The son of a couple from the state of Ceará (Maria Cota de Albuquerque and Francisco Davi de Albuquerque), Mr. Mario Rodrigues de Albuquerque, an Amazonian native that was born on April 3rd of 1913, is a man harmonized with life and with an abundant life state. Today he completes 90 years of solar life. And example of humility and visible wisdom that came to the territory of Acre in April of 1963 and never left these borderly surroundings made of rivers, ravines, Indians and large chestnut and rubber trees.

“My age is a fantastic thing. I understand that this grace that God gave me is a true miracle in these troubled modern times”, says the elder that upon his arrival in Rio Branco started having contact and taking part in the humanistic and spiritist doctrine founded in the state of Acre by the legendary and missed Raimundo Irineu Serra.

Seu* Mario tells that Mestre was a tall and rich man, both in the matter and in the spirit, good, humble, illuminated, adviser, and that everyone would come to him because they would feel good at his side.
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(seu* - colloquial way of saying Mr.)

“Mestre Irineu was a popular, kind and humanitarian man. I arrived sick in the state of Acre and I came after him, asking if he knew what I was feeling, if he knew and would be able to cure my disease. He answered to me that he didn’t know and neither could cure my disease because who cured was Our Lord Jesus Christ and he was just a spark, an agent on earth at service of the creator”, remembers seu Mario, complementing that after this first conversation he got an invitation from Irineu Serra to take Daime with him.

A healing experience with the Daime

Seu Mario Albuquerque comments that upon the first day of taking the drink he started metamorphosing himself and that in the miração that he had he saw a table full of physicians and nurses that started to operate his stomach.

“I was operated in the invisible with Mestre Irineu. I clearly saw the healer spirits, guided by Jesus Christ, taking stones out of my kidneys and of my liver. Prior to this contact I felt a lot of pain and I couldn’t eat anything. After the spiritual work the pain disappeared and I never got sick again”, he narrates.

For him, who participates in the doctrine for over 40 years, the Daime is a holy drink, a material vehicle so Jesus Christ, master of the masters, can cure the diseases that mistreat the mankind adrift on earth. “It also depends on each one’s merit”, he says, reaffirming that the one who really heals is God himself. “Today I am a living proof of this doctrine because, truly, I don’t feel anymore any kind of disease, even having 90 years of age”.

Beginning

Talking about the close friendship he cultivated with Mestre, seu Mario tells that Irineu Serra told him that in the beginning of the doctrine he took Daime, got separated from the matter, raised above in the astral and met with Our Lady, bearer of Jesus Christ. He asked the Virgin Mother so that on earth he would be a healer of all evil that afflict the fragile, ugly and yet beautiful human species. According to seu Mario Our Lady answered to Irineu Serra that he could not be a healer because he would charge money to the sick, that his healing action would not succeed, neither to him, to the sick or to anyone.

“Mestre promised to Our Lady that he would not charge anything from anyone, and with the promise of Irineu Serra the Mother of God placed all kinds of healing and all the true powers inside this drink. And with the powers of Jesus Christ manifested in the drink Irineu started to heal and raise his fame in Acre and the whole Amazon”, testimonies the ever friend and disciple of Raimundo Irineu Serra.

Mestre Irineu would seek to ennoble the virtues and not the pseudo faults

At the top of his knowledge the elder defines Mestre Irineu Serra as a combatant of the contradictions that exist on mankind, its theories, practices, words and actions.

“Mestre Irineu tried to ennoble the virtues and not the human pseudo faults. He wouldn’t throw rocks at nobody. He was against the commercialization of this holy drink and would say to all that whoever wanted to drink to do it on its roots. I understand that true friendship is the one of physical absence, because from up close nobody is normal”, he teaches.

Talking of the current conflicts that afflict the human species, seu Mario Rodrigues tells that Mestre Irineu Serra desired and worked for the existence of peace and tranquility amongst human kind.

“Mestre Irineu didn’t accept any kind of war. He was a citizen of all races, all countries, and a simple and profound man that belonged to the planet earth. He died and the disunion remained among people, among families, among social categories, among countries and this is sad. But it is still time for mankind to redeem itself, to correct its contradictions and mundane sins, intimate hell and social conflicts”, believes the old sage.

To conclude, seu Mario says that the lie, greed, consumerism, lack of love towards others, deceitful pretenses, arrogance, envy, luxury, disguise, farce, amongst other psychic diseases are maladies and sins greater then alcohol addiction or other mind numbing substances that also afflict and consume the fool.

“Examine your conscience, examine it thoroughly… I am a father, not a son…” says part of a hymn from Sebastião Mota, also Mestre Irineu’s follower.

The contradictory aspect in some members of the Daime doctrine

Seu Mario Rodrigues tells that one of the misunderstandings of the doctrine is that some of the current leaders think and feel like they are Irineu Serra himself (Juramidam, Mestre’s name) reincarnated. Or even beyond: They think that they are Jesus Christ or Our Lady Virgin Mother.

“These leaders of Daime churches, so called followers of the doctrine initiated by Irineu Serra, should give good examples and do not act deceitfully, superficially, through farces, dissimulations, lies and different postures. With Irineu Serra I learned to be humble, to respect the absence of my brothers and sisters, to not talk badly about nobody’s life, and I learned to see virtues in people”, he emphasizes. He also says that today he sees himself climbing the first steps of the ladder of knowledge, and that the Daime is a mystery.

“Even living a century we die and still can’t decipher all of its nuances, but I think that the hymns keep on teaching. One has only to put them into practice, in our daily routine, and we can indeed get rid of the bad habits”, teaches seu Mario Rodrigues, with his eyes gazing towards all humankind.

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Note: Seu Mario is a recognized elder of Alto Santo, respected and loved by many. This article, in Portuguese, traveled within the Brazilian Santo Daime communities by email or posts.