Each and every commercial material, each and every article of commerce: is it animal, vegetable, or mineral? Or some combination? In other words: was animal husbandry involved in making the material available to us? Vegans want to know. Why? Because, if animal husbandry was involved, we will want to consider how possible it may be, to to avoid using the product.

The Earthly Origin of Commercial Materials Educational Organization is devoted to finding out as much as we can about the Earthly Origin of all Commercial Materials, and then telling others what we have found.

There are today, and it appears there always have been, a number of people who wish to avoid participation in the injuring animals, who wish to avoid participtation in the killing of animals, and who wish to avoid participation in animal husbandry in general, to whatever extent they can. Among us, there are those who not only wish to avoid harming animals, but who wish to set an example for other human beings to follow.

We believe that information about the Earthly Origin of Commercial Materials will be valuable to others, as well, not just those of us that are interested in avoiding causing harm to animals.

However, as the production of commercial materials continues to get increasingly complicated, and continues to involve contributions by more people, working in separate factories, the Earthly Origin of any commercial materials, that one finds sitting on any shelf anywhere, becomes increasingly less obvious. The people who manufactured a particular item, may have created it from materials that they purchased — purchased from people who may have created the various materials they produced, from materials they purchased — purchased from people who may have created the various materials they produced, from materials they purchased — ad infinitim — and the ultimate earthly origin, or origins, of any final product may be obscure — even to the people who think they "manufactured" it. Just as producing a material may have involved more than one individual, tracing its production back to its Earthly Origin may require the contribution of more than one individual. To do this, a small group of shakaharis have created the Earthly Origin of Commercial Materials Educational Organization. We hope you will join us and help us gather information. Right now we could benefit from getting help with obtaining legal tax status as a not-for-profit educational organization.

shakahara: eating plants. Vegetarianism.

Many people wish to avoid using materials of animal origin because we are convinced that the concept of ahimsa makes sense. We not only attempt to avoid causing harm to animals by avoiding the consumption of materials of animal origin, that may be contained in what is offered to us as food, but many of us also attempt to avoid causing harm to animals, unnecessarily, by avoiding materials of animal origin in clothing, shelter, and other things. In the west, a contemporary term for this increasingly popular way of life, is veganism.

The materials of the earth's biosphere go through cycles of transformation. And, of course, humans transform "raw" materials, that they find at various points along these earthly cycles of transformation, into materials that we humans use, store, or trade, for materials similarly transformed by other humans. As curious, vital human beings, we are interested in both transformations: those that happen without human intervention, and those in which human intervention is involved.

In addition to information about the Earthly Origin of Commercial Materials, our web site has descriptions and photographs of vegan gardens and vegan gardening — growing food plants without the use of animal-origin materials — using animal materials neither for plant nutrition nor soil texture improvement. No feces, no bone or blood meal, no fish meal. We have some nice photographs.

shakahara:

Sanskrit for vegetarianism, especially vegetarianism motivated by ahimsa. Shaka means vegetable or plant. Hara means consuming or eating. So: plant-eating.

Shakahara denotes that the motivation for eating plants and not animals, is ahimsa, the desire to avoid causing harm, especially unnecessary harm, to sensitive beings, sentient beings. Veganism denotes this also. The English word vegetarianism, neither denotes nor connotes anything about the motivation for eating plant-based food, and is perhaps even vague, or ambiguous. If you describe someone as being a shakahari, you are implying that they are motivated by moral or spiritual reasons; if you describe someone as being a vegetarian, you are simply remarking upon their diet. However, unlike the word veganism, which in addition to denoting spiritual or moral motivation, also denotes the avoidance of dairy products, shakahara does not necessarily denote the avoidance of dairy products. A shakahari may be someone who uses dairy products, or someone who does not.

It seems to me that ahimsa, and its corollary, shakahara, has, for 1000's of years, been an important, if not central, idea of Hinduism, Jainism, many sects of Buddhism, and millions of thinkers and do-ers in India, before it moved to other parts of the East, and then to the West. By using the term shakahara (and shakahari, for one who practices shakahara), I wish to honor those who had the idea, and who lived it, before me. They established shakahara as central to their lives, and promoted it, for 1000's of years, before I was even born.

shakahara: our url

If a newer word is not better at saying what you want to say, why not use a word that has already been in widespread use, for 1000's of years? Furthermore, the word seems common to several languages, not just Sanskrit, and is perhaps understood by more speakers, than the word vegetarianism. I am not suggesting that the word vegetarianism be avoided, only that I am choosing to use shakahara here.

I might add that many url's with the words vegetarianism, veganism, vegan, etcetera, were taken. The url shakahara.com was available — so we grabbed it! But you know what? I don't think that any of the others would have been a better choice. I think shakahara.com denotes and connotes everything we want to denote and connote.