The identification of four levels of wisdom development:

Image by State Records NSW via Flickr

1. Potential Sages includes almost everyone. These are busy people who have the potential to become wise, but have never felt the call to intentionally develop wisdom.

2. SAGES IN INTENTION have come to understand what wisdom is, realize that they have the potential to become wise, and have decided, as the Council put it, to “follow the path of their potential.”

3. DEVELOPING SAGES are actively involved in wisdom-developing activities. 
4. ESTABLISHED SAGES are those who are recognized by others as wise people.

We become wiser people in two ways:

1. By exposing ourselves to wisdom-fostering INFLUENCES.
2. By energetically dedicating ourselves to helpful PRACTICES.

That is, we intentionally practice, with effort, the behaviors and attitudes that we someday hope to become effortless expressions of our deepest, truest selves. If we want to become wiser people, we can become “Sages in Intention,” then “Budding Sages.”

Developing the characteristics of wisdom — the relevant perspectives, and values, and intellectual knowledge — and incorporate them into our lives:

1. A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT WISDOM IS. There are many views on the subject. Read about them. Get a sense of the wisdom characteristics you would like to develop, and start working on it.

2. COUNSELING AND VARIOUS KINDS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY. Becoming a wiser person is an exercise in inner development, and there are activities that can help us along the way. Counseling and various forms of psychotherapy can, if needed, help us reach the starting point for advanced work which we might call responsible adulthood or mature ego. A person at this stage is free of psychoses and crippling neuroses and has developed emotional control and empathy to an ordinary degree. There are many forms of therapy, including life management counseling, therapies to help us get over fears, therapies to help us manage anger, therapies to help us get over compulsions and addictions, and others.

3. INTELLECTUAL KNOWLEDGE RELEVANT TO THE KND OF WISDOM WE ARE TRYING TO DEVELOP. Reading about inner development can be very helpful for anyone who wants to become wiser. To go beyond normal healthy adulthood — “that starting point for advanced work” — many people turn to writings that discuss the further reaches of human development. Such writings, in turn, lead us to do-it-yourself practices: mind-quieting practices, self-knowledge practices, ego-transcending practices, and oneness-realization practices. Reading about these things is not a substitute for the practices themselves, but reading can help us understand them and perhaps motivate us to try them.

Novels and biographies are valuable resources for the development of practical wisdom because they present us with countless examples of wise and unwise behavior, skillful and unskillful handling of life situations. Biographies of wise people can be especially helpful. How does their behavior differ from ordinary? What values guide their lives? What perspectives and interpretations of life situations do they make use of?

For those who would like to develop existential, metaphysical, spiritual wisdom, the world’s spiritual literature is a vital intellectual resource. There is also an extensive literature on specific go-see-for-yourself spiritual practices that take the practitioner to deeper levels of understanding than reading can. Also helpful in developing the “Big Picture” view are books that deal with the nature of mental and physical reality, the cosmos, and evolution.

If we want to be effective change agents, then we need to select resources relevant to the kinds of change we are trying to bring about. Among the possibilities are the “new disciplines,” including the sciences of complexity, cosmos-wide evolution, and the human brain/mind system. Important for many would be learning more about human cultures, economic systems, and the biosphere. Of general importance is an understanding of ethics and techniques for changing ethical perspectives; probability as a decision-making tool; the techniques of conflict resolution and effective persuasion; and information on current transformational activities.

4. FULL AND VARIED LIFE EXPERIENCE If we are open to learning, life itself teaches us. Having many and varied life experiences obviously teaches us more. We not only need to structure our life so that we have many kinds of experience, but we also need an open, curious, inquisitive, appreciative mental stance so that we get the most out of whatever experiences we have. Travel; getting to know people with different skills, outlooks, and values; engaging in different kinds of work; taking up a variety of hobbies — all these things enrich our life and potentially take us further down the path toward wisdom.

