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'lláh p. 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.
Jeffrey
