After spending more than 2 years trying to attain enlightenment, I feel closer than ever now. Is there any cautionary advice?

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You are very likely nowhere near enlightenment. I say this not because I don’t believe enlightenment is some impossible-to-attain goal, but because your question belies fundamental ignorance about the path.

There are a few states you need to be aware of. You did not mention what pathway you were following so I’ll assume you’re practicing Buddhist-style dharma mysticism.

There is an event known as the Arising and Passing Away. This is commonly mistaken for enlightenment, but really is only located immediately before the Dark Night. A good description of it is found here: The Arising and Passing Away

The second state you should be aware of is the Dark Night itself. Generally speaking, the dark night happens with breathtaking quickness after the APA. In the Dark Night, the shadow side of spirituality is ruling.

The vast majority of people who claim enlightenment or are “highly spiritually advanced” are Dark Night Yogis, people who never progressed past the Dark Night yet are positioning themselves as teachers. You can learn a lot from a Dark Night Yogi but you’ll never become enlightened by following their teaching because they’re missing a fundamental piece.

In order to move past the Dark Night, you have to stop identifying with the intensity of the state. It takes more than ‘just’ meditating, you need to actually resolve inner personality conflicts before your mind will allow you to move on. The theme of surrender is instructive.

Once you’ve moved past the Dark Night, there are a few intermediary states followed by Fruition / Stream Entry. Stream Entry is considered to be the first stage of enlightenment, and is commonly, but not universally, believed to involve a “loss of consciousness” event.

What defines enlightenment is the sense of finality, that there’s “nowhere else to go.” Fruition is the end of the road for meditative states. But stream entry is only the first stage of enlightenment. How do you get to subsequent stages? You need to free yourself of 10 fetters.

This requires lifetimes of purification, up to 8. This is Buddhist belief and you should rightly be skeptical of it. How do they decide 8? After your 8 partially-enlightened lifetimes, you get one more reincarnation into a heavenly realm, and then you’re done.

It’s important to note that Buddhism accounts for the natural wish to stick around after you become enlightened. The last phase of enlightenment has you overcome this wish. There’s also the notion of boddhisatva where you promise to stick around and help everyone become enlightened. How humble of you.

Personally, the stages of enlightenment are where Buddhism and I part ways. I’ve run into endless expositions on the “ultimate goal of human achievement” and there’s literally no rigor to be found and there’s no reason to not believe it’s all pie-in-the-sky nonsense.

I personally believe there is no end to incarnation and one’s enlightenment is just a thing you might manage to accomplish during a particular incarnation. I use an entirely different set of logical tools to consider the evolution of consciousness and existence. Is the natural path of existence to end? I don’t think so, I think the natural path is to continue evolving. To cease to exist is ultimately to err. You’ll just keep reincarnating until you figure out how to avoid the error.