# Feelings and good sense

By Dr. Hukam Chand Jain (from his own talks) · 2026-11-08

Feelings are not bad, he says, but don’t become their servant. On emotion, tolerance, simplicity and the practice of silence.

How often have we said something in a moment of feeling and regretted it for years? Or bought something we did not need because an advertisement moved us? Dr. Jain does not ask anyone to stop feeling. Anger, jealousy and disappointment, he says, are all natural. What he asks is that we stay their master.
In five short talks he offers simple tools for that: three long breaths, thirty seconds of stillness, a little tolerance, a habit of simplicity and an hour of silence.

## Don’t let feeling overrule judgement

People often say someone emotionally blackmailed them, he notes. But it happened because we did not keep our feelings in check. King Dasharatha, moved by feeling, granted Kaikeyi three boons, and in the end had to send Rama to the forest. Advertisements work the same way: they touch children and adults alike, and we buy expensive phones and creams we never needed.
Feelings and decisions can live together, he says, but feeling must not take over. When you feel it rising, pause and take three long breaths. Then you can use your emotion intelligently, instead of being used by it.

## Be the master, not the slave

Sometimes we catch hold of one thought and turn it over for two, three, four hours at night, he says, losing sleep and harming our health. No feeling is bad in itself. If you feel anger, or jealousy, or the sting of failure, that is all right: it will stay a while and then go. Recognise it, and learn to stand a little apart from it. Ask why the anger came, why the jealousy, and whether today’s failure means there will be no success tomorrow.
When feeling carries you away, stop for thirty seconds. Take a long breath and let it reach every part of the body; drink a glass of water, call someone, or go and sit in nature. Then build a positive thought to put in its place.

> Don’t be a slave to your feelings; be their master. (भावनाओं के गुलाम ना बनें, भावनाओं के मालिक बनें।)

## Learn to tolerate

In his experience, each new generation tolerates a little less. Young men and women alike react at once, will not listen, and will not adjust. The result is tension at home and stress inside. Praise or abuse, success or failure: every word becomes a reason to react.
His way out is to see clearly whose loss an insult is. If someone abuses you or gossips about you, he says, that is their act, not yours. If they lost their temper, the harm is theirs. Learn to stay quiet instead of replying, keep envy out of your mind, and tolerance will grow, and with it your personality.

> It was he who lost his temper, not I. (क्रोध तो उसने किया है, मैंने नहीं किया है।)

## Be simple

Over a long teaching life he has found that being simple and natural is harder than being great. We can win fame, he says, but are we at ease? People who stayed ordinary did extraordinary things: Napoleon, Kabir, Kalidasa, Shakespeare, Maxim Gorky. In society we try to look grander than we are, and that pretence leaves us unhappy.
Let your graph run level, he says. There will be curves, difficulties and the occasional success; stay the same through all of them. Rama remained steady in every situation. Make simplicity your own formula, and it will bring happiness.

> Being simple and ordinary is the hardest thing of all. (सहज और सामान्य होना सबसे मुश्किल काम है।)

## An hour of silence

Silence, he says, does not mean keeping your mouth shut while scrolling Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. It means stopping everything and letting the mind settle. As it settles, judgement improves, reflection deepens, creativity grows, and you keep clear of pointless quarrels.
Gandhi kept silence every Monday. He has seen Jain monks keep complete silence several days a month, writing on a slate when something must be said. Try one hour, or at least half an hour, at a fixed time each day, and give the phone a fast for that hour too.

## To remember

- When a feeling rises, take three long breaths before you decide.
- Feelings come and go; recognise them and stand a little apart.
- An insult is the other person’s act, not yours; learn to stay quiet.
- Keep an hour of silence each day, with the phone switched off.

## Source videos

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhS8QmPpq-s
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDQMGI2tnAc
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jR-1pjcZOY
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhxQEJj_AQk
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3W01ZfLgBc

Page: https://www.hukamchandjain.com/articles/feelings-and-good-sense/