Maestro Manuel Rufino
Maestro Manuel Rufino was born in Quisqueya, known by the Tainos (an original tribe of the Caribbean) as “mother of all lands”. Today, Quisqueya is called the Dominican Republic, which is the name given by the Spanish.
He was born on May 4, 1958 under the May Full Moon of the Wesak, called by the Buddhist tradition, the “Buddha Full Moon” and “Flower Moon” by the native people. He was born in a humble home but with great spiritual riches. Since he was little, he leaned towards the arts and with a great concern towards medicine because his mother was a nurse and most of his uncles and aunts leaned towards healing.
Maestro Manuel studied art in high school at the Luchhetti School of Arts and at the School of Fine Arts in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He did his college studies at the Arts Students League of New York. Maestro Manuel has participated in many arts exhibitions and was also a member of the circle of poets in New York City.
At the age of 13, Maestro Manuel moved with his parents and siblings to San Juan, Puerto Rico. At the age of 14, he began his study of Shorinji Kempo, a Japanese martial arts. At the age of 17, he began his study with Shaolin Kung Fu martial arts. At the age of 17, for the first time, he entered the cultural center of the UGB Solar Line in Puerto Rico where he began his career in the study of Initiatic schools. There, he studied yoga, natural medicine, astrology, sacred sciences and comparative religions. At this time, he met the Grand Guru, Maestro José Manuel Estrada, who introduced him to the Initiatic schools. He also met his teacher, Maestro Domingo Dias Porta, who has guided him through the indigenous traditions of Amerikua since 1976.
At the age of 18, Maestro Manuel Rufino began his training as a vegetarian chef. He went on to work in some of the most popular vegetarian restaurants and health food stores in New York, California, Mexico and Puerto Rico. There he shared recipes, nutritional information and how to heal through diet. He also studied natural medicine under the guidance of Bernard Jensen.
Maestro Manuel Rufino has traveled through all the continents of the world carrying the message of peace and unity to help reestablish the original harmony and the postulates of the New Era. He is currently in the 5th degree in the Mayan Sovereign Solar Order of Chichaan Itzaab (S.O.S.X.I) and has been recognized as an elder in many traditions. However, Maestro Manuel prefers not to claim titles and to be a simple human being at the service of the world and all its inhabitants on land, air, water and fire.
Maestro Manuel Rufino has established communities and cultural centers in Europe, North, Central and South America to share the postulates of unity and the American Indian Tradition. He has taught yoga and meditation for over 42 years throughout the world.
Maestro Manuel is the founder of the Heart & Mind Festival, which attracts some of the most influential leaders in the spiritual, scientific, artistic, diplomatic and philosophical spheres of our time. Maestro Manuel is also the founder of Golden Drum, a cultural center in Brooklyn and the Sacred Arts Research Foundation, a 501(c)(3) whose mission is to provide support for the sacred arts.
He is the World Director of the Movement of American Indian Solar Culture, a 501(c)(3) dedicated to serving the community by focusing on sharing Amerikua Wisdom, founded by his teacher, Maestro Domingo Dias Porta. He is the founder of the Jungle Café, a vegetarian restaurant in Brooklyn, NY and the visionary behind the Blue Wolf in Canada, Golden Beehive community in London, England and the White Eagle’s Nest in Warsaw.
Master Domingo Dias Porta
Maestro Domingo Días Porta The Ven. Sat Arhat, T.A-O Domingo Días Porta (Caracas, Venezuela, 18.3.1930). Graduated in Education Sciences (University of Los Andes in Mérida, Venezuela, ULA, 1965).
Before that, he studied Sociology, Anthropology and Economics at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV). He began his esoteric studies at the age of 18, and in 1950 he joined the Great Universal Fraternity in Caracas as a disciple of the M.S. Maestre Dr. Serge Raynaud de la Ferriére and the Elder Brother Dr. José Manuel Estrada. In 1951 the Maestre named him Secretary General of the GFU.