5. FEEDBACK AND COUNSEL FROM WISE PEOPLE Hanging out with people who are already living the values we’d like to make our own can be most helpful. Where do we find such people? Groups like Unitarians, Quakers, and Buddhists that focus on personal growth and doing good in the world are a best bet. Local and online discussion and activist groups are another possibility. Some of these focus on psychological or spiritual growth. Others focus on various social issues. We can experiment, and when we find groups that feel right, get involved.

6. THE OBSERVATION OF BEHAVIOR — OUR OWN AND OTHERS People all around us are struggling to up level their lives — some skillfully and successfully, others very unskillfully and unsuccessfully. The world’s literature and films present us with countless additional life stories. What can we learn from them? Can we pick out the strategies and behaviors that work and those that don’t? Can we start to sense some general “laws of life” behind the specifics? And can we learn to pay attention to our own behavior, and become aware of the underlying values?

7. PRACTICES THAT HELP US INTERNALIZE VALUES Becoming clear about the values we would like at the center of our lives — the values we want to make truly our own in a deep and powerful way — is the first step. The challenge then is to move these values from our head to our heart and our guts. In psychological terms, we must internalize them so they are not merely nice thoughts, but actually guide our behavior. Doing this takes effort, and during one of his trips to North America the Dalai Lama gave an example of what we need to do. He spoke to an audience about the need for everyone to internalize that key value of wisdom, compassion. His advice to those who wanted to develop compassion was to put themselves in challenging situations and then, despite the natural reluctance to do so, behave compassionately. By making the effort to engage in value-based action — again, and again, and again — we eventually internalize the value. Expressing the value in action gradually takes less and less effort until it becomes part of our outlook, part of our natural way of being, part of who we are.

8. BODY–AWARENESS PRACTICES In our culture we fill our waking hours with discursive thinking. We think about the past. We think about the future. We plan. We solve problems. Wisdom, however, demands that we spend a lot of time paying attention to what is happening in our immediate situation. Body awareness practices such has Hatha Yoga, Tai Chi, Vipassana meditation, and many sports can help us break the mind-tripping habit.

9. MEDITATION The last tool I’ll mention — though definitely not the least — is meditation. In fact, meditation is generally considered to be the most powerful single tool for developing wisdom. Psychologist Jane Loevinger’s research produced a 9-stage scale of psychological development. The terms she uses for the two highest stages are “autonomous” and “integrated.” It turns out that less than 2 percent of the general adult population have managed to reach these top two categories. However, for people who have had a meditation practice going for several years, that number is 38 percent.

Meditation retreats of 7 to 10 days duration are especially helpful. In the beginning, the mind is its usual noisy thought-filled self. Pure quiet awareness is there as the substrate of the mind, but it is modulated by a lot of high-intensity information — thoughts, sensations, emotions, etc. — much mind CONTENT. But as the days go by, mind content — especially thinking — gradually drops in amount and intensity. Why? BECAUSE WE CAN’T THINK DISCURSIVELY AND PAY CLOSE ATTENTION AT THE SAME TIME. In a sense, the noisy mind is a habit. A quiet mind is a different kind of habit. It turns out that if we spend several days paying attention to subtle bodily sensations — like those arising in the nostrils when we breath, and those arising in feet and legs when we walk, the mind gradually shifts from habitual noisiness to habitual quietude. It usually take 3 to 4 days of diligent morning-to-night effort in a supportive environment to make the switch. But once you’ve entered the quiet-mind mode, interesting things start to happen.

For one thing, you have become more sensitive to your surroundings. With the mind quiet, many people find themselves looking at the natural world around them with a new sense of wonder. And insights may arise about our relationship to nature and cosmos.

“Know thyself,” said the Greeks. And when the mind is quiet, that begins to happen in a serious way. Normally, we identify strongly with the busy, buzzy mind content that constitutes the melodrama of our life. We see this unfolding informational story as ME. When the mind is quiet, however, we have a certain detachment. We are no longer overwhelmed by massive amounts of mind content, and are not so identified with what remains. We begin to see how our mind works, and may eventually get a glimpse of who “I” really am.

A quiet mind also opens the door to the subconscious. Mental quiet thins the barrier that exists between conscious and subconscious mental processes. Messages from our subconscious are better able to bubble up into consciousness. We may start to see things about ourselves that we were never conscious of before, things that we’ve been pushing out of awareness.

