NEW YORK (RNS) — A few minutes before midnight on Wednesday (Feb. 26), under the strobe light of the dance floor of a Queens bar, a man dressed as the Hindu deity Lord Shiva performed the Tandava — a vigorous dance meant to evoke Shiva’s spiritual realm: the cosmic cycles of creation, preservation and dissolution. Onlookers steeped in liquor and weed smoke seemed to recognize the divine as they watched with wonderment and confusion.
The ancient ritual of Mahashivaratri, or “the great night of Shiva,” has long been celebrated by drinking bhang — milk infused with cannabis — and pulling an all-nighter to access the upsurge of cosmic energy that is believed to pour from the heavens due to an alignment of celestial bodies.
At Thamel Bar, a Nepalese hangout in Woodside, Queens, the veneration of the god of destruction and creation, one of the supreme deities of Hinduism, had taken on some aspects of a rave, with a D.J. playing American pop hits and soundtracks from Nepali film classics, while out back a group of revelers passed around a chillum, a clay pipe of a kind used by sadhus, or Hindu holy men, since the 18th century to smoke marijuana in the pursuit of higher consciousness and ananda (divine bliss).
At the stroke of midnight, the event’s curator — a local named Hemant Shahi — led the intoxicated crowd in a chanting of “Om Namah Shivaya” 21 times. The powerful mantra, meaning “I bow to Shiva,” is said to cleanse the mind the more it is repeated.
Legalize Nepal founder Hemant Shahi at Thamel Bar in Woodside, Queens, New York, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (Photo by Gomez NYC)
In Hindu lore, Shiva is often depicted smoking cannabis, which many followers, including Shahi, say allows them to challenge reality and avoid attachment to worldly things. “It’s one of his favorite plants,” said Shahi, the founder of Legalize Nepal, an organization seeking to legalize cannabis use as a question of religious freedom, pointing to its spiritual significance in the Hindu religion.
“When we smoke, it triggers the receptors to get high,” said Shahi. “We have ancient Indian tools and technology to trigger them, like the sounds and the mantras and the rituals and the lifestyle. This is like magic.”
Not all of the group’s devotions to Shiva rely on the “magic” of marijuana. Earlier in the evening, hundreds of Hindus, including Shahi and his friends, performed rituals for Shiva at the nearby Divya Dham Mandir, a vast temple with larger-than-life statues of the gods and yards of flashing garland lights. Devotees from all parts of South Asia poured milk, honey and water over the lingam — an abstract representation of the deity phallic in shape — in a more traditional ceremony.
Hindus celebrate Mahashivaratri, or “the great night of Shiva,” with traditional rituals, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025, at Divya Dham Mandir in Queens, New York. (RNS photo/Richa Karmarkar)
But even here, beside the lingam, stood a small cannabis plant, the contribution of local marijuana entrepreneur Mohammed Khan, who hoped the proximity to praying worshippers would help the plant’s health. “It was kind of struggling a little bit,” he said.
Shahi, who moved to Queens from Nepal in 2002 at age 18, has lived a “crazy lifestyle,” he said. A salesman who has held many jobs, Shahi said his constant hustle was always aimed at something higher, in his religious beliefs and his recreational cannabis use. The two miraculously merged during the COVID-19 pandemic, when, Shahi said, he had “no choice but to look within.”
“The ultimate bliss was within, I figured out, and I’ve been chasing myself so that I could share it with the rest of the world,” he said at Thamel on Wednesday. “The ananda is real.”
Cannabis is a large part of the culture of Nepal, which Shahi called the “Amsterdam before Amsterdam.” The country’s government was the first in the world to license a cannabis shop, and marijuana has contributed heavily to the economy thanks in part to the Westerners on the “Hippie Trail” of the ’60s.
Mohammed “Ganja” Khan at Thamel Bar in Woodside, Queens, New York, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025, (RNS photo/Richa Karmarkar)
“Their cannabis culture pioneered half the world’s, so they deserve to medicate,” said Khan, who counts Shahi as a close friend, as he rolled a joint at Thamel. “It’s their sacramental rite.”
In 1976, however, the plant historically accepted as medicine and a holy offering for Shiva was declared illegal.
A Guyanese American, Khan said his family had been taken by force from India by the country’s British colonial power to work in the Caribbean. Though raised Muslim, he learned from his father that his paternal grandfather had been Hindu before converting to marry a woman he loved. Now, an “observer of God,” Khan attends both a mosque and a mandir. He also looks on weed as a connection to his Indo-Caribbean ancestry. His cannabis company, Enthusiast, is branded with Hindu imagery.
“I’m honoring my ancestors by lighting up and understanding the headspace they were in back in the day,” Khan said. “There’s nobody that can shame me for it.”
Mahadev Tripathi, dressed as Hindu deity Lord Shiva, performs the Tandava dance, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025, at Divya Dham Mandir in Queens, New York. (RNS photo/Richa Karmarkar)
Though marijuana is a legal substance in New York, taboo still surrounds cannabis users, said Crecent Carvajal, a graphic designer who lives in Queens and uses marijuana medicinally for chronic inflammation. But marijuana has also allowed Carvajal to find community through social cannabis clubs, where she has come to know Legalize Nepal supporters.
Carvajal, of Ecuadorean heritage who said she is not religious, has nonetheless attended a sacred weed blessing at a Hindu temple, as well as volunteer events with the Hindu activists. “They’re breaking the stigma, basically, and the idea of the lazy stoner,” she said. Carvajal said her contact with the group has attuned her sense of gratitude for the plant, which has completely alleviated her symptoms while aiding in her “self realization.”
“I relate to the idea of using cannabis to connect to your inner self or your wisdom,” she said, “and to not be affected by the effects, but just to be more connected to, like, nature.”
