How I know I am not enlightened

Listen carefully: this is the most important post I have ever made here.
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This is an odd post, because in saying I know for certain that I am not enlightened, I am actually saying that I am closer to it than at any time in my life. I am most certainly not saying I am closer to it than anyone else. Just me. The reason that I am closer is that I now understand more clearly what it is. Why that is I may choose to elaborate upon another time. Let's just leave it at that, reject it if you wish, or accept it. It doesn't matter at all.
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From my current understanding, Enlightenment is not mystic union, or God Realization, or the acquisition of special powers. It is simply being awake from the dream. It is Truth realization. Those other things are great things, but they are not Enlightenment. This maps over with core statements from every realized being who has ever left a paper trail of his or her path or perceptions. But even if it did not, my "Is-ness" knows it to be true, and this would be enough.
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How do I know I am not there? Curiously, this came up three days ago, when a famous friend who is overly impressed by my mind asked me about Enlightenment, and I commented that it is reasonable to me that perhaps a couple of dozen Enlightened people live upon the earth at any given time. "Of course" he said, "you are one of them." I could only laugh.
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Reading back over this blog for the last few days should give anyone all the evidence they need that I am not. An Enlightened being sees the things of this world as shadow-play, is not attached to winning or losing, or the rightness and wrongness of things. They would never find their emotions spiking as mine do on racial issues. The question of race and IQ would not engage them as it does me, and the question of black male images in film would be less important than whether a black or red ant gets that piece of sugar. I am caught in the dream, struggling to awaken. I'm still asleep.
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Understand something: I will never accept white people's judgement, or calculation, that black people are, on the average, mentally inferior. It would make more sense for a cow to accept a butcher's arguments about why hamburger is good. When a group of black psychometrists sit me down and explain how they came to the same conclusion, I'll listen more carefully, and perhaps accept it. But if I was actually Enlightened, I would not care.
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There is not joy in this realization, but there is relief, and a certain satisfaction. I know the direction ahead, or within--both terms are only substitutes for words that don' t exist. I know what has been pushing me all these years. I know which of my teachers have been "there" and which have only been "here" with some interesting ideas about what "there" is like. It's actually kind of funny.
I'll continue to report back. But watch me: any time I get caught up in these debates, shake your head and say: "O.K., Steve: not yet. Not yet."

God knows I will.