Buddha is a myth but myths encode negation.
The figure of the Buddha is not evidence that enlightenment is real. He is the symbol for the negation of animalistic drives in man. He is a fiction built around the absence of desire. He does not exist because he cannot.
But the paradox is that he needs to exist as a symbol, because people need to imagine that insincts and desires can be overcome. Even if this is false, it gives form to the dream of disidentification from nature.
No one since Buddha in thousand of generations has been like him because it is the myth. But millions still spend their entire lives in lotus because they want to be Buddha to be free from their animalistic drives.
This is not mere delusion. This is the resistance of the psyche to be defined entirely by desire and insticts.