Difference between a person who leads a worldly life and a ‘sanyasi’ is:  the worldly person sees the world as it is and identifies with it, whereas the ‘sanyasi’ has renounced the world, and is habituated to just observe or witness the happenings in the world while identifying with one’s own higher Self i.e. ‘pure consciousness’. The fact is – you have undertaken to do ‘sadhana’ in order to be unaffected by the happenings in the world.

With self-enquiry and self-effort which is the main part of your ‘sadhana’ practice, you consciously become an observer of all the happenings around you. Even as you witness the happenings, you must continue to identify with your own higher Self – your consciousness. It requires tremendous will power and discipline to train yourself to be unaffected by the world around you. Nevertheless, with continuous and disciplined sadhana, you will succeed in living with complete awareness, and become only a witness to your world of happenings. 

Sadhana is an ongoing process that needs to be maintained through discipline and self-effort. Do your sadhana, japa and meditation with complete discipline. The measure of whether you have made any spiritual progress is that you stop being fearful, frustrated, angry, etc., and you realise that you are unmoved by pain or pleasure. Yor realise that you have stopped reacting to the various situations that happen in your life, and that you have become merely an observer. When this happens, you can be sure that you are making spiritual progress.

Through constant practice of self-enquiry, by observing yourself as you go through the events in your life, by consciously becoming a witness to all the happenings without allowing your emotions to rule you, you finally come to a state of existence where there is no anger, or fear, or any other emotion. You realise that you are truly an observer, a true witness to all situations in life. When this state occurs, you can say to yourself that you have made true spiritual progress. Nevertheless, continue with your ‘sadhana’ with disciplined self-effort, as it is very easy to reach such heights of spiritual elevation, and then fall back due to lack of ‘sadhana’.