You are all in my mind quite often, in my heart permanently, in my conversations frequently.  These has been some weeks now and our common experience is still sinking in. Still hard to say what and how exactly. However, I observe a high level of clarity and creative love. Thank you so much for this experience. Such a great gift that keeps on unfolding. I expect this emergence to continue over years. An unexpected well of inspiration that is nurturing so many people and manifestations.

As I shared on the call, there was a quite a bit of uproar in the country after I posted a short Instagram clip post from our retreat. While I'm enjoying recording the upcoming music album, here is an interview with OOOM (PDF) -- and a poor Google translation below. :) 

--Google Translation Below--

NEOS founder, bestselling author and entrepreneur Matthias Strolz provided one Instagram video from India, causing an uproar on social media and in the media. What did ... he do there? O0O0M reveals the secret: Strolz was an adviser at the invitation of ex-Obama, Silicon Valley social impact star Nipun Mehta, ten days at the Gandhi 3.0 retreat in Ahmedabad, India. 45  personalities from twelve countries met there to design concepts for a world of peace and charity. We spoke to Strolz about Gandhi, drugs, his Ayahuasca experiences, the planned music career, the current politics - and why his deceased father was suddenly sitting next to him in India.

Sometimes life consists of misunderstandings. It was a simple video clip from Goa, India, just 1 minute and 17 seconds long, with the NEOS founder Matthias Strolz from “deep dive" spoke of "returning back into the world”, "all doors broken open, open mind, open heart, open will" and as a climax in the future as a singer touring the country. 

Tens of thousands saw the video, thousands liked it, but politics and Media started the guesswork. Was he even sober? A "drug retreat" was the partly amused ones, some concerned comments. When Christoph Grisseman in the ORF program "Welcome Austria" makes a parody video, there's no holding back.

In fact, Matthias was anything but high. He practiced abstinence from speed. He meditated. 

The ex-politician was a guest at Gandhi 3.0, one of Obamaa Advisor Nipun Mehta. At the annually held retreat in Ahmedabad, India were business leaders, scientists, but also Artists, Writers and inspirational personalities asking the question: how can we make our world a better place?

OOOM publisher Christina Zappella-Kindel took part in Gandhi 3.0 in 2020, shared space with Pinterest founder Evan Sharp and UC Berkeley
Scientist Dacher Keltner: “One meditates, prays non-denominationally, discusses ideas, but also sits in complete silence there. It's an inspirational, a different kind of experience.” In an OOOM interview, Matthias Strolz describes what he actually experienced in India.

Your Instagram video from India caused a lot confusion. What was happening?

Because some suspected: is that guy up there in some drug retreat, or what kind of strange esoteric thing are they doing there? No. None of that. These are very tangible things: I was at the Gandhi 3.0 retreat, hosted by Nipun Mehta in India. A meeting of realities from over a  dozen countries in the world.

What did you personally experience?

A very deep experience, that is difficult to put into words. The life of Mahatma Gandhi always fascinated me, since he was also a political person. How can fighters without weapons bring an empire to its knees? This is outrageous, that is also unique in contemporary history. He had an unique manner and was an incredible role model, but it shows that we don't always have to take up arms.

What did you do at Gandhi 3.0?

After five days of immersion in Indian everyday life, from a village without electricity or the Gandhi Ashram, it was done in three steps
from "Me" to "We" and finally to the "us". We first looked within, at the own inner place. There are personalities from the various cultures
come together: the Sufi singer from India as well as the Tech Millionnaire from Silicon Valley, former general counsel of Obama who drafted Iraqi and Afghani constitution, a neuroscients who studied different states of consciousness. Everyone shared their views. Layer by layer, we dived deeper into ourselves. And at different points, everyone had a "click" moment. 

What clicked for you?

My late father was suddenly very present in two sequences. I have a good connection with my mom and dad, in the non-physical and extra-temporal world. But this was of a completely different quality, its sudden presence, he's really next to me, and we were able to speak. We were in conversation. And then we shed tears. 

How did you feel about the "Willcome Austria" video of Christoph Grisseman freely replayed?

Gosh! I feel honored that they picked it up. They reduced it to a drug incident that didn't exist, so that was suspicious. The day before I drank three beers, but that doesn't last 24 hours. I was "sober" on that day. People with meditation, retreat or fasting experiences can understand what I was saying, like putting the ball on the penalty line and you score a goal!

You had no drug experience, then? 

I have so much energy and also excessive energy in me that I myself keep away. I have no Experience with LSD, heroin or cocaine, but of course with lots of alcohol between 15 and 30. That's when I felt it was done. I like to drink from time to time, one over the sip, but more than once in I don't think that's a quarter anyway out of. And always will less, I notice. Also, because I have other pleasures of excess. In the December I have to example of holotropic breathing made. That actually comes from the early LSD research where to find similar states of consciousness without foreign substances wanted to generate, And that is through breathing techniques. That's crazy.