Improved creativity is another benefit of quieting the mind. Under quiet mind conditions, the intuitive process’s creative Muse is able to communicate effectively with the intellect and the global workspace of the mind. The number of Aha! and Eureka! experiences goes up. This is not too surprising when we think of the number of writers and artists who find solitude essential for significant work.

Another plus: when the mind is quiet, insightful shifts of perspective can occur. We suddenly apply a new interpretive framework to the same old facts and see things in a dramatically different way.

BURUNDI (167)

Burundi is a tragedy which is not going to end. It’s first democratically elected president was assassinated in October 1993 after only 100 days in office which triggered ethnic violence between Hutu and Tutsi. More than 200,000 Burundians perished during the conflict that spanned almost a dozen years. Hundreds of thousands of Burundians were internally displaced or became refugees in  .
neighboring countries.

An internationally brokered power-sharing agreement between the Tutsi dominated government and the Hutu rebels in 2003 paved the way for a transition process that led to an integrated defense force, established a new constitution in 2005, and elected a majority Hutu government in 2005.

A new cease fire agreement was signed in 2008.

Refugee camps are closing, but Burundi has the lowest per capita income in the world.  It also has the world’s lowest satisfaction with life index.  Burundi is landlocked, resource poor with an underdeveloped manufacturing sector. The economy is predominantly agricultural with more than 90% of the population dependent on subsistence agriculture.

Economic growth depends on coffee and tea exports, which account for 90% of foreign exchange earnings. The ability to pay for imports, rests primarily on weather conditions.

Only one in two children go to school, and approximately one in 15 adults has HIV/AIDS. Food, medicine, and electricity remain in short supply. Despite this, Burundi’s GDP grew around 5% in 2006-07. Political stability and the end of the civil war have improved aid flows and economic activity has increased, but  a high poverty rate, poor education, a weak legal system, and low administrative capacity undermine economic reforms.

Burundi has less health care than most other countries, and life expectancy is about 48.5 years. Burundi is heavily dependent on aid from bilateral and multilateral donors; the delay of funds after a corruption scandal cut off bilateral aid in 2007 reduced governments revenues to the extent it could not pay salaries.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO (168)

Established as a Belgian colony in 1908, the Republic of the Congo gained independence in 1960. It’s early years were marred by political and social instability.

Col. Joseph Mobutu seized power and declared himself president in a November 1965 coup. He changed his name to Mobutu Sese Seko  as well as that of the country to Zaire.

Mobutu retained power for 32 years through sham elections and brute force. The massive inflow of refugees in 1994 from fighting in Rwanda and Burundi, led to the toppling of the Mobutu regime by a rebellion backed
by Rwanda and Uganda and fronted by Laurent Kabila in 1997.

Kabila renamed the country the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), but in August 1998 his regime was challenged by a second insurrection again backed by Rwanda and Uganda.

Troops from Angola, Chad, Namibia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe intervened to support Kabila’s regime. A cease-fire was signed in July 1999 by the DRC, Congolese armed rebel groups, Angola, Namibia, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zimbabwe but sporadic fighting continued. Laurent Kabila was assassinated in January 2001 and his son, Joseph Kabila, became head of state.

The prevalence of rape and sexual violence is the worst in the world, and the civil war is the deadliest conflict since World War II,  killing 5.4 million people.  As of publishing, people in the Congo are still dying at about 45,000 a month.

DRC has vast potential wealth but due to instability increased external debt, and the deaths of so many people from violence, famine, and disease, does not encourage foreign investment.

ETHIOPIA – (169)

Unique among African countries, the ancient Ethiopian monarchy maintained its freedom from colonial rule with the exception of the 1936-41 Italian occupation during World War II.

In 1974, a military junta, the Derg, deposed Emperor Haile Selassie (who had ruled since 1930) and established a socialist state. Torn by bloody coups, uprisings, wide-scale drought, and massive refugee problems, the regime was toppled in 1991 by a coalition of rebel forces, under the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). A constitution was adopted in 1994, and Ethiopia’s first multiparty elections were held in 1995.

