now.

Reality and world view before modern science is very different from after (or is it "world view after modern science is very different from before" – it's relative), and the differences are considered substantive, even though nothing changes the relative experience of reality.

So maybe the manifestation of enlightenment has also changed according to changes in perceived reality. Maybe how it's handled or perceived has changed, which arguably may change its substantive nature. Who knows? It's all relative anyway.

Or am I just complicating things? I wouldn't argue against anyone who says, "If it's relative, it's not enlightenment".