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Below is the Short Healing Prayer. I don't know if that's the official name or
my personal nicname. There's a Long Healing Prayer as well of course.
http://www.bahaiprayers.org/healing2.htm
Thy name is my healing, O my God, and remembrance of Thee is my remedy.
Nearness to Thee is my hope, and love for Thee is my companion. Thy mercy to
me is my healing and my succor in both this world and the world to come. Thou,
verily, art the All-Bountiful, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
- Bahá’u’lláh
The above prayer, known by Bahá'ís as the "Short Healing Prayer" is a mystical
gem containing deep secrets for the healing of ourselves and of our fellow
brothers and sisters everywhere.
If you wish to heal yourself or others, you should memorize this beautiful
prayer, meditate over its meaning, and recite it ceaselessly. It contains
within its short phrases the healing of all the ills of men and women in our
society. It is a great gift from God.
The following is my own meditation over the meaning of this powerful healing
prayer.
Thy name is my healing, O my God
Our healing is the Greatest Name of God, the Spirit of Bahá (Glory),
Bahá'u'lláh (Glory of God), Bahá'u'l-Abhá (Glory of the All-Glorious), the
most perfect expression of the Holy Spirit appearing in the world. This Spirit
of Revelation, represented in the Person of the Holy Maiden, appeared to and in
the Manifestation of God, Bahá'u'lláh, while He sat chained and imprisoned in
the notoriously horrible Síyáh-Chál ("the black pit" or dungeon) of Tehran, in
1852. There is no other way to heal than to become attuned to this Spirit of
Glory, to draw nearer to this Being Who, cannot be adequately described other
than in the words of Bahá'u'lláh:
"Exalted be God, Her creator, for what He caused Me to see in Her. Then blessed
be God, Her fashioner, for the manifestation of might that I witnessed in Her
beauty, and the modalities of power that I saw in Her splendor. At one time, I
perceived Her as the sweet water of life, delicious and flowing through the
realities of beings and the dark recesses of contingent things. I grew certain
that the entirety of being survived by virtue of Her eternity, and continued to
exist because of Her perpetuity. At another time, I perceived Her as a fire
that had blazed forth in the divine bush, as though the element of fire had
been created from a torch ignited by Her glowing embers. The hearts of both
visible and invisible being were consumed by Her heat and flame when they were
shaken by a delicate yearning for Her and a wondrous hankering for Her. It is
as though the fragrance of the All- Merciful wafted from the apertures in Her
garments. Praise be to God, Her
creator, originator and fashioner.
"Then I drew near, till She stood before my face and gave utterance as a dove
warbles in the realm of eternity, as though speaking in the wondrous music that
hath no words, letters or sounds. It is as though all books appeared in
commentary on the songs of Her innovation. I recognized all meaning in a single
point therein. When I listened with my entire being, I heard the mention of
God, the exalted, the most glorious, in Her tunes, and the name of God, the
exalted, the most high, in Her melodies" Bahá'u'lláh, The Tablet of the
Houri,translated by Juan R.I. Cole.
The "black pit" or dungeon of the human heart must be transformed by the
Splendorous Light of the Greatest Name of God, Bahá'u'lláh, the All-Glorious
Glory of God, into a holy temple. Nothing else can heal the ills of all of
humanity.
and remembrance of Thee is my remedy
The Greatest Name of God contains within it all of the other Names and
Attributes of God. It is precisely these Names that are the remedy for all of
the ills of humanity:
"Cleanse from your hearts the love of worldly things, from your tongues every
remembrance except His remembrance, from your entire being whatsoever may deter
you from beholding His face, or may tempt you to follow the promptings of your
evil and corrupt inclinations" (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláhp.
275).
Referred to as the Paradise of God's Remembrance, it is a process of meditating
upon and invoking the Names of God. The Bahá'í Prayer books are replete with
these Names and Attributes. Our goal is to transform and heal our lives by
replacing each and every ill that plagues humanity with the various qualities
of God:
"O servants! Lifeless is the body that is bereft of a soul, and withered the
heart that is devoid of the remembrance of its Lord. Commune with the
remembrance of the Friend and shun the enemy. Your enemy is such things as ye
have acquired of your own inclination, to which ye have firmly clung, and
whereby ye have sullied your souls. The soul hath been created for the
remembrance of the Friend; safeguard its purity. The tongue hath been created
to bear witness to God; pollute it not with the mention of the wayward"
Baha'u'llah, The Beginning of All Utterance is the Praise of God).
All men and women in today's society are suffering from every physical and
mental malady, disruption, and disease, on every level and at every scale from
personal to global. The addictions, alcoholism, sexual excesses, destruction
of family life, political upheaval, and unprecedented global violence bears
testimony to how sick is the patient. The Divine Physician has the remedy:
remembrance of the Names and Attributes of God.
"O BEFRIENDED STRANGER!