And magic mushrooms?

I've never had mushrooms either tried. have ayahuasca I, however, early last year tried. drugs are dumb, but substances like ayahuasca as a medicine to understand that one sacred, ritual setting and professional leadership conditionally, and the times to look at: Why not? There
is a great curiosity from me.

What did Ayahuasca trigger for you? You vomited?

Everyone threw up. I had eight days massive diarrhea. Wild, that was that too reason why I say that was well managed and ritually embedded. Only that is responsible. Ayahuasca as a party drug to take is completely stupid, negligent and highly dangerous. At the ayahuasca experience, just one deep insight was that I am a function of the universe. That I am a temporal entity. I come like any of us from an extraphysical, extra-temporal dimension and get into one human avatar for a few decades. That have I used to hear vice versa read, thought: I am a human and have a form. But it is different: I am a soul and have one human avatar. I am so galactic. And I have also dedicated a song of that experience, “Galactic Traveler": "Salute your galactic traveler, universe you are". I think what is important are our heart consequences.

At Gandhi 3.0, did you also practice the "Path of Silence"?

We did this Bowing Meditation, for an hour and a half. Earlier I would have said: throw yourself down when you need it. But here I am actually in a state: open mind, open heart, open will. I was naturally seized. Just complete love flowing through, and this knowledge that you just are a child of the stars and of the universe. Like that finally also Albert Einstein has seen with his cosmic religious term. You can do it also do not force such escalations of love to arrive. That works then too over again. It shakes you back to life and in your daily duties. The question remains: why can we actually not sustain this quality and depth of experience?

And why not?

'Cause it's a sacred space that we hold together. It has a beginning and an end. We are too children of time and space. At some point we closed, we're return to duality, in this earth school, especially the spiritual maturation and development along our partially free will, our talents, our callings. That is an adventure and that is tied to space and time. A pearl or two you take with you from these days, which you then also in integrate into everyday life.

What can we learn from Gandhi today, as Europe itself is in the middle of a war?

As a pragmatic “Homo politicus” I understand Ukraine and have infinite respect for this rising of courage, the determination that
defensiveness. And I have zero sympathy for this Russian aggression, whereby I realize that in the past few decades a lot has gone wrong in dealing with Russia. They mobilize Germans for hundred billion euros for upgrade. As a former politician, I understand. However, what I ask is: Where are a hundred billion for peace? One solution for this planet is not that we form the highest military budget, that this species human has ever seen in the year 2023 to even higher heights go to take turns tig to keep in check and to threaten and of course partially also on some places in this world massacre. 

That what we sow is what thrives. And that's why we have to sow peace. We could as humanity within of ten years with new open social technologies -- how do we scale Peace on a grand scale? I trust the Germans there most. But the discourse is currently not guidable, you are immediately considered naive. Therefore, I have dedicated a song to Mahatma Gandhi: "Mahatma, he is a warrior without weapons, leading with the hand of your heart. Another one is "Leading from inside." 

You have one in India album written, that you will go on tour with?

Yes. Anyway, my part is vocals and lyrics. I had an unbelievable creative Flow. That was a big joy, but also a wild birth. Such a creative act is something what shakes you and shakes and you're finished then also empty. On that day, when I saw the Instagram video picked up, I had that last song written: "What Would Love Do?" The first single is coming in April. It's a declaration of love to being human. But we start with a wild one: Inventory. Because it included all  life forms and species, which from the outside is seen as unbearable.

That means India has creatively inspired you?

When I'm completely out of everyday business and am free from all responsibilities -- family, professional, entrepreneurial -- then a creativity breaks in me. It's unpackable. How does it feel to sing? Like Andre Heller? I don't know if it's singing, we'll see. It's a kind of chant -- more speaking than singing. As for the music, are we wildly playing these days. Something has called me to this field. Dance at big festivals, maybe headbanging too. Crazy  but my heart led me here, and I do not know more than that.

Finally a look into the lowlands of Austrian politics. What I just everywhere feel and see is: the old dies. That it almost takes away our breath while watching it. If they don't either recognize themselves, they feel that they are most alive as the body dies. And the dose of departing from the Lower Austria election was exactly to that extent, that they are not entering in an active, conscious death -- and hope to revitalize with a counterattack.

Our generation will still experience this swing. Currently the old is dying but the new is not here yet. That here the [song] fills a vacuum that arises due to this mourning and dying. And we're not on yet on new ground. We need to go much further in the **** to facilitate grow. With the confidence of a child, I'm most optimistic: that the world mind's momentum to fall on a trampoline, but rise upto the next floor of our human evolution. That would be my favorite explanation.