Book excerpt: Do you worry about our planet, with its environmental crises, global warming, widespread violence, and global poverty? Do you feel powerless to change your life and impact your world? What in the World Is Going On reframes these crises as an invitation to open our minds and hearts to a new awareness of our fundamental interdependence with all beings. With breathtaking optimism, it offers courage and hope to all who hold the world in their hearts and grieve. Crises bring opportunities. We are poised to vastly expand our consciousness, allowing us to address our deep fears and create communities which embrace and serve all of us. The rich conversation between Manjushri, the Tibetan teacher, and the student probes the roots of our fears and challenges our common assumptions about the roles of science and markets in our world. It rejects the inflated claims of our ego-selves and the stifling confines of materialism. The Teacher assures us everything can be changed. We can escape our isolation, celebrate our interdependence with all beings, and heal our communities. The worldwide web allows us to connect with like-minded people around the world. This epochal shift in energy and consciousness is well underway. The Teacher encourages all of us to trust our emerging visions, dissolve the fears shrouding our best selves, and allow our natural compassion to flow out into the world.