A border war with Eritrea late in the 1990s ended with a peace treaty in December 2000. The Eritrea-Ethiopia Border Commission in November 2007 remotely demarcated the border by geographical coordinates, but final demarcation of the boundary on the ground is on hold because of Ethiopian objections to an international commission’s finding requiring it to surrender territory considered sensitive to Ethiopia.

Ethiopia’s poverty-stricken economy is based on agriculture, accounting for almost half of GDP, 60% of exports, and 80% of total employment. The agricultural sector suffers from frequent drought and poor cultivation
practices. Coffee is critical to the Ethiopian economy with exports of some $350 million in 2006, but historically low prices have seen many farmers switching to qat to supplement income.

Under Ethiopia’s constitution, the state owns all land and provides long-term leases to the tenants; the system continues to hamper growth in the industrial sector as entrepreneurs are unable to use land as collateral for loans.

Drought struck in 2002, leading to a 3.3% decline in GDP in 2003. Normal weather patterns helped agricultural and GDP growth recover during 2004-07 but another drought has ended that advance.

CHAD (170)

Chad was part of France’s African holdings until 1960, and has endured three decades of civil warfare as well as invasions by Libya before a semblance of peace was finally restored in 1990.

In 1998, a rebellion broke out in northern Chad, which has sporadically flared up despite several peace agreements between the government and the rebels. In 2005, new rebel groups emerged in western Sudan and made probing attacks into eastern Chad, despite signing peace agreements in December 2006 and October 2007. Power remains in the hands of an ethnic minority.

In June 2005, President Idriss Deby held a referendum successfully removing constitutional term limits and won another controversial election in 2006.

Violence continues.

Chad is one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the would.  Chad relies on foreign assistance and foreign capital for most public and private sector investment projects. A consortium led by ExxonMobil has invested $3.7 billion to develop oil reserves – estimated at 1 billion barrels – in southern Chad. Chinese companies are also expanding exploration efforts and plan to build a refinery. The nation’s total oil reserves have been estimated to be 1.5 billion barrels.

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC (171)

The former French colony of Ubangi-Shari became the Central African Republic upon independence in 1960.  Civilian rule was finally established in 1993 and lasted for one decade, then the military again took over.

The government has the tacit support of civil society groups and the main parties, a wide field of candidates contested the municipal, legislative, and presidential elections held in March and May of 2005 in which General Bozize was affirmed as president. However the government does not fully control the countryside, where pockets of lawlessness persist. Unrest in neighboring nations, Chad, Sudan, and the DRC, continues to affect stability.

The agricultural sector generates more than half of GDP. Timber has accounted for about 16% of export earnings and the diamond industry, for 40%. Important constraints to economic development include the CAR’s landlocked position, a poor transportation system, a largely unskilled work force, and a legacy of misdirected macroeconomic policies. Factional fighting between the government and its opponents continues.

It is one of the poorest countries in the world. HIV infection is approximately 11%, retrovirus drugs are only available to 3%

MOZAMBIQUE (172)

Five centuries as a Portuguese colony ended in 1975. Large-scale emigration by whites, economic dependence on South Africa, a severe drought, and a prolonged civil war hindered the country’s development until the mid 1990’s.

The ruling Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo) party formally abandoned Marxism in 1989, and a new constitution the following year provided for multiparty elections and a free market economy. A UN negotiated peace agreement between Frelimo and rebel Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo) forces ended the fighting in 1992.

In December 2004, Mozambique underwent a delicate transition as Joaquim Chissano stepped down after 18 years in office. His elected successor, Armando Emilio Guebuza, promised to continue the sound economic policies that have encouraged foreign investment.

At independence in 1975, Mozambique was one of the world’s poorest countries. Mismanagement and a civil war made things even worse. In 1987, the government embarked on a series of macroeconomic reforms designed to stabilize the economy. These steps, combined with donor assistance and with political stability since the multi-party elections in 1994, have led to dramatic improvements in the country’s growth rate. Inflation was reduced to single digits during the late 1990s, and although it returned to double digits in 2000-06, in 2007 inflation had slowed to 8%, while GDP growth reached 7.5%.

