Your definition of “enlightenment” is without limits: you consider it as the ultimate evolutionary state possible on Earth, but it should not be interpreted in this way.
Enlightenment is simply a vibration on the divine frequency, but…the divine is positive, negative and neutral, because the divine is everything, absolutely everything.
Therefore there can be negative enlightenment, and unfortunately it is very widespread and firmly embedded.
Who feels enlightened, IS NOT: this is absolutely clear, because the TRULY enlightened person is an integral part of the divine frequency, and is so COMPLETELY absorbed in the Whole, that he is not able to judge himself, just as the human body is unable to evaluate its entirety.
The pseudo-enlightened are those people who are still active in the vibration of external appearance, this is why they need to have converts and followers, to set up centers, form groups and disseminate their ideas towards other people.
They are certainly not negative beings, just acting with the vibration of external appearance.
The ENLIGHTENED BEING, is completely different: with coherence he adheres to his self, with awareness he IS.
The ENLIGHTENED can seem similar in his actions, to the person with the vibration of appearance, but his intentions are totally different.
The individual who vibrates and acts as an enlightened being would never establish groups to impose his own ideas as the best, or circulate them in a commercial way.
The real ENLIGHTENED person asks for nothing: he IS and that is enough.
All the arguments about the “methods” that should be used to guide a person towards enlightenment, are absurd and pointless, but valid if seen through the eyes of outward appearance.
The Energy does not evolve using a technical approach, but only by receiving the right answers to the questions Life offers us.
Only the commitment to ALWAYS act in harmony with your self, will generate the necessary information for evolution.
Methods can be useful to help you to oppose the Mind which is always ready to deviate the human being from contact with his inner self.
Here is the right way to do it: trust your Instinct which will make you aware of the most suitable method for your Self, and remember that only if your intention behind this method is right, will your Instinct be strong and unmistakable.
If your intention is to achieve power, or satisfy your ego, and use the method as a” short cut”, then you will ignore your Instinct’s signal, and you will disregard the sensation of uneasiness and upset you may feel, and continue using the method to achieve your personal goal.
Life does not accept these mechanisms, and puts these pseudo-enlightened people into difficult and trying situations, to test them and force them to reflect and act coherently.
If the individual is coherent in his actions, if he reacts in an “enlightened” way towards the trials Life offers him, he has the chance of securing within his self, what his use of the method has altered; if he reacts incoherently to the Energy’s expectation, then he will have a traumatic energetic decline.