The 100 years of Mestre Gabriel

Tadeo Feijão*

| January 6, 2022

The year 2022 is very special for the Caianinho Nation (expression used to refer to those who follow the creator of the União do Vegetal). This is the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Mestre José Gabriel da Costa. We are having the privilege of celebrating an achievement of our Mestre, who definitively planted his doctrine on this planet by creating the UDV. A victory for him. A responsibility for us.

Each day Mestre Gabriel makes himself more known to us through the fulfillment of his word, which goes beyond the boundaries of space and time, and by the force of his moral integrity, which inspires us to seek self-improvement.

Born on the Pedra Nova Farm, Coração de Maria, Bahia, on February 10, 1922, he demonstrated his unusual gifts from an early age. His wealth of intelligence made up for the lack of opportunities for formal education. He graduated early from the school of life, where he excelled in reading the mysteries of Nature.

His good sense of humor and his physical and mental agility made him stand out in the small town where he lived with his parents and numerous brothers and sisters. A bearer of joy, he was present at his family’s religious festivities as well as those of his small community of Retiro, where the little church bell announced the time of his birth.

Answering the call of life, he went to Salvador as a young adult and lived remarkable experiences practicing capoeira and visiting the terreiros (temples of the Afro-Brazilian religions), where he showed himself to be an initiate in African martial arts and spiritual rites. From there he set out for the Amazon, taking with him elements and experiences that he used and integrated into his teachings that were born in the green and mysterious Amazon world, where he discovered and shared a treasure.

In the Amazon Rainforest, following the dictates of his mission, he became a rubber-tapping soldier, joining the fight against tyranny on a distant and lonely front. There he had the opportunity to live his humanitarian ideals working in a hospital where he met his life-long companion, the young Raimunda Ferreira da Costa, Mestre Pequenina. Married, they set out in search of new lands, to unravel mysteries, form a family, face wild beasts and to domesticate humans. In the rubber plantations, he proved his value and capacity and rediscovered the Vegetal, a transcendental link that connects human and divine realities. The treasure that reveals the ancestral bond between the Mestre and his disciples.

With the treasure in hand, he returns to civilization to unite the rest of humanity with his family in the newly created União do Vegetal (on July 22, 1961). Misunderstood and persecuted because of his ideals, he finds in the simple people of Porto Velho (RO), the raw material with which he began his Divine Work.

There, in the simplicity of his home -his fortress- and at his brickyard -the affirmation of his dignity- he molded men and bricks for the construction of a new world, with open arms, with his feet on the ground and his head in the Heights.

His word and example resonated in peoples’ hearts and brought forth from his sincerity and simplicity the conviction of the Mestre’s mission, which has transcended and outlived his material life and which today has reached many places, people and cultures that have come to recognize one another and have become brothers and sisters in the same belief and the same faith.

Mestre Gabriel, a light that made itself present on Earth 100 years ago, continues every day more alive and present in our hearts. May his work be a monument to his life.

Long-live Mestre Gabriel!

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*Tadeo Feijão is a member of the Cadre of Mestres and President of the General Directorate of the Beneficent Spiritist Center União do Vegetal.