Mozambique remains dependent upon foreign assistance for much of its annual budget, and the majority of the population remains below the poverty line. Subsistence agriculture continues to employ the vast majority of the country’s work force. A substantial trade imbalance persists although the opening of the Mozal aluminum smelter, the country’s largest foreign investment project to date, has increased export earnings, this fell again in 2009.

Life expectancy, infant mortality are among the worst in the world.

MALI (173)

The Sudanese Republic and Senegal became independent of France in 1960 as the Mali Federation. Senegal withdrew after only a few months, and the country  was renamed Mali. Rule by dictatorship was brought to a close in 1991 by a military coup led by Amadou Toure and it seems to be one of the strongest democracies on the continent.

Mali is among the poorest countries in the world, with 65% of its land area desert or semidesert and with a highly unequal distribution of income. Economic activity is largely confined to the area irrigated by the Niger. About 10% of the population is nomadic and some 80% of the labor force is engaged in farming and fishing. Industrial activity is concentrated on processing farm commodities.

Mali is heavily dependent on foreign aid and vulnerable to fluctuations in world prices for cotton, its main
export, along with gold.

Life expectancy is 49.5 years, it has the world’s highest rates of infant mortality.

NIGER (174)

Niger became independent from France in 1960 and experienced single-party and military rule until 1991, when Gen. Ali Saibou was forced by public pressure to allow multiparty elections, which resulted in a democratic government in 1993.

Political infighting brought the government to a standstill and in 1996 led to a coup by Col. Ibrahim Bare. In 1999 Bare was killed in a coup by military officers who promptly restored democratic rule and held elections that brought Mamadou Tandja to power in December of that year. Tandja was reelected in 2004.

In May of 2009 Tandja dissolved parliament after the constitutional court ruled against plans to hold a referendum to allow him a third term.

 Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world with minimal government services and insufficient funds to develop its resource base. The largely agrarian and subsistence-based economy is frequently disrupted by extended droughts common to the Sahel region of Africa.

A predominately Tuareg ethnic group emerged in February 2007, the Nigerien Movement for Justice (MNJ), and attacked several military targets in Niger’s northern region throughout 2007. Events have since evolved into a budding insurrection.

Slavery still exists in Niger. About 800,000 people are enslaved.  Infant mortality is high, but death of children between 1 and 4 is the highest in the world.  Niger also has the highest fertility rate.

GUINEA-BISSAU (175)

Since independence from Portugal in 1974, Guinea-Bissau has experienced considerable political and military upheaval. In 1980, a military coup established authoritarian dictator Joao Bernardo ‘Nino’ Vieira as president.

Despite setting a path to a market economy and multiparty system, Vieira ’s regime was characterized by the suppression of political opposition and the purging of political rivals. Several coup attempts through the 1980s and early 1990s failed to unseat him.

In 1994 Vieira was elected president in the country’s first free elections. A military mutiny and resulting civil war in 1998  led to Vieira ’s ouster in May 1999. In February 2000, a transitional government turned  over power to opposition leader Kumba Yala, after he was elected president in transparent polling. In September 2003, after only three years in office, Yala was ousted by the military in a bloodless coup, and businessman Henrique Rosa was sworn in as interim president.

In 2005,  Vieira was re-elected president and was assassinated in 2009. An election was held in June won by Malam Bacai Sanha.

One of the poorest countries in the world, Guinea-Bissau depends mainly on farming and fishing. Cashew crops have increased remarkably in recent years, and the country now ranks sixth in cashew production.

Offshore oil prospecting is underway in several sectors but has not yet led to commercially viable crude deposits. The inequality of income distribution is one of the most extreme in the world.

In December 2003, the World Bank, IMF, and UNDP were forced to step in to provide emergency budgetary support in the amount of $107 million for 2004, representing over 80% of the total national budget.