"The candle of thine heart is lighted by the hand of My power, quench it not
with the contrary winds of self and passion. The healer of all thine ills is
remembrance of Me, forget it not. Make My love thy treasure and cherish it even
as thy very sight and life." Bahá'u'lláh, Persian Hidden Words, #32.
Nearness to Thee is my hope
The world is filled with despair, injustice and suffering. Humanity is remote
from God, and cannot approach God because the human heart is like the black pit
of Tehran, foul and filled with vermin. This nightmarish hell arising from the
evil promptings of the human heart leaves humanity with a sense of hopelessness
and sorrow. But the Light of God can illumine the darkest dungeon. Our only
hope is to draw nearer to God, to become more like God, and this we cannot do
except to draw ever closer to the Manifestation of God, in fervent prayer and
meditation.
and love for Thee is my companion
Even in the modern cities teeming with other souls, there is great solitude and
isolation, a lonesomeness and spiritual seclusion, that seems to hang over most
people. Clinging to immoral and failed relationships, many of us go from one
person to the next seeking the true love of our lives, but always finding
misery, abuse and loneliness. The problem is looking for love in all of the
wrong places.
"O SON OF THE WONDROUS VISION!
"I have breathed within thee a breath of My own Spirit, that thou mayest be My
lover. Why hast thou forsaken Me and sought a beloved other than Me?"
Bahá'u'lláh, Arabic Hidden Words, #19.
Our true love and our true friend is the Holy Spirit of God existing not
outwardly in other people or things, but rather found within in our own hearts.
This is the companionship that will not fail and this is the fulfillment that
does not let us down. Not to say that we should eschew relationships with
other people. Rather, we should enter first into a relationship with God, and
then all of our relationships will be based upon this love.
O FRIEND!
In the garden of thy heart plant naught but the rose of love, and from the
nightingale of affection and desire loosen not thy hold. Treasure the
companionship of the righteous and eschew all fellowship with the ungodly.
Bahá'u'lláh, Persian Hidden Words, #3
The true Friend, the Bridegroom of our souls, is within our own hearts. We
cannot find true companionship except by making a mystical connection to the
Love and Joy found in the Spirit of God. We were created to know and to love
God. We cannot find happiness in the outer world, until first we find inner
happiness in our own hearts in relationship to God.
Thy mercy to me is my healing and my succor in both this world and the world to
come.
Hell is the state of consciousness, within, of being far from God or the
failure to have the qualities and attributes of God. Heaven is to draw near to
God. That is, to incorporate within one's inner consciousness the attributes
and qualities of God. To be near to God, to be just like God is the state of
the heavenly kingdom, whether one is in this physical world, or the next world
of the afterlife. The reality is that we are unable to acquire the qualities
and attributes of God on our own. If left to our devices, we sink lower and
lower into ego, hatred, anger, violence, and despair. It is only by the mercy
of God that will succor us, in this world or the next, by the appearance of the
Manifestation of God:
When the animal proclivity in man becomes predominant, he sinks even lower than
the brute. When the heavenly powers are triumphant in his nature, he becomes
the noblest and most superior being in the world of creation. All the
imperfections found in the animal are found in man. In him there is antagonism,
hatred and selfish struggle for existence; in his nature lurk jealousy,
revenge, ferocity, cunning, hypocrisy, greed, injustice and tyranny.... On the
other hand, we find in him justice, sincerity, faithfulness, knowledge, wisdom,
illumination, mercy and pity coupled with intellect, comprehension, the power
to grasp the realities of things and the ability to penetrate the truths of
existence. All these great perfections are to be found in man....
The holy Manifestations of God come into the world to dispel the darkness of
the animal or physical nature of man, to purify him from his imperfections in
order that his heavenly and spiritual nature may become quickened, his divine
qualities awakened, his perfections visible, his potential powers revealed and
all the virtues of the world of humanity latent within him may come to life.
`Abdu'l-Bahá, Foundations of World Unity, p. 110.
Thou, verily, art the All-Bountiful, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
The healing of all of the ills of humanity, personally and globally, are found
in our souls turning to the Holy Spirit, in the spirit of faith in the Divine
Manifestation, invoking God's bounty and wisdom from the Source of bounty and
knowledge.
Unless the Holy Spirit become intermediary, one cannot attain directly to the
bounties of God. Do not overlook the obvious truths, for it is a self-evident
fact that a child cannot be instructed without a teacher, and knowledge is a
bounty from the bounties of God. The soil is not covered with grass and green
without the rain of the cloud; therefore the cloud is the intermediary between
the divine bounties and the soil. A body doth not develop and grow without the
soul; therefore the soul is the medium of the spiritual life. `Abdu'l-Bahá,
Bahá'í World Faith, p. 370.
Everything our hearts need and seek finds fulfillment in the bounty of God,
which is available to each and every one of us, simply by humbly turning to God.
It is my fervent prayer that those who are suffering and in distress and
despair will make a connection to the healing power of the short healing
prayer. I urge you to recite it ceaselessly.
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