Keshav Bhat, Founder of the ‘Natural Tropical Re-Education’ Movement in Venezuela.

“Those who are vain will be humbled. Those who are humble will be elated” (!) –Gospel for today 29M                                      

Introduction:

In a world as frenetic, troubled by so many challenges, and immersed in incessant change, it is easy to forget significant events of the past, events which have not only made history and brought about lasting social transformation, but have also proven to be of growing relevance to today’s world.

Such is the case of the legacy of the “Tropical Natural Re-education Movement” (TNRM) launched more than half a century ago by Dr. Keshava Bhat (a wise healer, a scientist with a PhD in Botany, a follower of Gandhi, originally from India, a son of Karnataka on the border with Kerala, “creolized” in Venezuela!) -who passed away about 15 years ago.  Dr.  Bhat always preferred to call his initiative  “Natural Reeducation”, meaning: “A Return to the Precepts of Nature-and ‘not something new ( “Nature as ‘An Open Book of the Divine’: Thus, always knowing better than us).                                                                          

“A Profound Change of Lifestyle in the World is Imperative” if we truly want to emerge from the current national and global crises.                                                         

Here are some of his major achievements : 

1) The MRNT left a profound legacy for hundreds of thousands of people and families in Venezuela and other many countries around the world, all of whom were personally among its beneficiaries and followers.                                                         

2) The many charitable and humanitarian actions of the TNRM, based on voluntary work, not for profit, but in Service  (conferences, courses, and practical workshops, preventive counseling centres for the sick, restaurants and health food stores, micro-businesses for planting and production, ecovillages, etc.), were supported by publications which included some highly acclaimed and bestselling titles such as “The Tropical Herbarium” and “The Guide to Good Eating”, translated into English and French from the Spanish originals.

Dr. KB was a great pioneer of and contributor to the current global wave of “Integral Ecology” and other trends such as Veganism, for the salvation of Life on the Planet.  His often prophetic forecasts about lifestyle choices have since been validated as well as various kinds of practical preventive remedies that he promoted in anticipation of the current mega “health and pandemic crises”; and  “the current mega water and food crisis”; “the current wave of mental illness and depression,” and the total “crisis of values”,  spelling out many of the tenets espoused by the current  Secretary of Health in the US Robert Kennedy Jr.                           

Countries inheriting age-old tropical wisdom and abundant biodiversity, like  Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, India, Congo, and Papua New Guinea, among others  should lead the world today as  ‘Beacons of Light’ on this issue                                                                                                    

GUIDELINES OF THE TROPICAL NATURAL RE-EDUCATION MOVEMENT

On July 25, 2010, the Day of the July Full Moon—Guru Day according to Hindu tradition, at around 4:00 a.m,  the Creator’s Hour (Brahma Muhurta) near the imposing natural sanctuary of Yellowstone National Park in the USA, where he was headed, Keshav Bhat peacefully left this world. Thus, came to a close a cycle of some thirty or forty intense years of teachings that had begun in the late 1960s when he arrived in Venezuela, as a young botany professor from India, recruited by the Universidad de Oriente (the Eastern University) in Cumaná, filled with dreams, and a desire to Serve motivated by certain personal prophetic signs of a special mission that he felt entrusted with.

Indeed, a whole generation of Venezuelans and people from other lands, who were fortunate enough to know him, were trained in the love of Nature and learned the principles of “Naturism” (naturalism) that he advocated. On this mission, he traveled across Venezuela, around the American continent, and much of the world, compiling ancestral popular knowledge about the prodigious gifts of the natural world, and comparing it with the traditional rural education he had received in his native country.                                                             

He synthesized it all in his own way, drawing on extraordinary personal gifts of observation and intuition and sharing it, generously, – through ‘learning by doing’ – in innumerable talks, courses, and publications. He fulfilled his task with total dedication and devotion, always advocating for “A popular, not elitist, Naturism”, based primarily on local natural resources—Such as remedies for health and nutrition... For such purposes, he often invoked the motto of the Universidad de Oriente itself: “From the people we come, and to the people we go“. 

He did so, to convey that the teachings ‘must pass the test of simplicity and accessibility, to benefit everyone, including those considered ‘poorer’ or those with few or no educational qualifications, He preferred to speak of human Duties; as well as of the Wisdom with which self-responsibility, common sense, and the art of self-healing should be exercised !.

“Let us each begin by fulfilling our ‘Duties’ and then demand of others—or expect others to fulfill theirs” -he used to say.                                                                     

He advocated such a ‘Change of Consciousness for Greater Wisdom’ – Through peaceful means, through Conviction, and the “Re-Education” of each individual; not through any top-down imposition, much less through force or violence…For this reason, he said more than once that he wanted “A Revolution of souls, not an armed one” and he focused on the ways of native cultures.

He also waged an inevitable and constant dialectical battle’ with the official health system because of his advocacy for better attention to real human needs which often attracted an intolerant reaction from the academic system. As a result, he ended up leaving his position at the University of Oriente to have more freedom, since his ideas were controversial in the institution;                                         

As stated earlier, He gave his movement the name “Natural Re-education Movement” –Meaning that it was necessary to modify the ineffective values of the educational system according to the superior values of ‘the laws’ of the Natural Order: a pioneering and radical questioning  at the time, and, in his later books – moving away somewhat from the naturist-therapeutic focus of his previous ones – he carried out a sharp critique of the dominant scientific paradigm. He predicted many of the crises that have since worsened, for Humanity and the Planet. (A task in which this author supported him, in the writing of Bhat’s books, and in his own books).                  