Guinea-Bissau is one of the poorest nations in the world.  In 2005 durg traffickers based in Latin America began to use the country as a transhipment point to Europe, it has become what is called a ‘narco-state.’

BURKINO FASO (176)

Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta) achieved independence from France in 1960. Repeated military coups during the 1970s and 1980s were followed by multiparty elections in the early 1990s. President Blaise Compaore came to power in a 1987 military coup and has won every election since then.

Burkina Faso’s high population density and limited natural resources result in poor economic prospects for the majority of its citizens. Unrest in Cote d’Ivoire and northern Ghana has hindered the ability of several hundred thousand seasonal Burkinabe farm workers to find employment in neighboring countries.

One of the poorest countries in the world, landlocked Burkina Faso has few natural resources and a weak industrial base. About 90% of the population is engaged in subsistence agriculture, which is vulnerable to periodic drought.

Cotton is the main cash crop and the government has joined with three other cotton producing countries in the region – Mali, Niger, and Chad – to lobby in the World Trade Organization for fewer subsidies to producers in other competing countries.

Since 1998, Burkina Faso has embarked upon a gradual but successful  privatization of state owned enterprises. Having revised its investment code in 2004, Burkina Faso hopes to attract foreign investors. Thanks to this new code and other legislation favoring the mining sector, the country has seen an upswing in gold exploration and production.

SIERRA LEON (177)

Democracy is slowly being reestablished after the civil war from 1991 to 2002 that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the displacement of more than 2 million people (about one-third of the population).

The military, which took over full responsibility for security following the departure of UN peacekeepers at the end of 2005, is increasingly developing as a guarantor of the country’s stability. The armed forces remained on the sideline during the 2007 presidential election, but still look to the UN Integrated Office in Sierra Leone (UNIOSIL) – a civilian UN mission – to support efforts to consolidate peace. The new government’s priorities include furthering development, creating jobs, and stamping out endemic corruption.

Sierra Leone is an extremely poor nation with tremendous inequality in income distribution. While it possesses substantial mineral, agricultural, and fishery resources, its physical and social infrastructure is not well developed, and serious social disorders continue to hamper economic development. Nearly half of the working-age population engages in subsistence agriculture.

Manufacturing consists mainly of the processing of raw materials and of light manufacturing for the domestic market. Alluvial diamond mining remains the major source of hard currency earnings accounting for nearly half of Sierra Leone’s exports.  These are the ‘blood diamonds’  though there has been effort at certification.

The fate of the economy depends upon the maintenance of domestic peace and the continued receipt of substantial aid from abroad, which is essential to offset the severe trade imbalance and supplement government revenues.

It has attained the lowest rank due to the high level of corruption and suppression of human rights and having the lowest life expectancy at 41 years.

Like Guinea-Bissau it is a narco state, used for the transhipment of drugs into Europe.

Anyway, enough history. Was colonization in Burkina Faso a good thing, or was it a bad thing. The answer would be obvious after you read this. I guess that the only positive aspect of colonization in Burkina Faso would be that they learned a new language. But everything else was and still is a bad thing for this country.

One of the main reasons that colonization in Burkina Faso was a bad thing is that they were used as slaves starting in the late 1800’s when the French invaded. However, the French had no single interest in the country whatsoever. Apart from the slaves of course. This meaning that the French didn’t put any power lines, phone booths, railroads, roads, or anything in the country. And believe it or not, there’s more.

Burkina Faso used to be one of the strongest countries of Africa. This meaning that they could just chase away any foreign people out of their country easily. But, when the Maxim gun was introduced to the people of Burkina Faso, it was a different story. Although the French came and crumpled Burkina Faso, it doesn’t mean that they weren’t powerful still. They were powerful in a sense. They were powerful as being part of the mighty country France.

Burkina Faso helped France a lot. First of all they helped France do all the chores clean their nails, cut their nails etc. But they also helped France conquer a lot of other countries. These countries include Sudan, Ivory Coast and more. But of course, Burkina Faso didn’t really have a choice. They didn’t want at fight at all.

So overall colonization in Burkina Faso was a bad thing because of slavery, lack of helping the country and just plain old weakening the country.