Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Like a dog's curly tail, it can't be straightened; it won't listen to a word I say.
Nanak says: keep saying the Name of the One forever, and everything in your life will come right.
The image is affectionate and funny: the mind is "like a dog's tail" — you can try to straighten it, hold it straight, and the moment you let go it curls right back. Anyone who has tried to change a stubborn habit knows exactly this feeling. But watch where Guru Tegh Bahadur lands: not in despair, and not in harsher self-discipline. The answer to the incorrigible mind is not to fight it into submission (the dog's tail won't straighten that way) but to keep remembering the Name — to give the mind something better to rest on, and let "all your affairs be adjusted." You don't win the war against your restless mind by force. You win it by gently, repeatedly turning it toward what is good, until that becomes its new grain.
If forcing your mind to change doesn't work, what might gentle, patient, repeated turning-toward-the-good do instead?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI