"Enlightenment" is NOT transformation, not change, not "ascension", not "buddha-mind", not some sort of "energetic shift", not some "transmission", not any change whatsoever. These are all stories that are told by idiots that believe THEY are enlightened and YOU are NOT! There is nowhere to go and no one to go; the seeker-persona is a MYTH and nothing more.
Those who tell stories abut "an energetic contraction" are simply misleading the seeker by reinforcing the totally false notion of dualism, the assumption that there IS a "person" for whom there is something wrong! There is no person in Reality; only in the delusion of language that some "gurus" use to get attendees to meetings! Warning: There is no food for such egos here.
My friends: This is definitely not a "saintly state". It is not a "personality modification. It is not a 'shift". It is NOTHING. And nothing cannot be attained by nothing! You as what-you-ARE cannot ever ATTAIN what-you-already-are. It would be like the sky trying to grasp itself. Like the knife trying to cut itself. The "Sage" does NOT undergo some magical mystical transformation from something to no thing; rather the ideation and conviction that there is some "one" (an individual) somehow separated from and different than no thing simply gets squelched by that no thing which the sage is and, dear reader, which YOU already always Are. To accept the intellectual understanding that you are no thing may be a start but it is not the ultimate Full Moon of Reality, because so long as there is "me" accepting, then that same "me" will also reject it when the going gets tough e.g. when illness or hard financial times or loss of a love etc. happen. This was my experience; so long as the understanding was superficial, i.e at the level of a deep belief but not the actual apperception, then life is a roller coaster. The point of nonduality is to share what takes one off the roller coaster altogether, not to keep one up on some "peak high". The "Advaita High" is no different than another drug like experience; it always passes and you crash. Have you not seen that yet?
All attempts to gain some state of self-realization WILL fail. Bad news, eh? Nah! That is the good news! Because if it is deeply apperceived that there is no one separated from wholeness to get whole, that there is no point in a phantom belief in a "me" to make endless efforts to become "no me" (OR to STOP all efforts to become "no me") well then by God there might just happen to be Grace; the Grace that comes from no thing no where (IE from Who-You-Really-ARE) and removes the delusion of a mind split ONLY by language and falsely convicted to a life in a conceptual prison. Grace can pardon the convict in a heartbeat. However watch now: Do you have some belief lurking in deep back-story that "you" (or ANY "me") can MANUFACTURE Grace? Lotsa luck with that. That one will keep you on the hamster wheel forever. Who cannot see the arrogance in the notion that this little ego-thought of separateness, of "me", can somehow make the universe and one's life better?? As the poet Leonard Cohen wrote, "There is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man putting the universe in order".
Recently one of my teachers, the modern Sage Wayne Liquorman, wrote: "The ever practical brain wants to know what earthly good is such esoteric understanding? How does it help us grow more and better grass? How does it feed us? How can it enrich us? The answer is that it is of no practical value. It does not help us to manage life better. But its mystical value is immeasurable. It enables us to be at peace even when our minds and bodies are in turmoil...not as an act of skill, not as an achievement but as an act of Grace. May it find you now!"
Full Stop and Amen!!
PS: Now please remember: ALL words are conceptual POINTERS. Those who believe the words of any teacher or teaching, no matter who, or where they are, are simply deluding themselves. So don't bother spouting out "well so and so says xyz and so you are obviously wrong. EVERY teaching is wrong inasmuch as they are all concepts that ONLY POINT. These pointers are NOT representing or describing! Do not believe any of it; rather, LOOK at where the pointing is pointing (to the Non-conceptual Eternal Love that you really are!) Pure Apperception of that (i.e. know-ING sans know-ER or thing-known) is enlightenment ... for no one. And all the while YOU remain as You Are, have always been and will always be in this dream of spacetime: PRESENT AND AWARE.