His warnings, bordering on doomsday prophesy, led some at first to disqualify him as an “apocalyptic alarmist” but many pioneers have been, historically, victims of such discredit before being vindicated in later times. A few years after his initial clashes with ‘the conventional medical establishment’, several of those who criticized him within that profession joined ‘the rising tide of Tropical Naturism’ either because they had benefited firsthand from the wonderful treatments recommended by Dr. Bhat, or because of growing personal conviction.

 On the other hand, the global crisis into which modern medicine has fallen, with its excesses due to over-specialisation, expensive technological paraphernalia, dependence on controversial and expensive drugs, emphasis on superfluous surgical treatments, and commercialism, has vindicated the teachings of the “Prophetic Father of Tropical Naturism” (a word which has a different meaning in English but can be translated as ‘the art of living in harmony with nature’). The growing demand for a more holistic and preventive paradigm (including the critical effects of nutrition emphasized by Dr. Bhat) reveals the pressing need for a new, more effective, beneficial, and accessible system in which spiritual and lifestyle considerations play the central role they should never have ceased to have.       

Dr. Bhat was an eminently creative, and pioneering teacher of the art of healing, explaining to his students and readers how to eat or consume, and how to produce, from the abundant and diverse gifts and resources of the tropical environment, through a respectful and sound use of all ‘five elements’, and for the benefit of all ‘dimensions of the human organism’.  A wealth of information and teachings is enshrined in all his books, in all his tireless personal teaching, and even in specific projects, such as the visionary attempt to establish a “Naturist-Ecological Village” in the lush lands of the pristine Imataca tropical forest south of the Orinoco River, a personally rewarding project for those of us who took part in it, but which ultimately fell short because it lacked all the human resources needed for its consolidation.

For all of this, he was universally acclaimed as the “Father of Tropical Naturism“, perhaps the most defining description of his legacy, although, for his multifaceted work, he received many other recognitions. The Cábala magazine in Venezuela also gave him the title of “The most outstanding ‘Venezuelan from other lands’ of the 20th century.  He was also nominated for the Alternative Nobel Prize and took a leading role in the “first world conference of Southern experts and shamans on Nature cure” we held in Tanzania back in 1990, under the joint auspices of ‘the South Commission’ (headed by Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere  and whose Secretary was Dr. Manmohan Singh) and the WHO Africa.

During his lifetime, he was already on the path to full vindication, although it is true that in his later years, after returning to his native India he partly withdrew from public activism’. His physical body was perhaps asking for some relief, after many years of incessant traveling in pursuit of his peripatetic educational mission. 

A personal note of testimonial gratitude:                                          

For the record, Dr. Bhat radically changed the undersigned’s life. I am deeply grateful for the ’empowerment’ and ‘new awareness’ that I received from his teachings about how to be a better human being, while co-authoring the book “Guide to Good Eating” (with my distinguished friends and fellow teachers Carmen Freites – may she rest in peace – and Liria Cifré). He instilled in me a deep awareness of the wonderful benefits of the medicinal plants and other gifts of the natural world !! 

Among the slogans with which he summarized  his teachings, we may quote: “First of all, do no harm (in thought, word and deed, and interaction)” and “Human Values before material ones”!…A universal wisdom code for “A Simple Way to Live Better” is detailed in his decalogue of values: “Who is a Re-educator”, published in his book “Bases of Naturism”, and also spelt out in a separate poster. 

What is important is that this ideal remains our mandatory and practica compass or “South” always pointing to our own “Tropic”, and that each of us continues to improve along the way because, as Dr. Bhat put it in one of his last poetic writings. penned in his beloved Uragua de Imataca:         

 “Know your Duty well. Only by Doing, can the Dream be! If we interrupt the Dream, we run the risk of losing it !” Hence we have a duty to continue dreaming and help give birth to the new world to come, following the collapse of the present, unsustainable world!…

On the other hand, improvements or additions can and should be made to the doctrine of ‘Tropical Naturism’  to adapt it to the changing problems and needs, taking into account the evolution of its practitioners. On the other hand, the teachings of Dr. Bhat, the TNRM, and others like it, in the context of the current  ‘Pandemic Mania’, have only grown in relevance.

We also spoke with Dr. Bhat about the need to go beyond the “clearly insufficient conventional decontamination technologies known”  and use or further disseminate “non-conventional decontamination technologies” ( such as “fire” (Agnihotra) and “water” (for example, as taught by Masaru Emoto and Viktor Schauberger). Such practices are based on ancestral wisdom, and enhanced with new technologies. There is a need also to further explore the great healing and protective power of prayers and mantras recited from the heart. (Let’s not forget that Gandhi said that simply “reciting the name of God from the heart is the most powerful healing tool that existed“

In short, while educating people about healthcare in the densest dimension—that of the physical body—we must highlight the importance of the subtler origins of illness and holistic therapies, not only because of the growing importance that emotional, mental, and spiritual pathologies assume in the current human condition; but also because of the key role they have always played in health.

 Indeed many diseases, if not all, are rooted, in our behaviour, or triggered by events occurring on subtler planes of reality. In some cases, “curing” —which nowadays is mostly related to the physical condition—may not be possible, but “Healing” —pertaining more to the soul or spirit—can always be hoped for if and when we act in harmony with the ever-merciful and beneficent Divine Design and Providence!

In short: “We must be the change we want to see in the world’. As Gandhi said .“Another world is possible,” for healthier beings living in greater harmony with the Natural Order!—contrary to what is being promoted under the current ruthlessly exploitive, and suicidal “order” or disorder.  Again: “The marvelous and generous Natural Order is nothing other than the very Divine Plan’. That is the fundamental proposal and promise of ‘Tropical Naturism’ and that is why it deserves to be advocated and implemented.