In 1955 he received the first Degree of Royal Initiation (Getuls, Novice). From 1954 to 1957 he resided in the Ashram of El Limón as a resident, under the guidance of Elder Ismael Pacheco and the Mother of the Ashram, Zoila Arévalo de Pacheco, both Getuls. They were the only ones who lived with the Maestre SRF in that Ashram. By direct appointment of the M.S. Maestre, Dr. Serge Raynaud de la Ferriére, has been Director of the Department of Ashrams and of the Esoteric Initiatory Service since 1957, and held the position of ‘Ashram Elder’ at the Ashram El Limón, in Venezuela (1957-1960).
Maestro Domingo Dias Porta and Maria Guadalupe Abundis De Dias (Lupita)
In 1957 he received the 2nd Degree, and in 1961, studying at the ULA, Mérida, the 3rd Degree, both by designation of Maestre de la Ferriére. The GFU has developed in different places under his guidance. Together with his family he has founded ashrams in Venezuela, Mexico and Peru in Ollantaytambo (a town in the Sacred Valley of the Incas). He prepared for the Kumbha Mela in 1986, as he did in 1974. In 1971 he received the 4th Degree of Guru, in 1976, the 5th Degree, and in 1983, the 6th Degree, Sat-Arhat, by designation of Maestro José Manuel Estrada V. Following the traditional Initiatory discipline, he combined his dedication to the Work and Mission of Maestre Avatar SRF with professional work; in addition, he previously worked as an insurance agent, accountant, bank employee, airline employee, in the Social Security of Venezuela, translator at the Faculty of Economics (ULA) and university professor from 1965 to 1971, when he resigned from all paid work upon receiving the 4th Degree, due to his total dedication to missionary work for the New Age.
He was the president of the III World Conference for the Unity of Man, in Mexico, in 1975. In 1975-76 he was the first to take the Message of the Avatar for the Age of Aquarius to ten European countries, including the USSR, accompanied by Brothers Carlos Moisés Michán Amiga, Shaya Michán, Margarita Chávez and Graciela Parada, founding work groups in Madrid, Murcia, Granada and Italy. In 1977 he founded the Mancomunidad de la América India Solar (MAIS), a movement of cultural rapprochement to the traditions and indigenous peoples of the continent.
He has founded spiritual communities or ashrams in Venezuela (Mérida and El Barquesí in Valera); in Peru the Inti Ayllu; in Mexico: the Teopantli Kalpulli, (Guadalajara), the Tonatiuh Meztli (Ensenada), the one in Tepic, Nayarit and the Mayan Initiatory Monastery, M.I.M. (Zirahuén, Michoacán). In 1998 he founded Action for World Unity (AUM), an international cultural integration movement to promote a culture of peace through dialogue, personal transformation, the exchange of knowledge and joint participation in activities and programs, both with individuals and groups. He has carried out cultural and spiritual activities in almost all the countries of America, in ten European countries and Israel.
Married, with children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, he currently resides in Mérida, Venezuela, together with his wife, María Guadalupe Abundis de Días, 3rd Dignity (Gelong). In 1998 he established the Sovereign Solar Order of Chichen Itzá (SOSCI), transmitter of universal Ancestral Knowledge, especially of Amerikua, Ancestral America. In 2001 he opened the Mayan Initiatory Monastery (MIM) in Michoacán, Mexico, to train social educators. From 2010 to 2024 he is Superior of SOSCI and President of the H. Academy of Ancestral Knowledge (LHASA), with the mission of restoring the Initiatory Colleges of the Aerosomal Scale of the Major Initiation, Ascending Path, following the Somatic Scale, Minor Initiation, Horizontal Path, publicly opened at the beginning of the Age of Aquarius in 1948 by the M. S. Maestre Dr. S. R. de la Ferriére, Avatar of the Age.
In 2023, he opened the “Towards a New Humanity” Workshop to prepare candidates to appear before the Portal of the Aerosomal Scale. In 2024, he has decided to open the Universal Initiatory College C.I.U. in South America, to serve the brotherhood in that continent, so neglected by those in the North; he will exclusively serve this College, retiring from other public and internal activities, which he delegates to his disciples, due to his advanced age.