About a month ago, I was ripped off.  No, not robbed or mugged, but ripped off, cheated at a "reputable" franchise out of about $150.  Now, yoga is really good for me, because I have a tendency to get all uppity and irritable and to want to kick some culo, way before I consider slowing down.  This is a lot harder in Spanish, sometimes the effect just isn't the same when you have to say, "Listen, you lying thieving....hold on, let me get my dictionary....tramposo!"  I can pepper in swear words as breezily as any mariachi on his night off at the cantina, but they just don't sound quite as forceful coming from me as I struggle for what should follow.  This is tough for me, because one thing I do not have trouble with in English is opening up a can of whoopass.  Sadly, I have built my reputation down here as the peace loving, fun loving, outgoing, hilarious Spanish speaking gabacha English teacher, who never really gets mad at anybody, so turning on the Jersey girl is a tough switch.

But anyway.  I went to a "Telcel" franchise to buy a modem for my computer so I could get on line at home instead of whiling away my hours in a dark internet "café," minus any coffee, food, lighting, assistance, or reliable connection.  The first store I went to told me that I could not purchase any such thing in the pueblo, but would have to go to the mothership in Puerto Vallarta for my modem.  Luckily you can't swing a plate of ceviche without hitting another Telcel store, so I just moved on down the block to find someone with a different answer.  To my great good fortune, or so I thought, the very next store told me what I wanted to hear.  Of course they had a modem for me.  And it "should" work in my little pueblo about 10 kilometers down the road.  Our friends at the shop then proceeded to sell me a new phone, saying the only way I could get a decent rate to the US was to buy this new phone that had a "promocion" on it.  OK, that all sounded fine, as did their suggestion to take the "chip" out of my old phone to power the modem, instead of using the chip that actually came with the modem.  They were so smiley, so helpful, and I was very pleased with my purchases.  When neither the phone nor the modem worked when I got home, I went back to the store.  My new friends were very helpful, jimmied the phone and modem a bit, told me what great Spanish I spoke, and sent me back home.  The modem worked for about a week, but I could never get the phone to register the promotion, the only reason I had bought the phone.  I went back to the store again, and they called Telcel for me, gave me back my phone and said I just had to wait 48 hours.  They asked me how my "banda ancha" was doing, and I told them great.  

When the modem refused to work on the 8^th day, I went to the store one more time, to ask for a receipt, which they had neglected to give me the first time, because I was going to Puerto Vallarta and would return the modem myself, as well as get my phone registered in person.  They looked furtively at one another, sort of mumbled something, then said that they could give me a receipt for the phone, but they had a better idea for the modem.  The manager himself was going to Vallarta the next day and would personally bring our modem down and get it exchanged.  How friendly!  How thoughtful!  What excellent customer service!  Since we hadn't brought the box with us, the manager took down my husband's phone number and said he would call him at 7 am the next morning to pick up the modem and get it all sorted out for us.  When we triumphantly returned to our hometown and told some of our local friends of our success, they just laughed and said, "Yeah right."  But I knew they were wrong.  That guy was gonna call us, and we were gonna have a brand spankin' new modem by the end of the next day. 

Since we were going to Vallarta that day anyway, to register the phone, our friend suggested that we take the modem with us, even without the receipt, just in case.  Off we went on the hot trek to Vallarta to stand in line at the grand Telcel store.  Now, Mexico teaches you nothing if not patience and letting go, and we needed both of those things in spades simply to make it through the wait at Telcel.  To make a long story short, (always a challenge for me), when we got to the counter we learned several important things about our purchases. 1. We were not eligible for the phone promotion, it is only available to full time residents, 2. Our modem was over three years old, 3. A brand new modem, with a warranty, direct from the Telcel store costs the equivalent of about $70, less than half of what we had paid, and finally, 4. that the store employees had taken the chip from the modem they sold us, because it came with a 30 day free internet promotion, which they could then use in their own modem.  This is when we also learned that we had been had, by the very people with whom we thought we had made a friendly connection.  Oh, and are you still wondering if the guy called us at 7 am the next morning? 

Satya.  Truthfulness, honesty, reality, being with what is.  There are so many facets to this seemingly simple situation.  Three dishonest people ripped us off.  And when I lied in bed at night thinking of how I could get them back, maybe making fliers and handing them out to all the gringos shopping in the town, letting them know not to shop at this store, maybe making giant posters and posting them outside of the store, maybe taking pictures of them and saying I was going to send them into the local paper, my mind spinning with the sweet glory of revenge, I was only doing what was natural, and in fact, righteous.

But really, here are some of the ways it is more complicated than that .... and it is always more complicated than that.  Three dishonest people ripped us off.  Were they truly dishonest, i.e., are they dishonest people, or were they dishonest in this situation?  Is there a difference? Were they equally dishonest?  Were the two employees as dishonest as the manager, or were they doing what they had been taught to do to keep their jobs?  It's not that bad, Americans have plenty of money, they are only here seasonally, what harm will it really do if their modem doesn't work, they can just buy another one.  And, in a sense, that is true.  I did just buy another one.  So, although it is clearly still dishonest of the employees, they also probably had some justification that made sense to them somehow, as most of us do when we too are lying or being less than truthful.   

Were they lying when they were helping me, being friendly to me, complimenting my Spanish?  Or were they, like all of us, able to compartmentalize their behavior, so that they could at once be "good" people, and still be lying to me about the modem and the phone?  And did they consider that perhaps there was much more damage done by their simple lie than simply ripping me off for $150?  What about my time, my energy, my good faith and feelings about them and indeed the reputation and trustworthiness of all Mexico's merchants?  How often do we convince ourselves that our lie or half-truth is harmless, because we can justify it somehow, but neglect to look at the subtle ways it might deeply and profoundly disturb the peace of another?  And what of my rumination about ways to exact revenge? Was I really going to act on them?  Was I really going to take time to write, print and copy fliers, then stand outside of their store like some crazy sore loser with nothing better to do?  Obviously not.  And yet how much of my own peace did I disturb when I allowed myself to waste energy on these fantasies, even as I knew I would never carry them out?

If we return to the basic definition of yoga as given by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras, we find Yogash chitta vritti nirodhah.  Yoga is the restraint of the modification of the mind stuff. Tada drashtuh svarupe avasthanam: Then the Seer abides in Itself, resting in its own True Nature, which is called Self-realization. In other words, yoga is a practice of calming and stilling the mind, so that we remain undisturbed, and in this state, we are able to connect more directly with our own true nature, one of deep contentment and peace.

In considering satya, and all of its many interpretations and challenges to us in our every day lives, we can apply this simple test:  On a deep, unmuddied level, is what I am doing, saying, thinking, bringing more peace or more disturbance to this situation, for me, and for the other participants.  If I apply this test to the whole situation above, I can see that there is very little peace.  My anger is justified, yet holding on to it will not do anything to change the situation, to punish or teach my adversaries, or to get me online.  So here, part of satya is acknowledging the situation as it is: I paid three times as much as I should have for a modem, and then letting it go.  Sounds easy right?  No, but that is why we have each other.  That's why we practice.  That's why we fall down, get up, try again.  That's why we share our stories.

Well, I have to go now.  I have a ride up to the Telcel store, I want to see about getting that receipt.   

Through the unobstructed waves of cyberspace, I bid you adios!